Ameli, One of Korea’s best kept secrets!
Long time no post!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Turkey Weekend ๐ This year’s thanksgiving was one of the best for me. Ironically, I did nothing special (no overeating, no special tnxgiving dinner, no parties, no shopping..), but I was secretly happy and thankful I finally got to spend Thanksgiving with the people I love. The only person that was missing was my dad (he is currently away on a business trip), but my mom and my significant other spent the day with me and that’s all I needed for the longest time. Thanksgiving always registered as an awfully lonesome holiday for me because I’ve been living on my own since I was in high school, but I’ve finally got some good quality time with people around me this year *grin*.
So, on to the post. I’ve kept a low profile about the trip, but I had to go back to Korea during early November (hence the lack of posts and videos) for a few days. The trip was a tightly scheduled business trip and I hardly had any time to spare for my friends or shopping. Unlike last time, I only brought back a handful of makeup items – to be exact, eye shadows.
The products are all from a company called Ameli. If you guys follow me on twitter, you’ll probably know about how I missed my Ameli purchase last time I was in Korea. Luckily, I got my hands on these products this time and I wanted to introduce to you guys to some of Ameli’s bestselling shadows.
INTRO: Ameli is a new cosmetics brand that is one of Korea’s best kept secrets. They carry a wide range of products, but are best known for their shadows. The shadows are top of the line quality AND top of the line prices. One shadow is 15,000 Korean won, which is a bit under 15 USD, placing the shadows shoulder to shoulder to MAC shadows. Currently, Ameli only sells their products online, which limits a lot of overseas customers and foreigners without a solid Korean address to have a chance with the items.
A lot of products tend to rise to the hype when exposed via popular portal sites like never or daum.net, and Ameli was also one of the cases. Reviewed by a famous Korean beauty blogger, Ameli quickly made its way to the Korean mainstream market without having a physical store. Ameli shadows are bold and loud, which reminds me of MAC. Another similar trait is how they started off as a professional makeup artist brand and expanded to the general public.
PRODUCT BREAKDOWN: I brought back 5 shadows. Since I have no previous experience with Ameli shadows, I looked up reviews and decided to go with the most popular shades.
There’s a couple of basic lines, but the famous shadows are split into two groups. One is the sparkle spot shadow (glittery colors that emphasize the shininess) and the other is Sweet Diamond line.
I’m going to start with Sparkle Spot.
I have three of these. Each shadow is sold at 15,000 Korean won and contains a good amount of shadow in the packaging. A soft sponge is also inserted in the packaging to prevent cracking. Below is a side by side comparison of Ameli v. Mac in size.
As you can see, the quantity (kind of) justifies the pricy price tag on the shadows.
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501 Champagne
According to the site, it’s their legendary shade, that is ranked the highest among the most popular ones.
The color corresponds to its name – it is a bright sparkly champagne color with a tint of gold in it. The name fits the product well because the sparkling glitter resembles the bubbly aspect of the champagne.
The texture is extremely smooth and silky. When swatted with a finger or a brush, the shadow seemingly crumbles into big chunks, but when applied on the lid it smoothes out without caking on the lid.
The pigmentation is pretty good, but it truly reaches its potential when used on top of a lid primer (or primer base, whatever you are comfortable calling :). Ameli’s site has a lot of eye-swatches and I brought one from their sight. This is how champagne looks like in front of bright studio lighting. In real life, the intensity isn’t as strong as the photo.
photo courtesy of Ameli.co.kr
I understand why this shade is so widely popular in Korea. A lot of Korean makeup consists of adding glittery nude tones on the under eye area to create an illusion of a teary, cute look. This shade is perfect for such illusions. It’s great to be used for techniques like the one I showed in my Kumiki Inspired video (under eye technique).
The other two are pretty similar when it comes to quality and texture. 504 Orange Fanta is one of the more popular ones. Although the color in the pan looks like a strong color, the application on the lid is rather subtle and sheer. The sparkling aspect of Orange Fanta isn’t as dramatic as Champagne.
520 Witch’s soup is the hidden winner. It is an olive/pewter color with gold glitter in it, which reminds me of Lancome Erika-F, Benefit’s creaseless cream shadow in Skinny Jeans and other similar shades. Just to recap of how these similar shades look like, I brought back a picture from my Korean Haul Post (you can read about it here).
from L-R: Aritaum Golden Khaki, Lancome Erika-F, Benefit creaseless cream shadow in Skinny Jeans.
Below are some pictures I scraped from Ameli’s site. I think the pictures are a bit tweaked regarding the contrast and brightness, but the overall ‘feel’ of the colors are pretty spot on. Orange Fanta is as shown in the picture. It’s more of a brunt+sheer orange. Witch’s Soup is a better bet if you’re in for some awesome colors to play around with.
Next I’m going to briefly go over the Sweet Diamond Shadow line.
Ameli carries a lot more products in this line and the shades are not as dramatic as the sparkle spot shadows. Said that, the shades are more widely used by the general public as everyday shadows. The basic difference between the sparkle spots and sweet diamonds is, SS’s are glitters or shimmers and SD’s are shimmers, satins or mattes. Sweet diamonds also have a bee-combed texture pressed in on the shadow.
The prices are a bit more affordable (12,000 Korean won) and the amount held in the pan is the same as sparkle spot shadows.
Among the many shades Ameli carries, the most famous one is a pink shadow with a golden undertone called “Wedding Bouquet”, or simply number 172.
I tend to hesitate with pink shadows since my skin tone does horribly with most pinks, but I didn’t have a choice with this- if it’s so popular, there must be a reason!
173 Frech Chic looks similar to 520 Witch’s soup, but when applied is a completely different finish. Frech Chic is definitely mossier and opaque than witch’s soup. It has a heavier green-gray tone to it and is suitable for smokey eyes. French chic has a tint of golden shimmer in it, which lifts up the color from borderline ‘dullness’.
As for now, I’m reserving the sweet diamonds for a later tutorial, so I can’t say too much about the product. One thing for sure is the buttery texture. As I was swatting and playing around with the products for this blog post, I noticed that the sweet diamond line products are far more silky and softer than the sparkle spot ones (I’m assuming it is because of the chunky glitter in the SS products).
Anyway, here are some pictures of how the colors swatch on the lid.
Photo courtesy of Ameli.co.kr – French Chic
Photo courtesy of ameli.co.kr – Wedding Bouquet.
And last but not least is the furry hand swatch.
I’m pretty aware of my furriness, but this picture accentuates my arm hair a bit too much :p Sorry about that!
Ameli products are only available online at the moment at their site ameli.co.kr. I hesitated on introducing these products because they are only available in Korea and the site doesn’t offer oversea’s shipping. If you have a chance to go to Korea, or if you know someone who can get these for you, I recommend you guys trying the products.
If you’re more of a bling person – try the sparkle spot products! If you like subtle shimmer and a variety of colors – try the sweet diamond shadow! ๐
I’m saving these to use in a future tut. Is there a particular shade you guys want to see in a video? let me know if you guys have any questions or comments in the comment section below ^-^ <3
Catalina
Kate
I just visited their web site and loved it ! I'm def trying their products Thanks for the reviews ๐
Jamilla Camel
These are gorgeous!! I wonder where I can find them, though, in Europe!
Frances
glad you had a good time on Thanksgiving ^_^ those eye shadows look so beautiful!
o t t o
Whoo furry people unite! haha
These are very nice, and from the amount of shadow you get it looks like you get what you pay for.
I'd love to see Orange Fanta or Wedding Bouquet used c:
Princess Jana
glad you were able to spend time with your close ones. i really really like wedding bouquet. it looks so pretty. =)
Jena
Great colors! It would be nice if you do a look with them:)
โris
Hey Catalina, I know of one site that sells Ameli eyeshadows to overseas buyers for a fixed shipping rate. It's vanitybox.com.au – had that bookmarked the longest time waiting for someone familiar to review their products, lol. Definitely lemming them now!
(P.S. I'm not affiliated with them. At all. Just wanted to share this with everyone wanting to get a hold of the shadows.)
้ป้ป
Hi Catalina! Love your blog! I know that you have done a smoky eye for runaway look, was wondering if you ever watched 'boys over flowers'- i was wondering if you could do goon jyun poo's mother's smoky eye… (i think it more suited to smaller monolid eyes)
Thanks!
Keep up the great work…
Varendrich
I hope they make it available internationally soon!
They looks really nice! ๐ฎ
varendrich.blogspot.com/
CC
Hi Catalina, you probably get asked this all the time here, but I'm new to your blog – did you ever have blepharoplasty? Your eyes are so unique <=not an insult!
Jessi
Thanks for the review, definitely want to try these now! They are all gorgeous colours, especially Witch's Soup and Wedding Bouquet.