Brown: Wild Woman Melissa (dark), Grace (light)

Wild Woman Melissa is a dark, rich brown with high shimmer. It was available as part of the Fan Club collection, so it's not likely you'll find this color in your local boutique. You can find it on Ebay for outrageous amounts of money...unless the collection is made available again. I use it most often as an inner-eye accent shade or a liner.

Grace is a soft, light pinkish beige with medium shimmer. It's a lovely neutral that works well on cool-toned or warm-toned women. I most often use it as an all-over base color or (occasionally) a brow highlighter.

Red/Pink: Beautiful Lisa (dark), Flirtatious (medium)

Beautiful Lisa is a deep rich purple-magenta with medium glitter/high shimmer. Buffed down, this shade retains its color and most of the intensity while lessening the shimmer factor. I've used this very successfully as a base lash-to-mid-lid color, paired with Here Kitty as the contour shade/liner. This one isn't easy to find in boutiques, and is most easily available through BE boutiques and its webstore - though I have seen it at the counter at Nordstrom on occasion. Absolutely amazing on cool-toned women with blue or grey eyes.

Flirtatious is a medium pink with medium shimmer. It looks good as a lash-to-crease color, or layered over a neutral to warm that color up a bit. Applied wet, it's not more intense than it is dry; but the shimmer is certainly more apparent. Frolic, which was only available in the Romantic Comedy collection, is very very close to this color. I like Frolic just a tiny bit more...but Flirtatious is easier to get ahold of.

Peach/Orange: Fire Opal (dark), Soft Focus Pure (light)

Fire Opal was only available as part of the Fired Up Foiling Glimmers set. It isn't a dark orange, like Citrus Twist or The 70s; but it's definitely intense. Very, very, unashamedly bright orange. And I like it better than either of those other two shades - so it gets a place in my "gotta have" list. I have fair skin and blue eyes, and can actually make oranges work well. They're also a heck of a lot of fun. Fire Opal combines the color orange with iridescence - whether it's applied wet or dry, there's a slight colorshifting. Most of BE's peach colors are fairly neutral. Fire Opal is the brash, gleaming exception. (And I have nine pots. Lots of folks dumped this one on Ebay, and I cleaned up. I have backups upon backups.)

Soft Focus Pure (or just Pure) is a soft velvety matte color. No glimmer at all - just a lovely soft apricot that works well as an all-over shade for lighter-skinned women. Might also work well as a lighter color on most medium and darker complexions. (I don't know how well this would pair with someone with deep olive skintones. Might be a "use in moderation", as might anything orange.) This is one of my go-to neutral shades, along with Blush (medium-light pink matte).

Yellow: Meow (dark), Soul (light)

Meow is an intense yellow-gold, available as part of the Pussycat Eyes collection. Alley Cat, part of the "regular" BE eye color collection, comes close - but is a bit too deep. Meow is brighter. I also love Firelight, one of the other components of the Fired Up Foiling Glimmers collection; but didn't want to build a "must have" list of mostly-unavailable colors. I thought that seemed just a little mean.

Green: Pussycat (dark), Jade (bright)

Pussycat is classed, on the BE website, as a brown. The color description has been "bronzed brown" and "bronzed khaki". Mine has a slightly greenish cast to it...so when I bought it as part of the Pussycat Eyes collection, I just assumed that it was a dark green. I'm sticking with that story - partially because I do love the color, and partially because I already had a brown in my "gotta have" list. This color makes a good contour shade for all lighter skin tones. I haven't gotten it to work too successfully as a liner (not intense enough). This is available through BE outlets but also at many Sephora stores.

Jade liner shadow was part of the Beauty Oasis kit, available as a limited edition. It's a beautiful, highly pigmented, rich blue-teal. I love it. My mom loves it. Everyone else I've shown it to loves it. And Bare Escentuals doesn't really have another green like it, either in its eye color palette nor its liners. I have used this as a liner; but it also looks lovely as a heavily-applied liner (lash-to-mid-lid) or a winged contour shade. (Fortunately, many other companies do offer greens that are similar. More on those later.)

Blue: TLC (dark), Freedom (light)

TLC is actually another liner shadow. It's a rich lapis blue, not too dark but not too intense. I've used this as an outer-lid contour shade with Blush as the overall color. If you can't find it at your local boutique, there's always the BE website.

Freedom was available as part of the Heroes collection. It's a near-matte soft green-blue, similar to some of the better-quality authentic turquoise jewelry. Applied wet or over a dark cream base, the color really pops. Applied dry, it provides a very soft wash of blue-green without looking a bit contrived, as so many midweight blues do. There is no shimmer in this color at all - which means that it looks lovely when mixed with or layered under copper mica powder.

Plum/Purple: Brocade (dark), Surprise (light)

Brocade is a liner shadow, dark purple with golden shimmer. It works equally well as a liner or as a lightly-applied contour shade. It's not easy to find in BE boutiques, but aside from online stores (BE and QVC), that's the only way to get it. Brocade has a large fan following among BE acolytes, and for good reason: it isn't so bright a purple that it screams, but it is definitely dark dark purple.

Surprise eyecolor is available by itself, and was also paired with Take Me in the Take Me By Surprise kit. (I guess that was the week everyone in marketing went bowling and left the interns to name the kits.) It's a lovely periwinkle shade with blue-violet iridescence. This eyecolor doesn't look as outstanding as Soft Focus Pure or Beautiful Lisa, both of which really play up the color of my eyes; but I love it for its versatility and iridescence. (I'm a sucker for iridescence and chameleon colors.)

Neutrals: Drama, Ice Queen

Drama is a taupe grey with high shimmer. It can be buffed down to just its color, but then you lose that magical shimmer that sets this apart from being "just another grey". This color and Myth are both mid-greys with a hint of added iridescent color: Drama is a more neutral grey with a bit of added bronze, Myth is a cooler, darker grey with hints of violet. Drama is a bit more versatile, though. It's available singly, and was also grouped with Frolic and Venus in the Romantic Comedy collection from QVC.

Ice Queen is an interference color. Bare Escentuals calls this color (along with Venus, Neptune, Sun Goddess, Masquerade, and Mystery) "Eye Quickies" because of the iridescence and changeable colors...and because few people can wear these colors by themselves. Their value is in the changeability they add to any color over which they're layered. Used dry, Ice Queen lightens the browbone without looking too starkly white (or yellow, or peach, or pink). Applied wet, it has a slight actintic blue-white effect. I've also used this wet over eye pencil liners for some really fascinating effects. This color can be found in the Warm/Cool Eye Quickies collection, paired with Sun Goddess - it isn't available singly.

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