Free Inika eyeshadow or eyeliner with Marie Claire July magazine

Marie Claire magazine are giving away an Inika eyeshadow in Gunmetal or eyeliner in Graphite with the July edition of the magazine. I've just been sent the eyeliner and a few other bits from the line by the PR for the company, and I bought Marie Claire to get the eyeshadow.

Inika is an Australian natural cosmetics company that uses mineral pigments in its products and avoids the use of petrochemicals, paragons, phthalates, talc or bismuth oxychloride.

Swatches of the eyeshadow (left) and eyeliner (right). Swatched dry on bare skin, natural light. Gunmetal is a silver/mercury shade, and Graphite is a darker pewter grey.

Applied. I lined my upper lid with the liner, then applied the mineral eyeshadow over it and on to my lid up to my crease, using my MAC 239 brush and a patting motion. Picture was taken with (diffused) flash.

I love the eyeliner; it's creamy and blendable, and makes a great eyeshadow base. It compares favourably to my favourite eyeliner brands (Rouge Bunny Rouge, Armani and Le Metier de Beaute). The colour range is not very wide, but I intend to buy the brown (Coco) and purple (Purple Minx).

The eyeshadow gives extremely good colour payoff for a loose pigment, and I'd compare it to MAC pigments in terms of colour and stickability. As with all loose mineral eyeshadows, it is more of a faff to apply than a pressed eyeshadow.

Both of these products are £11.75 each, so it's a good deal for the £3.60 price of the magazine. Marie Claire also has a discount code for inikacosmetics.co.uk which is inikalovesmc. This gives 20% off your order, valid until 01 July 2011.

disclosure: eyeliner is a PR sample.