Bobbi Brown Black Velvet Sparkle Eye Shadow

i want to write about Bobbi Brown Black Velvet Sparkle Eye Shadow, which was limited edition with the Black Velvet collection fall 2010. lucky for you - cause i slipped into a love-hate-relationship with it. it contains 3.8g and cost about 25€.
the container has an extra  lid to avoid it getting  messed up with sparkles. you can easily pop out the pan to fit it into a bigger combo-palette.
it is a sheer charcoal base colour with tons of multicolour microglitters, mostly pink and blue.
i used it in my new year's eve look:

now to the bad, bad, BAD part of it: it has a poor pay off. the sparkles are so pretty, but it is a pain to work with it. the shadow hardens the more you use it and the pay off gets even worse.
i tried it over a cream base, i even foiled it, i used the most pressure and swirl-action on it, but i could only get a much too low amount on my brush (i use the MAC 242 with this).
but if i packed on enough to get the right colour, it feels too thick and crumbly on your lid (ok, it doesn't have fall out, that's a plus). on the other hand this little b*tch is just too pretty to give up on it hehe.
do you know of a dupe or an alternative that delivers? then i would break up with Black Velvet immediately. it's just not worth the money i paid.
i can't understand why people gave it good reviews about its texture and pay off when it came out.