Addiction Eye Lacquer WP Swimming Pool and Black Swan

For this summer, Addiction debuted a new Eye Lacquer WP (2625yen, 7g) as part of the Lady of the Lake collection. Available in nine shades, these waterproof, fragrance-free liquid eyeshadows have a lacquer-like glossy shine and contain rose centifolia extract. I had high hopes for these as Visee Aqua Shining Eyes and Beaute de Kose Eye Fantasist were my favourite cream eyeshadows that have since been discontinued. All three brands are owned by Kose.

The sleek black tubes have a colored strip near the bottom to indicate the shade.

The shade name is also printed on the sticker at one end but in tiny font that is not the easiest to read. These contain 7g each, same as the Eye Fantasists of yore. Six shades are swatched in this MakeupAlley post, along with several other Addiction products.


The slanted doe-foot sponge applicator is pretty easy to control and pulls out of the tube well-coated with the liquid eyeshadow.

The Eye Lacquers turned out to be fabulously well-pigmented, much more so than Eye Fantasists. A tiny dab goes a lot way and so it's best to dot just a tiny bit on the eyelids, blend and then work up to your desired intensity. There is sufficient time for blending before these dry down completely.

The pic above shows the swatches as freshly applied from just the tip of the sponge applicator while the pics below show the swatches progressively blended out. Both Swimming Pool and Black Swan contain silver shimmer, with Swimming Pool being more intensely shimmery than Black Swan. Under direct sunlight, these have a lively starry sparkle. Black Swan looks like liquid black tar when first applied, but when sheered out, it becomes more of a greyed charcoal .


Worn without any primer underneath, the Eye Lacquers last well through more than eight hours of wear, although there is some minor creasing. I've been using my fingertip to smudge and blend the Eye Lacquers, but a brush is probably better for achieving a more precise application at the inner and outer corners, as well as for the lower eyelid.

My usual way of wearing these is to apply the Eye Lacquer from the upper lashline to the crease, and apply a pearly white powder eyeshadow over the browbone area and lower lashline, plus a medium tone shade in the crease.



Below is the look done with Swimming Pool. The lacquers are truly waterproof and did not budge at all when I ran the swatches on my arm under water and then rubbed them with my finger. Nevertheless, they are easy to remove with eye makeup remover or cleansing oil.


While I do like the two Eye Lacquers that I purchased, I probably won't buy any more as I'm saving up for the new powder eyeshadows, eyeliners and brushes coming out in the fall. Hope this review has been helpful!