Category Archives: Eyeshadow and Palettes

Is Lorac Back? Reviewing the Lorac PRO Fairytale Forest and Noir Palettes

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I have nostalgic feelings when I think about Lorac Cosmetics. I bought my first palette from them in July 2014 and later it became the topic of my very first post on this blog! Back when I probably had ten total palettes in my makeup collection, I got so much use out of that Lorac Pro 2 Palette. This was during my short lived time of actually preferring cool toned eyeshadows over warm ones. Who would have thought!

I very quickly learned that I only liked Lorac’s PRO formula. The shadows in their Unzipped line was alright, but the PRO palettes were quite pigmented for what was available on the market, as well as being blendable. At a time when Urban Decay’s Naked line was their biggest competitor, I always favored Lorac’s formula over theirs. Unfortunately, the brand faded into near obscurity over the course of several years. They tried to make a comeback towards the end of 2020 with a revamped PRO line, but they returned with a large variety of primarily neutral shadows which many of their customers had gotten tired of in the first place. Lorac updated their packaging, formulas, and lowered their prices per palette, but they are nowhere near as popular as they used to be. Ulta put their palettes for 50% off during the 21 Days of Beauty, so I bought one purely for curiosity and nostalgia reasons. With the October release of Lorac’s smidgen of a more colorful palette, Fairytale Forest, the brand captured a temporary moment of hype. Macy’s had 15% off beauty products, so I went ahead and bought it in the hopes of eventually creating my version of the perfect semi-neutral palette. That didn’t quite go how I planned.
Will Lorac seize the moment and revitalize their brand or will they sink? Have their formulas improved? Are they worth buying?

These are some of the questions I hope to answer in this review!

The Lorac Mega Pro (purchased in August of 2019) is the only older Lorac palette I still own. Previous palettes owned were the afterGLO palette, Sweet Temptations Eyeshadow Collection, Pro 1, Pro 2, Unzipped, and Unzipped Gold.

OLD versus NEW

I’ve had the Mega Pro for two years and did not even swatch it until I began working on this post! The shade variety was so much less colorful in person than I expected from photos online. The retail price is $60, but I bought it on sale for $30 from Lorac’s website. It’s one of the few older palettes they still sell and it has been restocked a myriad of times since the first one launched in 2014.

Based on previous experience with their older formula, as well as this Mega Pro palette, I can see that the main difference between the previous mattes and the new ones is that the old formula is soft but more powdery. The current mattes still have quite a bit of kickup and they’re still soft powders too, but they’re silkier now. Both are blendable, but with the older mattes they needed a creamier type of primer like the Lorac brand primer that used to come with those original PRO palettes. The current mattes are more buildable and have enough grip that I can pretty much use any of my primers and get a nice result, though I prefer them the most with MAC Paint Pot.

Regarding Lorac’s specific ingredient changes, they no longer use mineral oil, kaolin, and parabens. Instead, the newer formula has shea butter in addition to many other emollient and skin conditioning ingredients. As far as I can see, the main preservative replacing parabens is potassium sorbate. There’s also glyceryl caprylate, which can have antimicrobial benefits, but that isn’t it’s primary function in cosmetics.

The newer matte formula is a noticeable upgrade, but still fairly similar to the original. The difference between the newer and original shimmers is literally visible by looking at them in the pans! Lorac now includes shinier and sparkly ingredients such as synthetic fluorphlogopite, calcium aluminium borosilicate, and diamond powder. Often times I don’t even feel the need to wet my brush before using them on the eyes because they’re intense enough to my satisfaction. However, I do get a lot of fallout when I skip using them wet or with a tacky base, so I recommend doing that. I still think there’s a place for Lorac’s more satin leaning shimmers, but I very much prefer the effect that the current shimmers give. The older ones were smooth whereas these current shimmers are creamier with more slip to them; they’re almost wet to the touch with a finger, but I can feel the grit from the sparkle shades when I apply them to my eyes.

Lorac Noir Pro Palette

As beautiful as this palette was, I knew it would have shades that look pretty redundant for my skin tone. This is why I jumped on the half price sale, considering I figured I would just use half of Noir. I still found myself really liking this palette because even though I cannot get a wide range of looks, I appreciate the fact that there are cool tones and warm tones as well as different finishes.

White Diamond is a true topper shade, as it has white sparkles but no base color. Rendezvous has silver sparkles and a brown base. That base color blends with my skin tone, so it gives me a topper shadow type of effect. Those two shades plus Stardust all have the same creaminess and slip as the traditional shimmer formula, but with those three I can also feel the actual grit from the glitter when I apply them to my eyes. Majestic is the high sparkle exception that I don’t feel grittiness from when I use it. It’s a grey/gunmetal type of shade, like Onyx, but Majestic is a glitter/sparkle eyeshadow whereas Onyx is a fine but impactful shimmer for those who want something reflective but not as dramatic. Whisper, Primrose, Lust, Silver Moon, Dahlia, and Whiskey are traditional shimmer shades, which is the area that feels most repetitive. Silver Moon is distinct enough, but Primrose, Lust, and Dahlia will give me nearly the same look on the eyelids despite their different tones. Black Violet is a nice smooth satin, but the purple hue doesn’t show as much as I wanted.

The mattes are a good gradient. I can use Ecru as my brow bone shade. Soft Taupe doesn’t show up on me at all, but it would probably work for someone else as a transition shade. A shade like this can still be useful in blending out edges without making the area lighter, but the way these shadows blend, I don’t feel like I need to use it that way either. Sable works as my transition shade. Burgundy looks mostly brown if I use a light amount. I have to really pack it on to get the reddish tones to show. Smoke looks so much darker in the pan than I expected. It’s a deep cool toned brown that is satisfactory enough for me to be content with that as my deepening up shade without needing Ink, the true black shade.

I tried my hardest to create some variety with these shadows but I found myself making the same 4 looks, even though I used totally different eyeshadows: a red look, a smokey warm look, a smokey cool look, and a caramel/gold look. Essentially, the only way to get some truly different looks comes down to the eyeshadow style and placement of the shadows like the classic placement, a halo eye, a cut crease, etc. That is what will bring the most variety. I am really pleased with this palette though and I do recommend it for the ability to create something basic, glam, or something in-between. It’s a good neutral all-rounder type of product with great quality that surpasses the original PRO formula.

Lorac Fairytale Forest Pro Palette

The six shadows on the bottom right corner are what got me to buy this palette. I could not get them off my mind! I figured between the Noir palette and this one, I would really have some repeats. So, my plan all along was to mix and match shades between them to create my ultimate semi-neutral palette. I did not expect to like Noir in it’s pre-made state as much as I did, so my plans had to change.

Birch, Oak, and Earth look identical on my eyes, and I sometimes skip applying a brow bone shade altogether, so those three aren’t useful to me. Wherever I apply Mushroom just looks like my skin color depth but as a cool tone shade. It doesn’t make as much impact as Fog, which is a darker and cooler grey. Rosewood is like a dusty pink. I have to built it up a lot to get it to show more pink and less taupe. Essentially, the entire top row doesn’t add much to my eyeshadow looks, but I was at least prepared for that. I was banking the most on Redwood and Woodland for a color punch and depth. Once again, to get more of the orange tone to show in Redwood, I have to build it a lot. With these more colorful mattes, I get pigment right away, but it either comes off grey or brown in those first few layers on the eye. That’s why I’m still pleased with the Lorac mattes overall, because they still give me something, but to get the colors to show true to what’s in the pans is where the time and effort comes in. I am impressed though that despite how much I pack on, they layer well on top of each other and are easy to blend. Woodland is the darkest shade and helps to deepen up the look when I pair it with the lighter colors, but I can see that it’s not quite as deep as I’d like when I use it with the midtone mattes and darker shimmers.

I did not notice any difference in performance between the mattes in Noir and Fairytale Forest. However, Fairytale Forest does not have any shades listed in the sparkle formula, just shimmers and metallics. The two “metallic” shades, Pine and Grove, felt like the traditional shimmer formula to me, though perhaps slightly less wet to the touch. Enchanted, Wind, Wildflower, and Evergreen feel borderline between creamy and wet to the point of being almost chunky in texture (but not quite).

I was shocked to see North Star described by the brand as a “soft baby pink shimmer” since it looks flat out white to me and definitely sparkly. Both North Star and Folklore feel a tad drier than the rest of the shimmers, which is emphasized by the semi-gritty texture as well.

Butterfly stands out as it feels completely unlike any other shadow in the palette. It has the most slip, seems to have a transparent base, and is like a topper duochrome looking pink or rose gold depending on the angle. Enchanted looks like a duochrome as well, but it doesn’t have an actual shift. It has a bronze base which contrasts with the golden olive shimmer.

The only shimmer that I don’t think applies very well is Komorebi. It always looks patchy when I first apply it and it has to be smoothed over multiple times in order to look even in color. I smoothed it out in the swatches*, but apparently I didn’t smooth it over enough because it still doesn’t look as nice and even as the others.

*Note: When I changed my blog template, it made the proportions smaller than usual. In case someone doesn’t know about this, clicking on any photo on this blog will show the enlarged version of the picture. Also, holding the CTRL button and pressing + or – will magnify or minimize the size of font and photos on the website. I personally keep it at 110 or 120%

In the bottom two looks, I didn’t use any of the same shades, yet they look very similar.

Without distinct crease shades, I can’t get as much drama as I like, even though I’m getting more colorful options than Noir. I know myself and know that I would never reach for this palette if I kept it as is, just like the Mega Pro palette I couldn’t bring myself to even swatch in such an uninspiring shade selection and layout. So, I decided to combine the two!

REARRANGED PALETTES

I depotted my favorite shades out of the Mega Pro palette, stuck a label sticker on the bottom of each pan to keep track of which shadows are which, and placed them in a custom mini magnetic palette. The pans are magnetized, but unlike these newer palettes, the older ones were held in place with glue. Whenever I depot palettes with the intent to reuse the packaging, I cut a strip of magnetic tape and place it at the bottom so I can pop the shades in and out as much as I want. However, Lorac’s pans sit so flush with the surface that even the thinnest magnet would cause the pans to stick up and out, which impacts the ability to close the palette properly and this would get even more eyeshadow all over the mirror than it already does.

I removed Woodland from the Fairytale Forest palette and replaced it with Smoke from Noir to give me the depth I wanted and add a little smokiness. I filled the one vacant spot in Noir with the shade Gray so that I could keep with the theme of a traditional smokey neutral palette. Swapping out Smoke for Gray is the only change I made to Noir. Woodland is currently in the custom mini palette, along with the entire top row of shades from Fairytale Forest. In my first color swap version of FF (shown below) I initially kept Rosewood, plus added the shade Dusty Plum, but I ended up not getting enough impact out of either of them for my liking. They were too mid-toned. This is how I ended up removing them both again and putting Orchid instead.

First custom version

Current custom version

Orchid is not very opaque, but since it’s something I want to just use as a transition shade and blending out color for Mulberry, I don’t mind. Also, if I want a satin version of Mulberry, I basically have that in the shade Merlot. Redwood is the only original matte shade in the FF palette that remains. I could have kept any of the three lightest mattes, but I actually liked the Camel color and figured it could do the same job, just more subtly.

When I think of Fairytale Forest, I expect sparkle, iridescence, and a decent amount of greens. I would say that’s the most lacking aspect of the premade palette. I wish there were some matte greens in it. In any case, I added Deep Teal because I want to use it as a smokey green shadow to deepen up eye looks, even though it’s a satin and not matte. If Lorac ever sells a different kind of green as a single shadow, I might replace it. I thought Maroon was a good choice since it’s a neutral shade but the pink shimmer in it pairs well with both the browns and the reddish purples. Apricot was another last minute decision when I felt like I was missing a light color shimmer to highlight the brow arch. My other two light shades, North Star and Folklore, are too sparkly and don’t have a strong enough base color to them to fill that role. When I use Apricot, I can see it in person but it doesn’t pick up on my camera very well. I have a soft spot for chocolate brown shimmers, so that is why I chose Granite.

I think my choices still invoke the spirit of Fairytale Forest while still giving me just enough color to satisfy my desire for both colorful and neutral eyeshadows. I’m back to being tired out of neutrals for Lorac though. As wonderful as the quality is, I don’t need anything else from them unless they start really delving deeper into the realm of colorful shadows. I think Lorac could become popular again if they got out of the neutral box. Other brands that keep cranking out neutral palette after neutral palette have embraced exciting packaging as a way to entice customers into buying similar products repeatedly. As much as I like Lorac’s very professional (though basic in design) black packaging, the outside doesn’t grab me as a consumer, so it comes down to the color story. I want one that’s exciting and I don’t want anymore repeats than I currently have.

That’s all for today! And just so everyone knows, from November 14th through November 16th (my birthday!), Ulta has the Noir, Fairytale Forest, and other palettes on sale for 40% off! The link I included is a regular non-affiliated link.

-Lili ❤

Oden’s Eye Legendary Diversa Collection

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Oden’s Eye Cosmetics is a brand I’ve really come to love over the past year and I’ve tried quite a few of their products. Their color stories and finishes don’t always match my style, but there was something compelling about the entire Legendary Diversa Collection. I couldn’t choose between them, so I decided to purchase all three. They each retail for $34 USD and shipping is free on orders over 50 euros (roughly $58). Influencer promo codes did not apply to the collection, but they worked on everything else. Each palette also comes with a corresponding scarf that matches the cover art. My products came in a special edition Legendary Diversa box, which I’m not sure if I got because I purchased all of them or if anyone who orders from the collection gets it.

I also got a free brush, which has happened for my last few orders. Again, I’m not sure if this is because I spent a certain amount of money or if everyone gets a free item when they order. I have not used the brush yet, so I will not be reviewing it here today. If you’d like to see my review of other products from Oden’s Eye, click here.

One thing I’d like to fully disclose is that these three palettes are collaborations with YouTubers: The Fancy Face, Annette’s Makeup Corner, and Judy. I follow Tina (The Fancy Face) and consider her one of my favorite YouTubers. I’ve spoken about her several times on this blog and while it’s true I would have purchased her palette regardless of the color story (this is partly to do with my trust in the quality of Oden’s Eye makeup), my support of her does not mean it gets a free pass. I hold it to the same testing standard as any other product I review. Annette is someone whose videos I watch from time to time and have started to watch a little more recently. As for Judy, she left me a nice comment on Instagram, but that’s the extent of our interactions. As for her content, I’ve only watched her Oden’s Eye videos. I wanted to make sure I put that out there in case anyone wonders if I will be biased. The artwork for all three palettes were equally beautiful and I wanted them all for that reason. The book-like format, sizing of the palettes, the unique outer texture, the reflective holographic sections that add a sort of glow when the light hits it, the shapes of the pans, etc are all so appealing to me. These packaging details are all part of the brand’s aesthetic. The collaborators’ images were used for the covers and it’s their color stories, themes, and final decision whether the formulas are up to par, but because these ladies were working with a great brand, it’s not surprising that I’d like their palettes. The infamous Too Faced x Nikki Tutorials collab is proof that the best of ideas a collaborator has will still do poorly if the company they’re working with fails on their end. Besides the packaging, I love Oden’s Eye’s formulas, so it’s just a winning combination between the brand and these three ladies. It comes down to whether someone likes Oden’s Eye shadows and in these particular shades.

Before we get started, I just wanted to add (so I won’t have to repeat myself three times) that each palette has a multichrome. These don’t have a dark base and they’re a thin metallic smooth type of formula, so they will actually look very different if layered on top of different eyeshadow colors. These provide a lot of shade variations and combination possibilities to the palettes.

The changes in lighting really do effect the looks of these shades. It’s mind boggling how they appear distinctly different in the pans, and while indoors, but if I step outside they suddenly look quite similar to each other.

These don’t surpass my top three favorite multichrome formulas from Clionadh, Devinah, and Terra Moons, but I do like them. They’re nice and shifty and perfect for those who don’t like the chunky, glittery, or dark-base types of multichromes.

The Hummingbird Palette

This palette appealed to me because it’s so bright and colorful. Purples and greens are my top two favorite eyeshadow shades, but I think I may have been intimidated by all the different color choices if it wasn’t for the Kaleidos x Angelica Nyqvist Club Nebula palette. The Club Nebula and Hummingbird palettes have a very similar vibe to each other. Because I learned what shades I like to pair together in Club Nebula, I knew exactly which combinations I wanted to try with the Hummingbird palette. Club Nebula will not be restocking, so if anyone missed getting that palette, I think this one is a great option.

There aren’t any spot on dupes, but some similar looks can be created. I will say, I prefer the multichromes from Oden’s Eye over the ones from Kaleidos. As much as I like the matte formula from Oden’s Eye, I think the mattes in Club Nebula specifically are even more my speed. The pros and cons for both make it so that I couldn’t choose which one I like more, so perhaps those who already know they like Club Nebula will enjoy Oden’s Eye’s palettes as well. Just as I felt the Club Nebula color story inspires me to try new things, I still see even more shade combinations I want to test out with the Hummingbird palette that I haven’t yet. It inspires me as well.

Of the three palettes, the Hummingbird palette has the most number of different finishes and also the greatest variation within the formulas. There are five mattes, the multichrome, two metallics, and four shimmers.
Among the mattes we have Lagoon which is right on the cusp of being a cream to powder, or “cream to matte powder” as Tina describes it in her launch video. It’s just barely creamy enough to be detectable by touch in order to tell it’s more than just a creamy feeling shade. In fact, it reminds me of the satin-like metallics (Realism and Passion) and creamier shades (Obsessed and Colourful Black) from the Oden’s Eye Norn’s Palette. Unlike those shades from the Norn’s Palette, this one has no tugging on the skin and performs just like the other mattes. It’s a dark almost navy blue in the pan and can look that way if packed on, but when Lagoon is spread out, it’s revealed to be more of a deep teal. That’s why I compared it to Queen of Blades in the Club Nebula section rather than Void. Clear Blue is a very thin matte that can be built up to full opacity. It’s not my kind of shade on its own, but it makes a fantastic shade to blend out the edges of a matte. I love pairing it with Star Apple because it makes the edges turn a light violet purple. It also works beautifully with Lagoon. But speaking of Star Apple, that’s my one troublesome shade from the palette. All the other shades are easy to apply and blend, but Star Apple takes significantly longer to get an even color. At first I thought it was because it’s a patchier shade, but then I realized that whatever red-raspberry tone was used to create this purple actually peeks through. It’s visible in the edges of the swatches as well. When I take photos, the red that shows through makes it look unblended, even though it’s completely opaque in person. So in order to make it look nice for the camera, I actually take a tiny bit of Lagoon and blend it in. The blue from Lagoon mixed with the red spots in Star Apple turns it purple without changing the overall color. As much as I love the concept of the shade and how perfectly it captures the color of the actual fruit, it makes the most sense to just use it paired with the other pink and red shades in this palette. If I want to pair it with blues, I need Lagoon with it. Red Hills is a beautiful dark red that when applied in a thin layer shows a lovely warm orange hue it has to it. Hibiscus is the last matte and it’s a stunning vibrant deep-pink red shade. It’s difficult to describe and I don’t have a shade like this in my collection, which is a pretty big feat. The closest thing I have to it are some of the neon mattes from Terra Moons and Splash from the Coloured Raine Vivid Pigments. With Hibiscus, using the right primer will ensure it stays vibrant on the eyes. There are a few times I had issues of it deepening up.

The main differences between the metallic formula with shades Feathers and Tropics compared to the shimmer formula is just that they are a bit smoother and more fine. The other shimmers are a bit wetter in texture and a little on the chunky side. Among the shimmers, the shade that really stands out is Hummingbird because it’s a duochrome that’s mainly dark purple but has a variety of shades of purple and blue shimmer.

The Giant Wolves Palette

The Hummingbird Palette is vibrant and fun whereas this color story is the most “me.” It’s the selection of shades I was drawn to the most. It still has greens and purples, but with a grungier smoky side to those shades.

The first time I watched Annette’s launch video, I actually missed the part where she said each row of three could be one eye look. When I was deciding which colors to pair with each other, I swatched them in order on my arm. I did notice the groups of three were nice, but I loved how the groups of four looked together. Making those initial swatches was when I noticed the shade Hati was incredibly hard to pick up. I had to make 3-4 passes to build it up to what is shown above. It wasn’t so much an issue of being sheer as it was not getting it to spread across my arm. The fact that I could get product onto my finger every time showed me that it wasn’t hard panned, but the shadow was so compacted that I knew trying to pick it up with a dry brush would be quite the chore. I thought mine was a dud until I rewatched Annette’s video and saw that she said this shade was, “…harder pressed in the pan than I wanted.” This could mean physically pressed too hard or the use of too much of a binding ingredient. As it stands, the shade Hati is the only one I wasn’t impressed by and since a looser press had the chance of changing my feelings about it, I decided to try the physical route and repress it myself. I broke up the shadow using a cosmetic spatula and it remained in large soft chunks like dimethicone heavy shimmers tend to do. Then I used the spatula to lightly flatten it back down, particularly the edges, and then placed a paper towel over the shadow and gently pressed down with my finger. I did not add any liquids. It was a dry repress. I suspect there was already slightly too much dimethicone in the shadow in proportion to the other ingredients, but what I did still improved things a bit. I could swatch Hati across my arm with 2 passes. I considered it a topper type of shade before and pressing it myself didn’t change my mind about it. It can be built up to be very sparkly but it’s too sheer for me to want to use by itself, so I’ll keep using it as topper to add extra sparkle to looks.

We have three other shimmers and seven mattes. They all perform perfectly and the only noteworthy things I want to mention is that Desolate looks a lot more green in the pan but on my skin it comes off as a green leaning dark teal. The actual shade description according to Oden’s Eye is, “grey…with a slight green tone.” Annette describes it as a “bright dark green” so I feel better about the fact that it’s hard to describe this kind of shade. But as I said, it’s more of a teal on my skin. Astral looks more gold than it does in the pan and Sköll is like a duochrome purple-blue. It’s a black based purple as opposed to the brighter purple of the shade Hummingbird from the Hummingbird palette.

This palette also inspires me to try new combinations and brings me so much joy to use.

 

The Red Dragon Palette

This is the most neutral of the palettes, which made it the only one I wasn’t certain I would get. However, I have Annette’s reveal video to thank for deciding to get it because the poolside video with the sun hitting those swatches showed the palette in all its glory. The colors are so much more stunning and more interesting than it looks on the surface. And then combined with Judy’s eyeshadow look in her launch video and using the shade Dragon for blush…I was officially sold!

This is the most matte-heavy of the palettes with a grand total of eight. They all work beautifully and blend easily, but I should note that Sunrise, Jade, and Serene are a bit thin and will need some building up in order to be fully opaque. Also, Sunrise and Serene have a very hard time showing on camera, but they are visible in person. The effects of using Sunrise as the transition shade into Jade really helps to emphasize the yellow tone within Jade, but Jade is still beautiful on its own.

For deepening up looks, my options are Claw, Fire, and Aurora which add enough depth if I’m only pairing them with the light shades, but if I want to also use a mid-tone like Amber or Yin, then they aren’t quite as deep as I’d like for my skin tone. Aurora in particular looks like it should be dark enough, but I have a hard time layering it on top of other shadows. I appreciate the fact that Judy wanted to have these darker shades so no one would have to pull from other palettes to create a look, but it’s something I’ll still likely end up doing in the future.

Using a white or light base helps to distinguish all the red colors when I use them together on my eyes. They can get muddled if I don’t place them correctly, or use either a clear base or one that matches my skin tone.

I’m really quite shocked how much I enjoy this palette. I would not have thought to pair that mustard yellow-brown and jade green with those reds. I still struggle with shade pairing and finding new ways to put colors together, so this was a great learning experience. I’m very happy I decided to get this one as well.

So, do I recommend these palettes? Absolutely, yes! I recommend giving Oden’s Eye eyeshadows and even their blushes a chance. The older original palettes contain pressed glitters, but the releases in the Norn’s Collection and onwards do not have them.

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading.

-Lili ❤

Amazon Makeup: Haus Labs and Zeesea Cosmetics

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The Amazon Prime deals that started on June 21st included 60% off Haus Laboratory Products and 20% off Zeesea Cosmetics. These deals were enough for me to take the plunge into both brands for the first time!

Also, before we get started, I’m going to address the Oompa Loompa in the room. I took these photos just after I returned from my trip. Because I had gotten darker, I needed to resort to mixing foundations and I did not realize I looked so orange until I finished everything. Sorry about that! I don’t always publish a post in the order that I work on them, so this is why my skin tone looks “warmer” than usual!

Haus Labs

Haus Laboratories Heat Spell Bronzer Highlighter Duo in Volcanic & Lava

This bronzer is the darkest in the Haus Labs line, but it will only show up on someone of my skin tone or lighter. The range could definitely use a darker option, but it’s the perfect shade and depth for me. I was impressed by how smoothly it looked on my skin despite how dry it felt to the touch and how patchy it looked when I first tried it on my bare face. This is one of those formulas that work best over a foundation. It doesn’t take much building to show on my skin, it blends very quickly, and it lasts on my face through a full day.

When using the bronzer, it looks perfect with so few swipes that I get the impulse to continue blending it in (because I’m not used to a product blending so quickly), and that’s when I run into problems. If I keep trying to blend or build up more product, it turns an unflattering darker color and starts to get patchy. The best way to use this is to apply it to the skin and when I blend to the point of, “Wow, this looks nice,” is where I have to stop or things will only go downhill after that.

The highlighter in this duo is the right depth for me too. However, it is very lightly pressed in the pan. It is extremely powdery with so much kickup. It doesn’t make a difference if I use a natural or synthetic brush, the result of the absolute barest touch in the pan leads to my brush being coated in an excess of product. I have to wipe some off my brush every time I use this product or else I will look way too sparkly for my liking. Also, it mostly sticks wherever you first place it, so blending away the edges to avoid a highlighter stripe is not easy to do. My remedy to this is to switch my usual application order and apply the highlighter before my blush, that way the excess of highlighter can be blended out while I’m blending the blush. The blush edge also partially covers it.

This highlighter is a mix of small particle shimmer with some larger shimmer particles spread throughout the pan. Because the larger sparkles are sparse enough to not draw too much attention, I don’t mind as much. I still have to be careful to use the smallest amount on my face though, and an example of a light application is in the photo on the right.

Although I can get really nice results with this duo, I’m not sure if the quality is consistent across the entire Heat Spell line. I can get stellar results if used in the specific manner I mentioned, but the fact that it can easily go wrong is why I would say these powders are similar to what Makeup Revolution and BH Cosmetics produce, but better. They’re both inexpensive brands with face products that aren’t exactly the highest quality, but they will get the job done. This duo at full price is $26, but from the view of these as two separate items at $13 each, it would be in the ballpark of those brands. While I think this is good for the price, the Kaja Bento Trio formula is an upgrade for $1 less for slightly less product spread across three pans. I also think the Beauty Bakerie Bars (Neapolitan, Brownie, and now Lemon) have the better blush and bronzer as well, though there’s way less product at $18.

All that being said, I could see myself reaching for the bronzer again, particularly for a matte look. However, my top favorites tend to have a satin or shimmer sheen which won’t be replaced by this. The highlighter in the duo is also a bit troublesome having to be used so delicately, so I won’t get use out of Lava.

Haus Laboratories Head Rush Blush/Highlighter Duo in Rock ‘N’ Rose & All Night

There is one other blush duo deeper than this one, but I’m not interested in berry tones, so I got this instead. The blush looks pigmented, but the thin powder still requires building up. In addition, it gets muddy when blended too much, especially in the spots where it overlaps with a bronzer regardless of the brand used. For the photo below, I had to wipe some of the Heat Spell bronzer away to get the pink color to show instead of the murky brownish-pink it turns. The blush is pretty, but I think the quality is lacking.

The highlighter shade is pretty interesting. I thought for certain it would look terrible on me, but it’s not too bad! It’s actually a somewhat duochromatic pink and light gold that reminds me of the Kaleidos Space Age highlighters. The Head Rush highlighter did not have the powdery kickup issue like the Heat Spell highlighter, but it’s not as soft either. It’s a decent highlighter/blush topper, but it shows a lot more of the larger shimmer particles, which deters me from wanting to use it.

I had some reservations about recommending the Heat Spell duo, but I can easily say I don’t recommend the Head Rush ones. The market is filled with so many incredible blushes and highlighters that are superior in quality. They might not be part of a duo, but a better blush and highlighter separately can be found at any price point. Nyx, Milani, and Colourpop all make better and cheaper blushes and highlighters. The Maybelline Master Chrome is another highly rated highlighter option. At the very least, the Colourpop Cheek Palette Quads come with three blushes of comparable quality and a better highlighter for $12. For that reason, even at the $15.60 price I paid for this duo, I don’t think it was worth it.

I have no feelings positively or negatively about Lady Gaga, but considering Haus Labs is owned by someone as well known as her, I had an expectation that the products would be on the higher end of drugstore prices but have even better quality. I’m not certain they lived up to even that, so my interest in trying more from the brand has dropped to zero.

Zeesea Cosmetics

The Zeesea palettes I purchased are possibly the most beautifully packaged products I own. The lining around it is a gold color, the top is slightly rounded and shiny enough to see myself in it, the design is partially raised in texture, the background design is an ombre of colors, and the designs are just beautiful. I love ancient history, particularly ancient mythology, so it was an absolute given that I needed something from the Egyptian collection. The Kitty quad I purchased as an inside joke, but I thought the color story was very cute too.

Right off the bat though, I need to give the warning that these palettes contain PET (polyethylene terephthalate) glitter. Although it is “cosmetic grade,” it is still made of plastic which is dangerous around the eye area. I hate pressed glitters because of the sticky formula and the difficulty with removing them. Only one shade in these three palettes have that clumpy pressed glitter formula, but my stance on PET glitter is that I try to avoid all shadows that contain it, regardless of the consistency and formula. When I saw how reflective and sparkly and large the particles were in person, that’s when I suspected these had shadows that were not eye safe. I did a few looks with these palettes, but I will not be using them anymore because I so easily get makeup in my eyes. Even when I’ve used the tape trick to remove the glitter, there’s still always some left behind and one of my eyes was irritated for a few days. So, these are being kept purely as collector pieces. However, I have still played with them enough (especially before I looked up the ingredients to confirm my suspicion about the shimmers) to be able to give a full review.

ZEESEA The British Museum Egypt Collection Eyeshadow Palette in #05 CRUX ANSATA

The Crux Ansata, or Ankh, is one of my favorite Egyptian symbols. This was also the palette with the color story that suited my tastes the most out of all the Zeesea x British Museum collaboration palettes (at least before the release of #09 Crystal Skull).

Shades 1, 2, 3, and 13 are all very soft, smooth, and pigmented. Shade 1 has a lovely ankh imprint in it, Shade 4 has a sphinx imprint, and 13 has a scarab beetle. Shades 4 and 15 are a little drier but still smooth and pigmented. Shade 6 is a thin powder but smooths out nicely. Shades 9 and 16 are a little drier and rougher and tend to stick to the skin where you put them, but they still blend out in a reasonable amount of time and don’t stay patchy. Shade 16 also has an eye of horus imprint in the eyeshadow.

Shade 5 is a stunningly beautiful and softly packed highly reflective glitter shade with the largest glitter particles in the palette. Shade 7 is a creamy satin with a little sparkle and Shade 8 is a reddish orange creamy duochrome with a little gold sparkle. Both 7 and 8 had a sparsely glittery top layer that seems to be mostly gone after using them a few times, so I’m not certain if it was just the top layer only or if the glitter still runs throughout.
Shade 10 is another creamy feeling shimmer with a strange mottled combination of green, blue, pink, white, and yellow which turns into a pale icy green. Shade 11 is mainly a green and aqua blue sparkly duochrome with a slight pink shift. Shade 12 is a beautiful rusty orange-red satin, and Shade 14 is a copper metallic shimmer.

ZEESEA The British Museum Egypt Collection Eyeshadow Palette in #06 EYE OF HORUS

I also chose this palette because of the iconic Eye of Horus symbol and the color story was unexciting but still wearable. I can’t pretend I didn’t want to know what Shades 9, 10, and 12 were like in person.

Shades 1, 4, 11, and 16 were that smooth and pigmented formula I noticed in most of the mattes in the Crux Ansata palette. Shade 1 has the eye of horus imprint. Shade 3 is very powdery and had to be smoothed out. Yellow shades don’t stand out easily on my eyes and this is another example of that. Shades 2 and 5 are creamy shimmers. Shades 6 and 14 are subdued satin shades. Shade 7 is a badly formulated pressed glitter which stuck to itself in the pan and I had to scrape it to get enough product to swatch on my arm. The texture was so unlike other pressed glitters I’ve felt in the past that I didn’t realize it was one at first until it swatched terribly. Shade 8 is not an opaque shimmer and takes some building up, which surprised me considering how pigmented the other shimmers are.

Shade 9 is what I can only think to call a demi-matte white because it looks matte but there’s still a sheen to it, and not strong enough of one to be considered a satin but it looks like the kind you get from mica powder. It’s also the strangest mix of cream, blue, gold/brown spots blanked out in white. I’m not sure what the purpose was in making this shade. I have no idea if they were trying to accomplish something with the pattern or if it’s just to have a different look. Shade 10 is a somewhat putty-like shimmer in lines of silver, bronze, and gold that pulls mostly gold. Shade 12 is another duochrome like in the Ankh palette as an iridescent white to blue but with a light purple shift.

Shade 13 is a super wet (not creamy) thick chunky shimmer. I really did not like the texture of this one. Shade 15 is smooth but not quite as soft as the other mattes. It still performs well though.

ZEESEA Tipsy Kitty Eyeshadow Quad in #03 Fruit Punch

This quad was my newest purchase, which did not come from the Amazon Prime Day sale, yet it was the first one of the three I started using. Shades 1 and 3 take some building up, as these mattes are thinner than some of the ones from the Egyptian palettes, but the end result is pretty and worth the extra effort to have a nice soft look. I had an easier time using Shade 4. These tones are also very nice and complimentary to each other. Shade 2 is a bit wet and a little chunky, but using MAC Fix+ helps it to spread and increases the color saturation.

Because Zeesea is a Chinese brand which creates products for the style that is popular in China, as well as catering to lighter skin tones, I am limited in the types of products from them that I can use. The quality is better than what I expected from the brand, but I can’t in good conscience recommend them beyond purchasing purely for the packaging. The British Museum palettes are pretty enough that if I had a stand to put them on, I would display them in the house, not just with my makeup. However, for those wanting to use the actual eyeshadows, I really caution against those plastic based glitters used. I wish Zeesea would exclusively use the safer alternatives like synthetic fluorphlogopite and sodium or aluminum calcium borosilicate. Even some versions of bismuth oxychloride can be quite reflective and sparkly. When I briefly perused Zeesea’s ingredient list on the website, I could see that they contained some of those alternatives but still had them in addition to the plastic glitters, which is quite a shame.

That’s all for my exploration of makeup brands on Amazon! I don’t think there will be a part 2 to this. I hope you have a fantastic day! Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

MAC Tempting Fate Collection

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The Tempting Fate Collection’s gilded baroque packaging, unique textures, and overall fall aesthetic earn it the title of the most beautiful release from MAC in 2021, according to me. I limited my purchases to the three items I would use the most or don’t have as many of in my collection. I ordered the lipstick first from MAC and it arrived within days. The palette, which I ordered the next day when it became available, got lost in transit for a few weeks and had to be reshipped to me. The particular shade of strobe glaze was only available in the UK at the time, so I ordered it from Selfridges. Now that I have all the items together, I can finally review the collection!

MAC Tempting Fate Lipstick in Tarnished Reputation

There are six shades total ranging from a pale nude to deep berry in matte or amplified lipstick finishes. Tarnished Reputation is in the matte formula and though it looks pink-orange in some lighting, this pulls vibrant coral orange on my lips. It’s a bit too bright for my taste on its own, but I like the way it looks with a dark lip liner.

I only have a few MAC lip products, so my experience with them is limited, but I believe this is their traditional formula and quality. It also has the familiar vanilla scent. If you’re a fan of MAC lipsticks, I think you will like the ones in this collection too.

MAC Tempting Fate Strobe Face Glaze in Punk in Spice

There are three shades total. As of October 1st, Punk In Spice has yet to be made available in the US from MAC. However, I could get it from Selfridges US and it’s also now at Look Fantastic US. When I spoke with a MAC representative, they said the shade was not UK exclusive, but they did not have a date as to when it would be available elsewhere. I watched this review from Sinem Salih who did an amazing job making me want this strobe glaze even though the product looked so sheer I wondered if it would even be worth the price. I could also clearly see how gel-like the effect was on her cheek, but I still wanted it! I hate that kind of texture but I somehow convinced myself Punk in Spice would change my mind and make me step outside my comfort zone to do some glossy editorial looks. I’m not convinced I did the right thing in buying this product, but I don’t fully dislike it.

For starters, I think it’s important to make clear that this MAC Strobe Glaze is very different from MAC’s Strobe Cream, which is a product I actually like as a glowy primer underneath foundation and liquid highlighter when patted back on top. The Strobe Cream gives a more traditional highlighted almost metallic shine. The Strobe Glaze is gel-like and a bit greasy when rubbed in. The purpose is to give a dewy wet look when used subtly or full on glossiness. It reminds me of a combination of Danessa Myrick’s Dew Wet Balm with Colourpop’s Cheek Dew Serum Blush formula. At first I was using what I considered a small amount and absolutely hated the look. However, I realized I needed to use the tiniest amount to get a palatable glossy cheek.

In the leftmost photo in the gallery above, I show what my small amount looked like on my cheek (which I despised) and the other photos showed how I was able to tone it down when using that much. Applying a light layer of any kind of powder over the Strobe Glaze kept some of the shimmer but made it look less glossy. It was still greasy to the touch, but a lot less sticky than before. The biggest downside though to using this amount of product is that it gave my skin more of a textured look and I noticed lines I hadn’t seen before.

Although I could use the product this way with powders on top or to intensify a powder highlighter, if I wanted to use the product on its own and actually be happy with it, I needed to use half as much as I was before!

I have a large face, so this is the amount that works for me per cheek, but if you have a smaller face you may want to use even less! I can get Punk In Spice to look even more to my liking when I dab the remnants of my foundation on the brush on top of it. It tones down the glossiness but leaves the shine. Eventually after about an hour or so it finally dries down. Sticky products on my face usually drive me nuts, but this product is so lightweight that it thankfully doesn’t bother me. Though it dries to the point of no longer being sticky, I can still feel greasiness if I rub the spot where it was applied, so this product is really not for someone who likes cheek products to dry down to nothing.
I should also note that the ideal order for me to use this is applying it to my bare skin in areas I want the wet look and applying foundation and all the rest of my makeup after. I would prefer to leave the concealer step last since this takes off some of my concealer anyway and I need to cover the spots back up because of my intensely dark under eye circles. Plus, setting the concealer with powder will help to set the Strobe Glaze further in the spots where the two products touch.

If I utilize these tips, I see myself continuing to use this from time to time after my review, which is shocking considering I normally hate glossy-balmy highlighting products. For those who want that glossy dewy cheek, the Danessa Myricks Dew Wet Balm produces a prettier look. Feel free to see photos in my past review to compare. I ended up selling my Dew Balm anyway. The only reason I would keep using Punk in Spice is because using it with other products like foundation, powder, and highlighter reduces the feeling on my skin I tend not to like, as well as being able to use it by itself if I only use the tiniest amount. The tiniest amount of Danessa’s Dew Balm was still too much for my personal taste on its own. MAC’s Strobe Glazes have only been limited edition thus far, but it’s a permanent product in Danessa’s line. Then again, Punk in Spice will likely go bad before I could even use up a quarter of what’s in the tube because of how little product is needed. I believe the Rose Gold Glow shade of Strobe Glaze would require a ton of product though if you are of light-medium and darker skin tone and want to use it as a blush.

For my personal taste, the Strobe Cream is better than the Strobe Glaze (even though it’s more expensive), but I knew going in that the Strobe Glaze wasn’t a product meant for me. As much as I like the Strobe Cream, I enjoy the free samples and don’t love it enough to actually buy the full size, which really says a lot about my take on liquid illuminating products. I always still prefer a powder highlighter.

MAC Tempting Fate Feast Your Eyes Eyeshadow Palette

MAC says this palette contains three textures never seen before from their collections: Metallized Prismetallic Eye Shadow (All That Jam), Luminous Leather Lustre Eye Shadow (Yesterday’s Gossip, Golden Rage, Midnight Stunner*, Brocade Renegade), and Glitzy Sparkler Eye Shadow (Feast Your Eyes, What a Pear, Velvet Vamp).
MAC classified Midnight Stunner as a Leather Lustre on their website and on the actual packaging, but the other three Leather Lustres are like a cream-powder hybrid with a satin matte finish. Midnight Stunner is most similar to the Glitzy Sparkler What a Pear in terms of pigmentation and texture. The shimmer in both of them aren’t as sparse, nor with as transparent of a base, as Feast Your Eyes and Velvet Vamp. However, if those three are considered Glitzy Sparklers then surely Midnight Stunner should be one as well. So, I believe that shade was mislabeled. It wouldn’t be the first mistake with this collection considering every single one of my eyeshadow pans are skewed to the left and have gaps between the shadows and the edges of the circular cutouts. While I waited for the palette to arrive, I had plenty of time to watch videos and I could see that this misalignment of the shadows was a common occurrence. The palette has not been restocked (even though everything else that sold out since the launch has been restocked multiple times), so if it does become available again, I hope they will have fixed the issue for everyone else. It says a lot about where MAC is at as a company by letting these be sold in this condition. MAC Limited Edition releases are some of the most coveted collector items within the makeup world, so to have them so sloppily put together with a possible misprint as well is an indication of the drop in quality MAC fans have been noticing in the last few years.

MAC’s eyeshadows are among the very few products I don’t like from the brand, but since these are all new formulas, I was hopeful this would be different. I’m happy to say I really like this palette but I had to figure out how to use the Leather Lustres because my goodness the longevity was atrocious!

If you’ve used this product and had no issues, please let me know in the comment section what kind of eye primer you use or whether you have dry or oily eyelids because I would love to know how others use this without using the tips I’ll be sharing here today.

I have to start by explaining I use MAC Paint Pot as my eyeshadow primer, and one would expect there to be zero issues when using MAC products together. However, after about three hours I noticed major creasing and fading of the Leather Lustres specifically from that point onward. After experimenting many times, I discovered these only work with MAC Paint Pot if I put the Leather shade on top of it and then set it with a powder. It doesn’t work if I set the Paint Pot with powder before applying the Leather shades. The powder has to be the last step.

With Paint Pot as the base and set with powder, there is still minor creasing after three hours. By seven hours the creasing is more noticeable and the shadow fades in some spots. At 8 hours it’s still pretty good overall, but it will only continue to get worse from this point on.

If I want the absolute best results where longevity and creasing are not issues, I have to apply the Leather shades to my bare skin, apply a powder on top to set it, and then use Nyx Glitter Primer on the eyelids in order to lock the shimmers in place and produce a more opaque look. With this method, the eyeshadows will still be going strong after eight hours. By eleven hours there is barely any change except to the Yesterday’s Gossip shade which I can’t get to last no matter what method I use. Applying the shimmers to the lid while damp can still work to pack on the shade enough to cover the skin underneath and keep the shimmer in place, but I do notice some cracking and wearing off that starts around eight hours of wear. So, I very much recommend sticking to the bare eye method from the crease and above but Nyx Glitter Primer under the shimmer shades.

Feast Your Eyes and Velvet Vamp are great on their own for a scattered glitter type of effect and they are so much more reflective and sparkly than my photos show. I couldn’t capture how multicolored they look in swatches with my camera’s focus setting, so that’s why the picture below of Velvet Vamp is blurry.

Because of how beautiful the Glitzy Sparkler shades are, I still feel as though the palette is special. All That Jam was also quite the surprise with how pigmented it was and how easily it applied to the lid with opaque results without any additional help. It’s also the star of the palette along with the Glitzy Sparkler formula.

Going back the the Leather Lustres, I have to add that beyond the longevity issue, they are a stiff formula and require a dense brush to have the pigmentation level I need for my skin tone. For the crease, I use them with the Sonia G Jumbo Blender. Sometimes I’m impatient and skip using brushes altogether and apply them to my lids with my fingers for the fastest results. I think overall, this entire palette is very much geared towards those who like to apply shadows with their fingers.

Brocade Renegade is the deepest shade in the palette, but it’s such a bright purple that it doesn’t add much depth, so it’s impossible for me to get anything but a soft look for my skin tone. MAC describes this palette as “rich” and “decadent” but that isn’t the case for me, especially since Golden Rage, the shade that looks dark chocolate in the pan is a very warm mid tone brown. It’s so warm that it’s nearly orange. I don’t mind, but it limits the kind of look I can achieve using this palette alone. It’s not a unique color story, but overall, I do really like this palette since I know how to use it. The only shade that is truly a dud for me is Yesterday’s Gossip and that’s because it doesn’t last on me, looks quite ashy on my lids, and I don’t get as much of the pink tone as I’d like. It’s only really good as a brow bone shade, but it ends up just looking like my skin tone anyway.

There’s one other aspect I would like to address which is that I noticed MAC changed the photo on the website to reflect a palette where the shades are arranged differently than mine. Even in the featured photo section of the page, you see two different MAC employees from different countries where one has the palette in the order of the shades on the website (from Thailand) and the other has them in the order of my palette (from Mexico).

I don’t know if this is purely a matter of some MAC employees getting their hands on a promotional palette that looks more aesthetically pleasing arranged in this new way or yet another clue pointing toward production issues. Is it merely a difference in look? Are these other palettes formulated differently? Was this how the shades were intended to be arranged all along, but palettes like mine were sloppily put together because of a manufacturing issue? Is the arrangement difference intentional based on regional preferences or miscommunication between multiple manufacturing sites? If MAC does restock this palette, will they all be arranged in this way on the website or do different countries get a different arrangement?
I wish I had the answers, but contacting MAC has been unhelpful in the past, so I don’t think I would get an helpful answer to this either.

This collection was not the slam dunk that I thought it would be, but I still like it. I’m rooting for MAC to become that “It” brand it used to be with a higher standard of quality again with some innovation and creativity. It’s hard to forget how badly they botched that Sims collaboration from their end. With talks of a Whitney Houston Estate collaboration planned for 2022 and the photos I’ve seen sneak peeked for Holiday 2021, I don’t know if I’ll be getting my wish.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Armani Beauty Neo Nude Melting Color Balms

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This product also goes by the name of the Armani Beauty Neo Nude Color Melting Cream Blush. “Balm” is a less accurate description because it implies there’s a glossy or sticky texture, which this blush does not possess. It’s creamy to the touch and reminds me of a putty texture (but softer) or a Colourpop Supershock Blush (but with less slip). Tara Lynn on YouTube was the first to accurately described the consistency as being similar to Natasha Denona’s cream-to-powder eyeshadow formula. I began working on this post in July and overall, this has been one of the strangest product launches I’ve seen.

Wacky Availability

Other than the initial sneak peek from Trendmood1’s Instagram page, I saw barely any mention of this blush around social media or on Youtube. Two weeks after it released, there were still only four videos I could find. There was very little promotion for it across other platforms as well, including from Armani themselves. It released first to Sephora and Armani’s US site in only five of the nine blushes. Then Neiman Marcus got seven of the nine. Then it disappeared off Neiman’s website and appeared at Saks Fifth Avenue in the full range, but as a pre-order for July 17th. By July 19th there was no trace of the blushes on the Saks website. Then on July 22nd, all the blushes returned to Saks’ website as yet another pre-order, but with a note on the page that they were, “not shipping until August 17th at the latest.” They also returned to Neiman’s at some point. On July 24th, Sephora joined the other retailers (including Macy’s and Dillard’s) in having seven shades available and by July 29th, Sephora had the complete range listed but with the last Shades 51 Peach Pink and 60 Warm Plum still unavailable. By September 13th, the only retailer I found that had those last two shades actively in stock was Selfridges.

Production and Formula Issues?

When the Melting Color Balms kept going back and forth between being available and then wiped off websites entirely, I wondered if they were merely behind on production and could not supply everything to all retail partners at once. That explanation would at least account for the severe lack of promotion for the launch on Armani’s part. The fact that my 30 Warm Coral shade arrived with the blush pan separate from the compact and 60 Warm Plum was partly dried out and hard led me to suspect the delays might be due to flaws in the manufacturing process and a quality control problem with the elusive missing 51 Peach Pink and 60 Warm Plum shades. I can’t think of other reasons it was unavailable from the rest of the line, including Armani’s own website, for nearly three months. I even tried searching for it online while I was in Germany in case it was available in Europe.

Regarding the detached pan, when my order arrived, I instantly took it out of the box to begin taking photos. I noticed it felt very warm to the touch. It was a hot Florida day and it was likely even hotter in the delivery truck. When I turned the compact over to take a photo of the back, I heard a clink sound and opened the compact to see the pan plop out onto my hand. Glued products when left in a hot vehicle can melt enough for pans to detach. Then when it cools down, if the pan isn’t touching the glue anymore (as the ring of blush on the mirror of my compact suggested) the glue can dry back up and leave you with an unstuck product.

I noticed a hole at the bottom of the compact (the sticker on the bottom is peeking through from the other side), which usually indicates the product is recyclable and/or refillable. So, I thought if it’s refillable then the pans should attach to something on their own. I cleaned off the bottom of the blush pan and put it in a custom magnetic palette to see if it would stick, but it did not. Then I wanted to see if the compact would hold the pan without glue, so I cleaned off the glue bottom as well as I could, but it wouldn’t stay in. Because this isn’t a powder product and I don’t have to worry about it breaking, I figured I could keep using the blush while loose in the compact as long as I was careful with it. I’m not sure if the pan suddenly adhered to the remnants of the glue again or if the pressure from my brush hitting the pan into the compact got it to attach, but it somehow stayed within the compact again, even when I held it upside down!

As for Shade 60 Warm Plum, my experience with it was completely different to Shade 30, but I’m willing to bet Shade 30’s consistency and performance is the way the line is actually intended to be. Unfortunately, what I got with this one was a blush that took quite a lot of effort to get product onto my brush and even on my fingers. The blush was so hard that I could barely scratch the surface with my nail and what I was able to scratch away broke off in a hardened chunk. I contacted Selfridges inquiring about a possible batch issue and they informed me they were unaware of one but would look into it. Then they refunded me, which is nice considering the level of dryness and difficulty to work with it will only get worse with time. So with the refund, perhaps I’ll buy it again in the future and hopefully it’ll be in the beautiful creamy formula that 30 Warm Coral has.

This photo demonstrates the amount of product that gets picked up with one swipe of the Plum shade versus a single swipe of Coral.

30 Warm Coral Review

This product is so pretty on the skin! It’s described as, “a lightweight oil-in-powder formula that seamlessly adds color to cheeks and eyes for a natural matte makeup look.” The shade range is quite unique, seeing as how there aren’t any true pinks. The blushes are on the warmer or cooler sides of brown, with the most colorful pops leaning orange and plum. Specific shades in the line are intended to be contour shades. Because these tones are so natural, there’s a limit to how much you can build them. I can make Shade 30 fully opaque on my cheeks, but the color is somewhat camouflaged against my skin tone, so it still appears a bit subtle in person and on camera. I do like that it’s impossible for me to go overboard with this shade, but I only enjoy it on days I’m specifically in the mood for a warm-neutral look.

I love how this melts into my other products. It embodies the best that a cream product can offer in terms of the finish and application process. This doesn’t leave a wet or heavy feeling on this skin, but it transfers heavily and easily since it does not dry down. Powder helps to minimize the transfer, but this is the type of product I only suggest to those who don’t touch their faces a lot.

This product looks great when blended with a brush or a sponge. When I apply with my fingers, it looks alright, but it’s not as perfectly smooth on my skin as it would be if I used tools. The formula is likely the reason because it’s prone to transfer, so the fingers simultaneously smooth the product with each tap and also picks some of it back up.
Multiple layers with a brush is easily eclipsed by 1-2 dips into the product with a sponge, so the sponge will give the most color payoff in the quickest amount of time. My guess is that it has something to do with the water in the sponge and the oil in the blush repelling each other and preventing the blush from getting too soaked into the sponge, therefore applying more product onto the skin.

The Melting Balm is long-lasting and wonderful when applied on top of foundation, but on bare skin, the product got absorbed within hours! I reapplied during the first non-foundation wear test to see if I just didn’t apply enough at the start of the day, but the same thing happened! On day two of testing, I skipped foundation again, but applied setting powder all over my face to see how the blush would perform on top of it. Once again, my skin soaked up the product within hours! Realistically, I wouldn’t want to wear these kind of shades on a minimal makeup day anyway. If I’m going to wear nothing but blush, I prefer for it to be a color that stands out a bit more. But it’s important to note that those with dry skin should wear this over a cream or liquid foundation. Then there should not be longevity issues.

Besides the cheeks, this can also be used on the eyes. It looked fine when I tried it in the crease, and lasted all day as well, but when I tried to use it all over the eye without any other eyeshadows, I could see that it settled into the lines of my eyes. This happens regardless of whether I apply the product onto my bare eyelids, on top of set or unset concealer, or over a MAC Paint Pot. This also happens even if I try to set with power after applying. If I were to continue using this on my eyes, I would keep it in the crease only.

Shade 30 is around the entire eye in the top half of the photo. In the bottom half of the photo, it’s applied only in the crease with Natasha Denona Metropolis shadows.

60 Warm Plum Review

Whatever happened with the formula of this particular shade caused it to feel significantly less creamy, which also gave it a drier feeling on the skin. When I finally get the intensity of the blush that I want, which is still relatively subtle, I would say that it dries down. It still transfers like the Coral blush did, but the transfer is minimal and it is just as long lasting on my skin when applied on top of my usual liquid foundations.

Because of how long it takes to build up the color, using my fingers to apply the blush is impractical. The formula issue makes it prone to patchiness. With a brush, I have to use hard pressure in order to get the product onto my cheek and the force needed to blend it can disrupt my concealer and also where I put bronzer if I’m not careful. Just like with Coral, a damp sponge will give the most pigmentation with the least effort. I actually like how this looks when it isn’t applied intensely, so I put on the blush with a sponge and then use what’s left of my foundation brush to sheer the edges and get a deep pink on my cheek since it only looks plum-purple when heavily applied.

When used on the eyes, I have the same creasing issue. Technically this is worse because of how many layers I have to apply to get it to show up. No matter what I do, the creasing happens within five to ten minutes. Then within an hour it moves, breaks down, and fades in places. With Shade 30, it will last longer in the crease of the eye but not the lid. With Shade 60, it doesn’t last anywhere.

Regardless of all the complications associated with these blushes, I don’t regret buying them. They aren’t my favorite cream formula, but something about the particular tones stand out in my collection. The packaging is also aesthetically pleasing and makes me so happy to see them on my dresser. Judging based on Shade 30 alone, I’m still not certain they’d be worth the price to everyone, but somehow I still really like them. The benefits are so special to me that they outweigh the negatives I normally wouldn’t want, especially for such pricey blushes.

One extra bit of information left to note is that according to the packaging, these should last 24 months after opening, which is quite a big claim for a cream product. We will see if that holds up with Shade 60 if I continue to use it with a sponge.

That’s all for today! I’ve certainly tried my hardest to give the full picture of the best these blushes can offer, along with potential issues. I hope this has helped!

-Lili ❤

Huda Beauty Wild Obsessions Jaguar Palette and Juvia’s Place Rebel Army Quad Review

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Today’s theme is Danger in the Jungle! It’s a classic man versus nature battle with man being represented by the Army quad from the Juvia’s Place Rebel Collection. The challenger representing nature is the Jaguar palette from Huda Beauty’s Wild Obsessions Collection.
The Army quad is the first Juvia’s Place eyeshadow I’ve purchased since February 2021 after declaring in my review that I was taking a break from their 4-6 pan palettes. I was disappointed by the quality of the mattes and the constant additions of pressed glitters. The stakes were high when I decided that my view of this quad would determine if I would permanently stop purchasing 4-6 pan eyeshadows from Juvia’s Place.
This was also my first Huda Beauty Obsessions palette since the release of the Gemstone collection in 2018, so the success of the Jaguar palette would help determine my confidence in purchasing more from the Obsessions line in the future.

Huda Beauty Wild Obsessions Jaguar Palette

The eyeshadows are not named, so I numbered them based on their positions in the palette from left to right from the top to the bottom. My swatches are in the reverse order though.

Jaguar is like a vastly superior version of the Fenty Snap Shadows palette in #6 Smoky. Huda’s has over 7x larger net weight than Fenty’s and has three additional shades for only $4 more. This palette has a mix of warm and cool tones that add a slightly different twist to a traditional smokey eye color story.

Shade 1 has a warm dark base with silver shimmer. I pick up more of the silver if I use a brush, but when I apply with my finger, I’m able to get more of the warm dark base color underneath.
Shade 2 is a purplish grey that pairs well with a cool-toned look and the other purple shades in the palette. Shade 2 and Naaru from the Kaleidos Club Nebula palette are the only pale purple-grey shades that I can think of that look nice on me. It is opaque and easy to blend.
Shade 3 is a pigmented metallic gold. There’s nothing really exciting about it beyond being a pretty color with a nice amount of sparkle.

Shade 4 looks slightly burgundy-toned with flash on, but in normal lighting, it’s a pigmented dark brown. I prefer to use it to add depth to warm looks and just use the black shade for cool-smokey ones.
Shade 5 is listed as the “one never-before-seen, multi-reflective, 3D-embossed python print,” shade. Based on the wording, I think the marketing is literally referring to the embossing being never seen before from Huda’s range and that they’re not actually talking about the formula being special. I bring this up because I kept hearing that the snake skin shade was supposed to be a brand new formula, but besides the semi-dry texture, I don’t notice anything different about this shimmer over the others in this palette. It has multi-color shimmer (lilac, pink, and silver) and that’s the extent of what makes it special. It’s very pretty but a little over-hyped. Also, I expected this to be a topper shade, but I was happy to see the base color shows through and it’s not fully sheer.
Shade 6 is the gold shimmer version of Shade 1, but with an added dark-olive tone. It’s a little warmer of a color than Shade 1, but not by a lot.

Shade 7 is a creamy beige. I was impressed that it was so opaque that it could cover the darker shades in the crease, but it’s not as easy to use when trying to create a gradient with the darker mattes, since blending it too much sheers it out.
Shade 8 is a lovely matte black. It has the right amount of pigment that keeps it opaque but easy to blend as well. It also makes for a great base underneath the more sparkly shadows. This shadow did come broken and got some of the particles in the other shades, but I was able to wipe them clean, even off the cream shade number 8. So, I decided not to bother contacting Sephora.
Shade 9 is the one disappointing shade in the palette in terms of formula, but not color. It has a warm purple base with purple and gold shimmer. It’s a sheer shade to begin with and is difficult to get product onto the brush. I had to use my finger and it felt like there was already some kind of film or hard layer on top at the very first use. I had to use Shade 8 underneath to get it to stand out on my eyes, and even then, I didn’t think it was impactful enough on its own.

Although I felt it necessary to use the black shadow under some of the sparkly shades, and I favor opaque shadows over toppers, I’ve been very happy with the overall quality of this palette. I feel confident in buying more in the future if the colors included are shades I would use often enough. The mattes were easy to work with for the purposes I wanted and I liked the tones of them. They were certainly much better than the ones in the Juvia’s Place Quad.

Juvia’s Place Rebel Army Quad

I’m sad to say this palette did not live up to the expectations I had for it. It is not like their older formula that I loved. If a shadow swatches poorly, it doesn’t automatically mean it won’t perform well on this eyes, but Shade 1 looked patchy on my arm and took ages to blend and keep from looking patchy on my eyes. The time it took me to blend Shade 1 in my crease to my satisfaction was the same amount of time it took for me to do the entirety of Look #1 in the Huda Jaguar section. Shade 4 still takes a while to blend, but it’s not as hard to do as Shade 1. When I compared the mattes in this palette to the ones in The Tribe palette, Tribe’s mattes aren’t as thin. They are so much more pigmented and take significantly less time to blend.
Juvia’s Place has their own eyeshadow primer now, which is said to be similar to the Anastasia Beverly Hills Eye Primer. I’ve used these shadows over the MAC Paint Pot and Gerard Cosmetics Clean Canvas, so perhaps if I used Juvia’s primer the shadows would perform better.

The shimmer shadows remind me of the formula of Menagerie Cosmetics’ shimmers, which is a texture and consistency I despise. I don’t dislike these as much as the ones from Menagerie, but they are still wet, thick, and clump up. This makes them difficult to apply smoothly over the lid. Shade 3 is much wetter than Shade 2 and I had such a hard time trying to use my Nyx and Stila liquid eyeliner pens over that texture. The tip frayed with the Nyx and got clogged with the Stila. The Nyx pen was on its last legs, but the Stila wasn’t even 6 months old. I have to use these with more traditional eyeliner pencils and it’s still a struggle.
Formula issues aside, I do really like the colors and the level of shine. Shade 3 is much brighter than I’d expect out of an Army quad though, so I felt like it didn’t fit the looks I was trying to go for (grungy and muted). I had to tone it down with Shade 2 on top of it.

While this quad is only $10 for nearly the same amount of product as the Jaguar palette, I’d rather spend more for better quality. In fact, it’s a shame that the Tribe palette from Juvia’s Place was discontinued because I would easily recommend that one over this. While it’s true that I can make this palette work and the colors are beautiful, I don’t want to spend the time required in order to get the outcome I want from the shadows. So, I will only buy the larger palettes from Juvia’s Place in the future because Wahala II leads me to believe the newer palettes in the larger size might still be better quality. I am happy the Rebel Army quad did not have a pressed glitter, which is moving in the right direction, but I doubt I will use it again.

It seems that in the battle between man and nature, nature has won today!

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

After the Hype: Are These Palettes Still Worth Buying?

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Today I’ll be discussing palettes that I purchased, but I felt uninspired to review after the hype went down. I’m going to discover whether these purchases were still worth me buying or if I should have skipped them.

Pat Mcgrath Celestial Divinity Luxe Quad in Interstellar Icon

I essentially traded my Nocturnal Nirvana Blitz Astral Quad for this one instead. I already own Blue Blood in the Eye Ecstasy: Subversive mini palette, but I don’t mind having a repeat shade since that one is so small. I couldn’t get the stunning blue-purple duochrome Hypnotique or the sparkly bronze-taupe Divine Dahlia out of my mind, so I knew at some point I would add this to my collection. I like palettes with at least 6 shades, so having only four options feels limiting, especially as there are no mattes: just three shimmers and a satin. However, I don’t take PML eyeshadows on trips, so as long as I’m only using them at home I can utilize mattes from other palettes. I also don’t mind using the burgundy Blue Blood shadow in the crease or outer corner the way I typically would use a dark matte shade. Golden Polaris is a nice highlighting color for the inner corner, under the brow, and center of the lid. While these are all pretty on the eye, I’ve always found that glitter primer under the shimmer shades is needed to show their true beauty.

Despite feeling limited in shade options, I understand why this palette sold better than the other quads and I’m happy to have this.

BH Cosmetics Sweet Shoppe Pistachio Palette

I didn’t purchase this during the initial launch, but I was able to get it during the restock. At the time, I had a negative experience with their customer service and wasn’t planning on buying from them again, for multiple reasons, but my love of green shadows wore me down. Everyone talked about how this is the best quality BH cosmetics has done, but I don’t see it. To me, it’s on par with the other shadows from them in my collection like the Zodiac palettes. It’s great quality considering the price, but it’s not more special than anything else from the brand, nor does it top Juvia’s Place, Sydney Grace, Pat Mcgrath, Natasha Denona, Kaleidos, etc. It might be better than most of Colourpop’s shadows, but not even all of them. It’s good, I just don’t know why it got the insane attention that it did. The mattes are pretty tones and not necessarily hard to blend, but they took a little work. I had no issues with the shimmers though. When I think about all the gorgeous green shadows I own from Sydney Grace and Coloured Raine, I think I could have skipped this.

Makeup by Mario Master Metallics Eyeshadow Palette

I heard nothing but crickets just one month after the brand’s launch. I’m used to specific product hype dying down, but I literally forgot this brand existed until the recent Soft Pop/Sculpt collection release of bronzers and blushes. In any case, I had absolutely no idea what looks I could create with this palette, but I wanted it anyway. Because they are all shimmery shades, I knew this would be a supplemental palette. However, I struggle to think of anything but basic shade combinations involving neutral mattes or one single matte shade to pair with one of these on the lid.

I have more examples of the Makeup by Mario shadows in use in the Sugarpill section.

That Metallic #6 olive-gold-green shade is my weakness!

These shadows look more impactful, smoother, and more metallic when applied wet. Using a finger isn’t even enough for my taste; I need to use these with a spray. The brand has a palette specifically for use with a mixing medium (Master Metals), so I wondered if that was the case for this palette as well. Though I technically don’t have the same product, the slight extra intensity that the Mehron mixing medium provides isn’t enough for me to suggest anyone has to buy it for use with the Master Metallics. I think any spray will be good enough.

This is a nice palette of lid shades, but the fact that I have so many gorgeous single shimmer eyeshadows means I could have skipped getting this.

Sugarpill Fun Size Palette

This palette took many months (maybe even a year) to restock, but I eventually got my hands on it. I went in depth showing the different swatches above because I find that the primer you use with these will seriously impact how well this palette performs. Besides pastels and white bases being a great match, the actual Gerard Cosmetics formula helps these to stick better to the eye. I think these shades are very interesting and they are the best I have in my collection when it comes to super vibrant mattes in pastel-like colors. I like these even more than the Terra Moons neons, but between the Neons and Fun Size, I definitely don’t feel the need to buy anymore pastel or neon eyeshadows after this. This palette was definitely worth the hype.

Glamlite Cake Palette

This comes in very bulky, but very cute packaging, which I have kept despite how much valuable space it takes up on my eyeshadow palette holder. Because Glamlite isn’t sold at retailers, it has only been hyped up among the Indie Brand Youtubers and other makeup enthusiasts who buy from small independent brands. But among that circle, this was definitely spoken about consistently until the release of the Ice Cream Dream palette. Then this one took a backseat.

The mattes are a nice balance of being very pigmented but still easy to blend. The majority are easy to use. I’ve only had issues with Pineapple and Ube needing a light base underneath to help the shadows be more vibrant on my eyes. Dulce de Leche also needs to be packed on heavily in order to stay. Other than needing a lighter base with some shades, these have worked well with the different primers I use. As for the shimmers, they remind me of slightly less sparkly versions of JD Glow shadows with a smoother texture and smaller shimmer particle size. Cinnamon and Guava are the standouts for me. Also, I think Banana is the only yellow shimmer I have that’s this bright without a grainy texture. The other shimmers are nice, just not unique shades.
The only complaint I have about the shimmers is that I still get a lot of fallout around my eyes even when using a glitter primer. Other than that, I don’t think this was a bad purchase!

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Artist Couture Love Sprung and Supreme Nudes Palette Review

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I’ve toyed with the idea of making an “Influencer Brands” review, but I kept pushing it back as I haven’t been inspired by the products in mind for that post. So, I decided to give Artist Couture a solo review. The brand is owned by Angel Merino, also known as “mac_daddyy” on social media. I heard the name mentioned many times by Jackie Aina when I used to follow her, but I’m more familiar with the brand than the owner. I remember when Artist Couture first started out with loose highlighters at Sephora. I wanted to try the brand, but I wasn’t interested in the products until the Midnight Maven palette. I did not end up buying that palette, but in 2021 my wish to try some of the products was finally too strong to ignore, especially near the peak of my blush obsession.

Artist Couture Love Sprung Face Palette Version 2

Fun Fact: In my order from the Artist Couture website, this was actually listed as VII, which looks like roman numeral 7. I was very confused when I added version 2 to my cart but the confirmation page had what I thought was Love Sprung 7, until I figured it out.

This was actually my first Artist Couture product! I purchased it before the Supreme Nudes palette, even though Supreme Nudes is an older release. I had no idea what to expect, but I was hopeful that it would be great. The satin blushes are both quite pigmented. They look like mattes in the pan but they are technically satins since they have the tiniest amount of sheen to them.

Infatuated is my preferred type of shade because I like blushes with a little bit of orange, but leaning more on the side of brown or pink. This one is described as a terracotta peach, which is just what I like. Bold oranges don’t look as nice on me.

I was surprised how pretty I thought Lotus Love was, considering I typically don’t go for berry blushes, but this isn’t a deep berry. Perhaps that makes a difference. I find it fascinating that oranges and berries, shades touted as being best for deep skin tones, are present in this blush palette, but in ways that make them more interesting and different from what is common on the market. These blend well into the skin, but they aren’t the longest lasting. They fade a bit quickly on my cheeks at around the six hour mark, and also when I’ve use them as eyeshadows. I don’t mind that as much, but it’s important to note. Also, the satins have an extreme amount of kickup! I haven’t seen kickup on a blush like this since reviewing the Milani Baked Blushes!

I’m also not certain if the pigments in these blushes have something that throws off cameras. It seems like a standard formula, but I attempted to take photos of these blushes four different times over the course of four different days before I finally settled on these. I literally had over over 500 unusable photos. I had to change my camera settings to properly get them to show up. I also had to wear specific clothing colors and lipstick colors to get the blushes to show true to color on my cheeks. I always struggle with my camera and lighting, but never to this extent!

The shimmer blush in the center, called Angel Energy, is a mauve-pink intended to be more of a highlighter or blush topper than a standalone blush. It feels very wet to the touch and when I first opened the palette, I noticed part of the left side of the pan looked darker than the rest. It resembles the uncommon occurrence when oil separates from a creamy shimmer eyeshadow. I figured perhaps this shade wasn’t mixed well, but I looked at the ingredient list and saw the amount of emollients: the dimethicones, forms of glycerol, the oils, and waxes. It’s definitely not an issue of being mixed improperly. This is intended to feel slick. Sephora describes it as being a “bouncy” formula, which gives the impression that it would feel similar to a Colourpop Super Shock Blush or putty blush, but it’s not bouncy to me, just wet.

I’ve highlighted the ingredients that to my knowledge are emollient/slip/moisturizing ingredients in Angel Energy. I may have missed some or mismarked some as I am not a cosmetic chemist. As a makeup enthusiast, I did my best research.

Overall, I do recommend this palette. The packaging is cute, it blends well, the shades are pretty, and the price is pretty good. Of course, it’s only worth buying if you love the color story. The formula isn’t holy grail status by any means, just nice.

Artist Couture Supreme Nudes Palette

I wrestled with my decision to buy this palette for an entire year. I kept talking myself out of it because it’s a neutral palette when I prefer colorful ones, it has quite a lot of those light brown toned shades that tend not to show up on me, and the shimmers looked pretty but I knew they could never compare to the quality of shimmers from indie brands. During the last Sephora VIB sale, I couldn’t hold back and decided to get it. The shade Supreme was pretty much the sole reason I could not let go of this palette. Olive leaning antique gold type of shades are my Kryptonite.

The edited photo above represents how I expected this palette to work for me: repeat brow bone shades, repeat golds, a warm brown shimmer, antique olive green shimmer, a warm deepening shade, and a cool deepening shade. I wish I could say it turned out to be more diverse than I predicted, but it did not. While I can see the differences in tone among the six shades I marked above as being brow highlighting shades, it’s not enough to make a significant difference. Exposed and Stripped look cooler or warmer depending on what eye base I use; their own tones don’t matter. I’m glad that they at least are not stark or ashy on me like some light shades are. Nudist, Transcend, and Eccentric all blend into my skin and look like my natural skin tone, regardless of the color of the eyeshadow base. Silhouette looks like my natural skin color as well, but a cool tone version.

All the mattes in this palette are equally pigmented and blendable. There is a bit of kickup that I have to clean after each use, but it’s nowhere near as messy as the Love Sprung Blush palette.
As for the gold shades, Opulence has larger shimmer particles and takes on more of a copper gold tone. Lavish is a yellow-toned gold with finer shimmer, and when I put I these two next to each other on each eye, I could see the difference. However, as time went on during the day and the shadows started to dull, but not fade, they looked less different than before. In the future, I will likely stick to using Opulence on the lid for the sparkle factor and Lavish on the inner corner so I can worry less about it getting in my eye. They serve different purposes due to their consistencies and not as much for their color.
When it comes to the two deepest shades, Aesthetic slightly darkens the outer corner but isn’t deep enough to give me any real depth. For that purpose, I can only rely on Minx, but it makes all my eye looks a lot cooler-toned when I use it. I expected Aesthetic to be much warmer but it only stays warm if I use it on bare skin. If I use it over a base (whether a traditional eyeshadow primer or foundation/concealer), it deepens to a neutral toned brown, even if the base has fully dried down and even if it has been powder set as well.

The two most distinct shades in the palette are Bronziana and Supreme. Bronziana is much prettier than it looks in photos. It’s a bronze shade, but I believe it has reddish specks in the shimmer as well. It’s what I imagine the Hot Chocolit Fenty Gloss Bomb would look like as an eyeshadow.
As mentioned before, Supreme is a dark shimmery olive, but it doesn’t look on me the way I had hoped. I didn’t think it would be dull and muted. I can make it shinier if I spray my brush with MAC Fix+ and make it brighter by lightly patting Lavish on top. You can see how it looks on its own in eye look #1 versus eye look #6. Wetting it also helps to last longer because my eyeshadow looked just as good 10 hours later on the day I sprayed it in look #6.

Left eye and Right eye after 10 hours of wear.

I would have been crazy for Supreme if it had a touch more green in it, similar to Antheia from the Natasha Denona Mini Gold palette. In fact, if I could recreate this palette, it would be a combination of shades from the Mini Gold, and I would add a brighter or darker green and turn up the saturation of the red in Aesthetic and the yellow in Eccentric.

Of course, my desires would make it a far less traditional “Nude” palette. It’s clear to me that besides usability, every time I’m drawn to a neutral palette, it’s never as exciting as I anticipate. I knew Supreme Nudes wasn’t going to suit my tastes, but I still bought it anyway, and that’s my own fault. But what’s amazing to me is the fact that every time I use this palette, I find it to look so boring on my eyes until I put liner and mascara. Then suddenly I appreciate how soft the colors are, and how blended it looks, and the way the shimmers sparkle when they catch the light just right. It’s not my favorite palette and yet I can create pretty looks with it. They aren’t diverse looks, but at least they look pretty.

While my main goal of wearing eyeshadows is to create a pretty look, I need to have a desire to keep using it in order for it to be worth the purchase. I’m not confident in how I feel about this palette. The quality is great. The color story will be diverse enough and perfect for some but redundant and limiting for others. What I appreciate about neutral palettes is the ability to create a complete look, which technically this does because of Mink, but I would prefer to use a deep brown or black from another palette instead. I do like this palette more when I have another one to supplement it with. The packaging is so pleasing to look at, touch, and use (and this goes for the Love Sprung Palette as well). Something about the smooth shape, rounded edges, and shiny black surface makes me happy on some strange emotional/psychological level. The actual smooth surface literally feels nice under my fingers in a tactilely pleasing way. Regarding the functionality, it has a great mirror size and I love that the lid fully folds back so that those of us with vision problems can bring the mirror closer to the eye. It’s also a compact size, with the right amount of product, and is priced fairly. Of course, there’s also the extreme hype regarding this palette. I think it was in most beauty gurus’ “Best of 2020” videos. Because of my love of colorful shadows and my preferences regarding the depths and tones of shades, it didn’t live up to the hype for me. However, I do think I will continue to get use out of it when I pair it with other things. It does bring me joy to have it in my collection. If you’re a fan of neutral shades, I could easily recommend this to you. If you are my skin tone and wouldn’t get as much variety from this palette, assuming you want more variety, I would say maybe think twice about how useful this will be.

For those who are a fan of the Supreme Nudes Palette, it may interest you to know that Artist Couture has released a similar palette called the Supreme Bronze Palette. If this palette had been released during the Sephora VIB sale earlier this year, I would have still chosen the Supreme Nudes instead, purely for the olive Supreme shade.

Photo and information credit goes to Trendmood1 on Instagram.
It is now available for purchase at the Artist Couture and Sephora websites.

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Swatchfest #4: My Newest Single Eyeshadows

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I tend to post my newest purchases far in advance on my Instagram page, so if you’ve found me through there, you may have seen some of these already. However, the majority of these shadows I’m featuring today have not been posted on this blog until now.
In addition to arm swatches, I’ve also tried to do eye swatches and some finger swatches as well. Certain multichromes and duochromes look different depending on the light, so the trickiest ones to capture have the most variety of photos.
Lastly, unlike my in-depth Monday reviews, the intent of the Swatchfest is to just show how these look on me. I will of course still make mentions of things that I feel are important to note, and may be different from my past reviews of these brands.

Terra Moons

Cosmic Blaze is one more pressed neon pigment I added to my collection. Purple Clouds is a duochrome. The rest of the shadows I purchased are part of the expanded range of Chameleon shadows.

In the comment section of my Hindash review, I offered to compare a few shades in this post today. It’s interesting to see the differences between all the blue-purples. JD Glow’s Anomaly does look a lot like Terra Moons’ Moon Tide depending on the angle and the light. The base color of Anomaly leans purple with blue/aqua shimmer. The base color of Moon Tide is like a navy and purple with very similar shimmer. Moon Tide just has additional colors of shimmers as well. One doesn’t really need both, though differences are more noticeable on the eyelids.

JD Glow

I said I wasn’t going to buy anymore JD Glow shadows, but I saw the words, “30% off sale,” and I couldn’t help myself. I always wanted the shade See Weed and even though the discount didn’t apply to this shadow, I still wanted it anyway. I’d like to say now I’m content with my JD Glow stash.

Anomaly is a Galaxy shadow. N-Sane is a Galaxy shadow I reviewed previously, but I wanted to show it again in comparison to Anomaly.

See Weed is a pressed multichrome. It also comes in a loose and liquid form too. Watermark is a Galaxy shadow.

Moscato is part of the shimmer formula. Plum is a Galaxy shadow.

Devinah Cosmetics

At the time of me publishing this post, in one hour from now Devinah Cosmetics will be restocking most of their shadows and releasing their new Halo Moon Collection! I just wanted to let everyone know in case you’ve been waiting to get certain shades. I have a ton of duochromes and multichromes to go through, so I’m skipping the new launch for now.

Chromosphere and Australis are Aurorae Flares, the shadows most comparable to the Clionadh Cosmetics’ Jewelled Multichromes. I like the finish of Clionadh’s a tiny bit more, but the ones from Devinah are smoother in texture and easier to apply. I was tempted to get other shades but Australis is already supposed to be a dupe of Smoulder (which I have), Phenomenon to Weathered (also have), Magnetosphere is often compared to Rosette (another I have), Exosphere is like Trefoil (which I don’t feel I need), Hemisphere to Gargoyle (I also don’t need), Thermosphere and Spire (again, already have), Borealis to Castle, and Polaris to Oculus. Oculus and Crown Glass are similar enough, so I didn’t want a third similar shade. Chromosphere is similar to Clionadh’s Patina but apparently not an exact dupe. To see these similarities in action, I will link one of Millie’s videos a.k.a. badtothebrow a.k.a. the Queen of Multichromes.

Vela and Lynx are part of the Star Chasers Collection. On my skin, Vela does not look as yellow like the pan. Lynx looks how I expected Vela to look. It’s yellow with only a hint of warm orange that I hoped for. They’re still pretty but I would have skipped buying them if I knew.

Aquila is another Star Chaser. I was a lot more impressed with this shade. It reminds me of a more sparkly and more blue version of Verte from Clionadh. Fierce is a pressed pigment that may be discontinued as I can no longer find it on the website. It is the perfect copper-red-bronze shade I’ve been wanting!

Grinch and Patina are pressed mattes.

Meraki and Bambi are also pressed mattes.

Clionadh Cosmetics

Cryosphere is from the 66.5 N collection. Morgana is from Witchcraft vs Alchemy.

Ochre and Burnt Sienna are Deep Iridescent Multichromes.

Karat and Chocolate Orange are from the Ultra Metals collection.

Ray is from the Series 2 of Iridescent Multichromes.

Burnish is a Jewelled Multichrome.

Viseart

Viseart had a spring sale, so I purchased directly from their website. It took nearly a month to arrive and one item was declared as sold out a week after I purchased it, so I’m not sure if they were overselling. It’s also a bit strange to me that they had everything available for purchase as single shadows, but after the sale they wiped everything. Muse Beauty Pro is once again the only place to buy Viseart singles as an authorized seller.

In addition to single shadows, I bought the Dark Edit Palette as a replacement for the shadows in my original Dark Mattes palette which were very old and not performing as well. I haven’t worn any of them on my eyes yet.

The last thing I bought was the BoxyCharm x Viseart version of the Neutral Matte palette because despite it not being my kind of color story, I could never shake my desire for this. It came in the old packaging (with the square edges). I had empty Viseart palettes I wasn’t using, so I transferred them into the nicer custom palette with the rounded edges. I cracked most of the shadows in the process, but I was able to save them as seen in the photo below!

Some of the browns look straight up grey, which I was not expecting. This isn’t a case of the shades getting mixed up together either. They just pull very cool and gray on me. I’ve started to appreciate greys a little more, but I don’t think I’ll get as much use out of this than I hoped. At least I can finally stop pining for it! Also, Viseart matte swatches look terrible, but I’ve tried these on the eyes and can confirm they blend far better than they look.

Anyway, those are all the swatches for today! The next post will be Monday as usual!

-Lili ❤

10 Neglected Eyeshadow Palettes

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Urban Decay and Anastasia Beverly Hills are two brands whose eyeshadow palettes I continually buy but either only use a handful of times or never even swatch! And aside from the Too Faced Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar palette, every Too Faced palette I’ve purchased afterwards has been neglected too!
Today, I’ll be posting swatches of all the palettes I have left from those three brands. At one time I owned more than these, but they were either partially depotted, sold, or are too old to use. Those retired products that I wanted to keep for collector purposes are stored away and will not be featured here.

URBAN DECAY

With Urban Decay Naked palettes, I always want them badly and but then when I have them in my hand I just cannot bring myself to use them. I don’t know why! That’s how I’ve ended up giving away two of the original Naked palettes and the Naked Smokey.

Urban Decay Born to Run

This is one of the most well rounded palettes I own. It has light, medium, and deep depths of shades, warm and cool options, neutrals and colorful shades, mattes and shimmers/satins. I admire the versatility of this palette and the color story. Born to Run accomplished the goal as being a near perfect palette for those who are busy or traveling who want a lot of options in one palette. Born to Run feels lighter than the Naked palettes and it’s nice and compact. The shadows blend well and I can create a look fairly quickly. I get a decent amount of pigmentation with the first dip or two into the eyeshadow pans, but the shadows can be built up even more. Most looks I come up with are on the softer side, but Jet can give me more drama and smoke to a look. I have so many nice things to say about this, yet I have no explanation for why I’ve only used this palette one time prior to working on this post! As to why I don’t use it more often now, it’s because I’ve gotten way more into sparkly shimmers in the past year or so. Satins used to be my favorite formula in the beginning of my makeup journey, which this palette has plenty of, but now I always want a high impact shimmer on my lids. So, for my makeup style now, I prefer to use these shadows for everything else and then pop a multichrome on the lid or add another brand’s topper shade to give the look some oomph. Now that I’ve really given this palette a chance, I expect to use it more often.

I’ve seen this palette go on sale for half price several times (which is the price I bought mine for), but I think it’s actually worth the full price if this color story speaks to you and you don’t need impactful shimmers.

Urban Decay Naked Honey

I bought this palette and the ABH Jackie Aina palette on November 1st 2019 and both of them remained completely unused and even unswatched until I began this post! I wanted the Naked Honey for the packaging and at the time this was extremely hyped as one of the best Naked palettes since the original three. Plus, I was obsessed with the Queen shade which looked like it had a gorgeous olive green tinge to it in so many of the swatch photos I saw online. So, for those reasons, I bought this palette. It’s ironic that the green tinge in Queen is absolutely not visible on my skin. The outer packaging I’d been so in love with looked more dull in person than I expected. At the time this was released, monochromatic palettes were gaining popularity and I thought all these shades looked so beautiful, but I didn’t take into account the lack of depth and the fact that these aren’t different enough to really be worth me buying this at full price.

Sweet is the type of pale shade with a pink undertone I generally ignore in palettes unless it’s my only light/blending/highlighting shade option. Swarm will take the job of Sweet since it’s light enough and warmer, but even though it looks different in swatches from Keeper, on my eyes there is very little distinction between Swarm and Keeper. I could use them interchangeably. In swatches, it’s easy to see how Hive and Drip look like the same shade on me, with Hive just being a touch more yellow, though they’re both clearly warm toned browns. I believe these are intended to be midtone shades to add depth for those with skin tones lighter than mine, and I say this because these are too light to add any depth for my eyeshadow look. I could use these as brow bone transition shades because they’re still not far off from Swarm and Keeper. Sting is the only shade that I can use to create some shape but it’s still not dark enough for my taste. It’s darker than my typical mid-tone shade, but it’s also far from being as deepening of a shade as I want. So, I’ve come to realize that this palette doesn’t have as nice of a gradient for my skin tone as it would be for someone pale to maybe even light caramel. The mattes aren’t as pigmented as the Born to Run, but they’re still at a respectable quality and they’re blendable. I enjoyed using them, but to get the kind of look I prefer, I would basically have to use some variation of Swarm-Hive-Sting or Keeper-Sting every time. Regardless of the light to dark mattes I used, it would essentially turn out the same every time with just a different lid shade.

Speaking of lid shades, the shimmers are easy to differentiate in larger areas like a swatch, but if I actually use them next to each other on my lid, it’s hard to see a difference. In this situation, I actually don’t mind that because I usually have a maximum of two shimmers on lid: the main color and the highlighting color. I appreciate that these shades are legitimate shimmers and not satins like the Born to Run, but they still don’t have the full impact that I prefer, so I would only want to use one shimmer from this palette and supplement it by using another brand’s shadow as the highlighting shimmer anyway. I can use Golden next to Amber when I want a light-orange gold to transition into a more orange gold on the lid. I can use Honey when I want a yellow gold, Queen when I want a golden brown, or HBIC when I want a lighter golden brown than Queen.

Overall, this is a nice palette with quality that isn’t mind blowing but it’s at least good. I’d rate it 7 out of 10 (or 6 out of 10 if we take my personal preferences into account). This palette essentially gives me different tones of the same look. That was entirely my fault for not paying close enough attention to the color story.

Urban Decay Naked Heat

This is one palette I realized fairly quickly was giving me too similar of looks, but I held onto it far too long. I’m actually shocked this palette is still in circulation because I haven’t heard anyone talk about this in literal years. As shown in the swatches, there are many similar colors. Low Blow is my favorite of the first four shades to use as my starting color. Although I usually like an orange crease in a shade like He Devil, I prefer to use Cayenne. I’m limited on deepening shades, so En Fuego is for more colorful warm looks and Ashes for more neutral looks. However, I wish both of those were darker. For my shimmery lid shade, I never want to reach for Dirty Talk or Scorched while Lumbre is in this palette. That golden orange is my kind of shade, though it’s still not as vibrant as I wish. Wetting my brush and/or using my finger to apply or using glitter primer only goes so far. It really just comes down to the ingredient list with the type of shimmers Urban Decay uses (or doesn’t use).
I do like Ember. It’s a rich warm brown with enough bronze shimmer to keep it from looking flat.

I’ve wanted to sell this palette for so long but the going rate for this is so low that I decided to just keep it. However, I’m trying to condense my collection to just things I love and will use. I think this is a pretty palette but I’ve only used it a handful of times over the years and although the quality is nice, I have a ton of shades like these but in even better formulas, so I will not be keeping this for much longer if I can help it.

Urban Decay Game of Thrones Palette (DISCONTINUED)

I’m a major fan of Game of Thrones, minus the 8th season that I pretend doesn’t exist. At the time that this collection was released, I was thoroughly unimpressed by the color story of the palette and the bulky packaging. So, I skipped buying it until it came to Hautelook six months later at the $29 price instead of the original $65. The Winterfell shade was broken and created quite the mess inside the slot where the palette comes out, but I was able to save enough of it to repress and cleaned out the inner portion so the remnants of that shimmer wouldn’t continually mix with the other shades.

I find it so funny that I didn’t use this palette and continued to think the color story was ugly until I finally took it off display to use for this blog post. I looked at it for the first time in over a year and it was as if I was seeing it for the first time. The shades are beautiful! Most of these are absolutely my type of colors! I honestly don’t know how I ever thought this was ugly. If this palette had been released for the first time in 2021, I likely would have dropped the full $65 on it. It’s amazing how time can change one’s perspective on things. Plus, I actually don’t mind the bulkiness anymore because it looks nice next to the other book-looking palettes I have on display.

My best guess for not liking it initially is because there are quite a few neutral shimmers, which I tend to not gravitate towards. There are also a fair amount of light shades, but my issue with lighter eyeshadows on the market is that I don’t like how many of them look like there’s color to them in the pans, yet they just look white on my lids. I’ll take a light pink, a light purple, a light peach, etc. as long as it looks like an actual color on my eye and not “whitish-( insert color)” or white with a tinge of another color. I expected these lighter shades to be the kind I don’t like, so I’m happy they’re better.

Urban Decay Stoned Vibes Mini Eyeshadow Palette

This was a birthday gift from one of my best friends. One of the complaints I’ve had about Urban Decay shimmers is that they aren’t punchy enough for my style. These shimmers are more of my taste, however, the base color of these shades are so vibrant in the pans, but the marbled silver makes each color a lot lighter when actually applied to the skin. Seeker would be so much prettier if more of the purple flecks of shimmer could show through, as well as the lighter and darker blue. Energy is also still pretty, as I can still see some of the gold shimmer with the green, so I don’t mind as much that these two shades are lighter. However, Radiate changes to a light pink which I really don’t care for. This is the reason that even though the Full Size Stoned Vibes palette has been on sale for 50% off, I decided not to get it. I love the shades in the pans but those aren’t the colors that end up on the eyes. As for this palette, I’ll continue to use it and will pretty much have the same 2-3 mattes in the crease (Attraction with Eclipse or Optimist with Eclipse) with either Seeker and Energy. The mattes blend well, but I only like to use Optimist as a shade to blend edges, Eclipse as my deepening shade, and Attraction in the crease of a warmer toned look. The only times I’ve continued to use Energy is when I’ve patted a separate multichrome shadow on top.

Anastasia Beverly Hills

Past palettes I’ve owned from Anastasia Beverly Hills have been the Self-Made palette, Norvina, and Alyssa Edwards. One thing I’ve noticed about the brand’s eyeshadows is that the quality begins to diminish after a year. All the ones I’ve seen have a 12m open canister symbol, so they at least work well for the time frame intended. I don’t know if their eyeshadows are a vegan formula, but I’ve noticed the palettes that start to not blend as well for me are the ones that are vegan. They aren’t unusable, but I just notice the change after a year. Perhaps it’s a climate issue and the high humidity in Florida causes this to occur with vegan formulas. Or it could be an issue with the particular preservatives. I’m not sure. The Norvina Volume One has been the exception so far, but I will discuss that in more detail in that section.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Jackie Aina Palette

I regret not using this palette sooner, and I say that because I had way fewer purple eyeshadows at the time of purchase. I also had very few duochromes and no multichromes, so shades like Sponsored (goldish olive brown) and Trust Issues (iridescent white in the pan but yellow gold on the skin) would have been so much more impressive to me in 2019 than they are now. They’re still beautiful shades, which I appreciate. I just know I would have had a stronger reaction to this palette if I’d used it back then. There is also the issue of the mattes blending nicely, but I have a sneaking suspicion they would have performed even better if they weren’t 18 months old. While palettes do last longer if they stay unused in the box, I immediately took this out of the box when I bought it and have opened it several times to at least give it a look throughout the time of owning it. So, that exposure to air multiple times started the clock ticking, even though they hadn’t been used on my eyes til now.

I like all the looks I’ve created with this palette. I have to build up the shade Credit for it to deepen the outer corners the way I like and Ginger doesn’t show easily on my skin, but I like the color variety I get with Supreme, Pinker, Big Wig, and Edges. The shimmers are great. They are definitely a step up from Urban Decay’s shimmer formula. I like that the shimmer particles from ABH tend to be so small but very reflective. Zamn is the exception as those glitter particles are large. Trust Issues and Dwollahs are about medium sized.

I’ve seen this palette go on sale for $31. Something that may be an incentive to getting this palette is that I see similarities in the color stories between this palette and Pat Mcgrath’s $78 Celestial Divinity palette.

The shades aren’t identical, but they were similar enough for me to think about comparing them. If I paid closer attention to the shadows I have in my collection, I may have reconsidered buying Celestial Divinity since that was the later release.

Norvina Vol. 1 Palette

Oh, boy. The story behind this palette’s place in my collection involves so many emotional ups and downs.

On August 27th 2019, I cashed in 2000 Ulta Reward Program Points in exchange for $125, making this palette and the other items I bought in that order nearly free. I was on an emotional high when I got this palette a little over a week later. I took the palette photos and eye looks shown above on the very first day I had it with the intention of getting a blog post out as soon as possible.

One of the first things I noticed about the palette was the chalky smell, like cheap eyeshadows sometimes have. I was confused because the shadows blended so beautifully and performed so well, so I didn’t think there should have been anything wrong with the ingredients. There was quite a bit of kickup though that dispersed in the air and I did inhale a bit of the shadows. As the night went on, I started having sinus issues that turned into full on respiratory issues. This might sound alarming but I’d been having “incidents” involving excruciating internal pain, struggling to breathe, etc in the six months prior. I was on new medication as well (doctors couldn’t figure out the source of the problem but were giving me meds to try and treat some of the symptoms), which had side effects of their own. I couldn’t tell if I was having a reaction to the shadows or if the timing was coincidentally bad. I actually mentioned it to a friend on Discord.

And later that night I said this…

A little after midnight, I had an incident that wouldn’t stop. It was the worst one I’d ever had and I’ll spare the details but…it was horrific. They generally lasted 2-3 hours but six hours later it was showing no signs of stopping and I had to consider that this was urgent. By 6:30 am I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was physically exhausted from what my body was doing and the lack of sleep, among other things. I drove myself to the hospital (which was admittedly reckless in my condition). I was there for five days while they did tests and it was discovered that my gallbladder was inflamed and I had a ton of gallstones and they were were continuously getting lodged in ducts and it had seriously effected my liver function as well. In the space of those five days I had multiple tests run, my second endoscopy (the first one having only found stomach inflammation because my gallbladder wasn’t checked), and finally the surgery to remove my gallbladder. I was also very unlucky that my uvula had been damaged when I had to be intubated mid procedure when I stopped breathing properly (you can look up uvular necrosis but be warned it looks gross). It took about three weeks to fully heal and be able to eat normal meals again. While I didn’t think my medical issues and the palette were directly related, my liver was compromised by my gallbladder problem, so it’s possible I was having an allergic reaction and my liver wasn’t equipped to deal with the detox. I have no idea. All I know is that I was so freaked out by having to go to the hospital the day after using it that I didn’t touch the palette again until March 2021 when I began periodically working on this post.

I’m happy to report that I now have no issues using this palette! I wish I could remember which purple shade caused the issue originally. I had notes somewhere at one point where I planned all the eye looks I intended to create, but I have no idea where it went or what shades I used in the 2019 pictures, so I did two fresh looks in 2021.

I have a lot of negative associations with this palette, but when I finally opened it up again recently, I felt joy. I felt inspired again. I thought of so many different color combinations I could create. That original excitement about having this palette finally returned. Unlike all prior ABH palettes, the shadows in Norvina Volume 1 hasn’t changed in performance, despite being a few months short of two years old. While I have decided to take the chance and continue to use this palette (at least one more time), the incident still scared me off from trying the other shadows in Norvina’s line. In fact, I’ve decided that I will no longer purchase Anastasia Beverly Hills and Norvina eyeshadows in the future. I prefer to purchase palettes with eyeshadows that can last me far longer than a year.

Too Faced Cosmetics

Too Faced Let It Snow, Girl Holiday Collection (Limited Edition/Discontinued)

After many low-quality Christmas releases, Too Faced earned the reputation of having cutely packaged holiday makeup with the quality inside not being on par with their permanent collections. I knew this, however, when I was strolling through Ulta and saw that the palette at least swatched well, I decided to buy it. I believe this was 50% off before Christmas and I think I got an additional 20% off, but I can’t remember for certain. I just know when I bought it was sometime between December 2019 and January 2020. Between needing yet another surgery (this time due to spinal issues) and quarantining due to the pandemic, I didn’t have much inspiration to test out the new makeup I was buying, even though I was depressed and continued making cosmetics purchases as a way to cheer myself up. But now I’m finally getting around to using this palette for the first time!

The quality is okay. I can make it work. The mattes are definitely not creamy and the shimmers have a rough texture. The bigger issue is that if I lay down one shade, it goes on the skin fine, but trying to blend another color on top of it is a struggle. Resting Wish Face is patchy on its own, but I definitely had a hard time getting the shade to stick on the outer corner of my eyes in the look below. The same happened with Chocolate Wasted except that it’s nice by itself but as a deepening up shade it did not want to layer on top of Obvious-Sleigh.

Snow Glowbe is a pressed Glitter, so I haven’t messed with that shade at all. While I know I can make this palette work and could see myself using it a few more times, I’m more likely to just put this in retirement. The packaging is cute, which was the main reason I bought it. I’d rather spend my time using better shadows though that bring me joy to use.

Too Faced Chocolate Gold

Ever since Jackie Aina sneak-peaked this palette, I wanted it. I was very stubborn about not purchasing it at full price though, which is why it was released in December 2017 yet I didn’t purchase it until November 2019. It gives me a rush to get a good deal. The palette alone retails for $49 but Ulta had a set that included the palette, a full size tube of Better Than Sex mascara, and full size tube of the Shadow Insurance primer for only $52. Combine that with a $10 off discount code, $125 point redemption, and $25 gift card, I ended up paying only $3 of my $161 order. And this is why I love shopping at Ulta.

The initial reason I didn’t try this palette right away was because I saw a clear fingerprint in the shade Decadent and it put me off the palette until now.
Because I’ve been using all my neglected palettes back to back, the first thing I noticed was that the Holla For a Dolla shade is extremely similar to Gilded Ganache from the original Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette. I think I prefer Holla For a Dolla because it looks slightly more green, but both of these are the kinds of shades I expected Queen from the Urban Decay Naked Honey palette to look like.

Another thing I noticed as I was creating looks from this palette is how similar the color story is to my Persona Cosmetics Identity Two palette. The Chocolate Gold palette was released two years before the Identity Two, so I wonder if Sona was inspired by it.

There are no exact dupes, but I could definitely get a similar look. It has been no secret that the Identity Two was poised to be my favorite palette of 2020. In comparing them, I definitely prefer the buttery texture and pigmentation of the Identity Two over Chocolate Gold. In each comparison I favor the Persona swatches except when it comes to Livin’ Lavish. I definitely prefer that bright warm purple over the somewhat dull colored Confident.

I clearly have a type, as I do like the color story of Chocolate Gold. I liked the looks I was able to come up with and the quality was decent. It was definitely a step up from the Let it Snow palette in terms of texture and blendability. I would say this palette is of equal quality to the Urban Decay Naked Palettes, but Chocolate Gold has a better shade gradient and shimmers with a little more impact. The one downside is that now that I know how it compares to the Identity Two, I’m going to reach for that palette every time over this one.

Too Faced Original Chocolate Bar Palette

I knew this palette would be cool-toned but when I purchased it in March 2020 (one of those distraction-from-the-pain purchases) and swatched it for the first time, I realized it was way more cool toned than I thought. I didn’t think they looked as pretty on me as they did on everyone else I saw who had this palette. The one consolation I felt was that I only spent $25 on it due to the “Who Runs the World: Squirrels” set Too Faced had on their website which included this palette, a cute squirrel cosmetic pouch, Full Size Chocolate Gold Bronzer I could use as a highlighter, a mini Better Than Sex mascara, and a liquid lipstick. Aside from the initial swatches, I didn’t touch this palette again until 2021.

In all the eye looks, I had to switch to my Gerard Cosmetics Clean Canvas in White because I could not get most of the colorful shades to show anything but brown (and similar browns) on my eyes without it. On camera, Black Forest Truffle and Cherry Cordial only show the tiniest tinge of red-purple, but they look even more brown if I use a regular eyeshadow base.

Some of the looks I created turned out alright, and are definitely helped by that white eyeshadow base, but I’m still a bit disappointed that they don’t look the way I hoped on me. My friend, who is of light-medium complexion, always looks amazing while wearing these shadows. Every time I ask her what palette she used on her eyes, I’m shocked when she says the Chocolate Bar palette because the same shades on her do not look the same way on my eyes.
At one point I considered selling this palette, but because the market is absolutely flooded with these (and a lot of people are passing off fakes as the real thing too), these go for as low as $9 on Mercari.

I took the Semi-Sweet Palette out of retirement to compare the shades. In doing so, I noticed minor random things about the packaging. The Chocolate Bar has the weakest magnetic closure and the lid of the tin doesn’t lay flat. It remains propped upward like the Pat Mcgrath Celestial Divinity palette. The Semi-Sweet has a slightly stronger magnet and lays flatter back than its predecessor. The Chocolate Gold actually snaps closed and doesn’t rely on magnets at all, but I have to put my nail in the indented space to open it. The palette container/packaging, rather than tin, feels completely made of plastic and it opens flat back so that I can naturally hold it by the edge of the mirror and bring it closer to my face in a way that the others wouldn’t allow. The mirror also takes up the entire space under the lid cover instead of the much smaller sliver of mirror space in the other two palettes. I would actually use the mirror in the Chocolate Gold palette to do my eyeshadow makeup, but not the others.

Final Thoughts

I’m happy that I’ve finally given these ten unused palettes a chance. It has helped me to realize that the palettes I liked still don’t really stack up when compared to my indie brand shadows, even if it has the perfect color story for me. I intend to be even more selective with my eyeshadow palette choices in the future, particularly if they’re coming from a mainstream brand.

That’s everything! Have a great morning, afternoon, or night. Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤