Palette-Palooza: Week 5

Turns out I never finished this. This is, finally, the last of my eye shadow palettes:

1. Bad Habit After Party: Another Bad Habit dupe! This one was for the Huda Beauty Obsessions Eye shadow Palette in Smokey. These are very pretty, if not basic, colors. Compared to the mauve Obsessions I have from Huda, the formula is pretty similar, but this cost less than $5 in the ShopHush site-closing sale. I super love the shimmers in here. This has mid to deep matte tones so - as the name suggests - this gets smokey in a hurry.



2. Tarte Rainforest of the Sea Vol. III: Another neutral shimmer palette. Not to hate on a brand for doing something well, but this is a basic Tarte palette. Neutral tones and pretty shimmers. This is meant to be a shadow and highlight palette, so I guess you could use this for a variety of mostly gold-toned highlights. The pink shimmer is very pretty, and I think I might have preferred the "Sizzle" palette which has more pinks. But this is the one Boxycharm sent me, so there you have it.




3. Lorac Pro: Love this. LOVE this. By now, this palette is ancient, but it still works just as well. The Smashbox palette I have is dusty, and the Too Faced palettes I have from just last year or the year before already got hard pan, but this guy keeps trucking along like champ. I would love to get all the Pro palettes, but I already have more than enough eye shadow. Like Cher, I would like to turn back time and buy only Lorac Pro palettes.



4. Bad Habit Artistry: This was a dupe for ABH Master Palette by Mario. I've read that the shimmers are more subtle and glowy in the ABH and this had standard glittery shimmers, but I'm more than fine with it. These colors are beautiful (which, I guess, thanks ABH?) and the formula is fantastic. These are well pigmented and blend like nobody's business. Bad Habit is no longer around, but Alter Ego is supposed to have similar quality with a new crop of dupe palettes.

5. Juvia's Place The Nubian Mini: Gorgeous. The rare subscription box palette that is actually worthwhile. The colors are beautiful, and blend well. I usually grab a more ivory shade to blend out a crease shade since the are more mid-toned than my skin, but it's really lovely.



6. Juvias Place The Warrior: After getting the previous one in a sub box, I grabbed this one when it went on sale at Ulta. Just as gorgeous and easy to work with, and this has giant pans. I will never use up all this shadow, but if you are on a budget and want to get just one palette to use everyday- get a Juvia's Place one. The pans will last forever and they are super affordable even when they're not on sale. This has gorgeous foiled golden shades that look metallic on the eyes. They also stick around all day, so you don't get that weird ghost-of-shimmer that sometimes gets left behind from other shimmer shades. I love this.

7. Bad Habit Arabesque: This is actually the second dupe of Soft Glam I own. I bought the Makeup Revolution one not realizing it was the exact same palette as this one. I saw it, I thought, "Such pretty colors!" not for a moment realizing that I thought it so pretty because I already loved this one. With the exact same colors.

via GIPHY

Palettes I have but didn't use this week: 

  

Ipsy Tetris (novelty make-up) Laura Sanchez Moods (cute, but not for me) and Bad Habit Mystere.
I like really like Mystere, and it's the only one of these I actually bought on purpose, not in a subscription box. It's a dupe for the Pat McGrath Subversive palette. It beautiful, but a little . . . much. Not really for everyday wear. I wish I could have caught the beautiful shift in the white shade. It doesn't go on as a solid, opaque color - it's a soft iridescent pink that turns into a shimmery pink when the light hits it. Well done, Bad Habit. We all miss you. I'm sure it's no where near Pat McGrath quality, and has sensible cardboard packaging instead of the luxurious lacquered-box look with a beveled mirror inside, but it was like $4 on clearance, so  . . .

The last two are also subscription box palettes, Ace Beaute Grandiose and Pur Midnight Masquerade.

 

 I was actually excited for both of these because I heard great things about these brands. I used the Ace Beaute palette for a holiday party, and it really is very nice. I never used to like the orange, reds, and golds, but now I've come around. The foil shades are intense and really pretty; I used the copper and gold for my holiday look and they blended beautifully together. I'm not a fan of the Pur Midnight Masquerade, which was disappointing because the pans are generous and it looked like a great colors for me. It smells like vanilla, which is lovely, but I just don't like the color selection in person. it's tough to find shades to create a cohesive look.  It can work better if you use the blushes as shadows, and I did since these blush colors don't work well with my skin tone, but it's just not as enjoyable to use as other palettes I own. I ended up using the light peach blush for a transition shade, the peachy highlighter for a lid shade and the dark brown eye shadow in the outer corner, which was extremely hard to blend and just looked way too dark. I also tried the green shimmer for more color, and it just didn't have the pay off I wanted. I can see a couple ways to combine a few of the shades, but, ugh, too much work. The quality was just . . . fine. Just OK. If I had no other makeup, I guess it would do, but we've established that I have plenty. And what is UP with that tiny mirror? It's like, don't even bother with a mirror if it's going to look like the poster for the 2014 revival of Cabaret.

But I do appreciate a dramatic liner look

And that's it! I did it! That's all my palettes! I will go pass out now.