HI PALS.
If you’d read my October Wishlist post, you may have seen me extravagantly lusting after the Collection Smokey Eyes palette (I know, I am pretty much the wildest human being that ever walked the earth). As a part of my exciting lipstick haul (read about these badboys here), I finally decided to pick up the Smokey Eyes Palette, which to my delight has lived up to my expectations. Call me a trampy troll if you wish, but you can’t say no to an eyeshadow palette that is UNDER FIVE HUMAN POUNDS. You simply can’t.
I tend to only wear eyeshadow when I’m heading out to the disco and I have been known to trowel on makeup, so smokey eyes are a big must for my night time eye adventures. I’ve used so many palettes in the past, but my ultimate favourite has been Benefit’s Smokin’ Eyes palette. I’m not sure if Collection is trying to dupe the Benefit palette (Smokey Eyes and Smokin’ Eyes is suspiciously similar), but Collection don’t include a brow wax or tweezers in their palette. ANYWHOO. The colour range is truly fabulous – nice neutral colours with some excellent highlighting shades.
As you can see, the colour range isn’t bad at all. My only criticism would be that the ‘Medium’ shades are a bit too shimmery for my taste. If I’m feeling a little bit cray and want to put some shadow on during the day, I would usually go for the Medium shades for a daytime appropriate look. Unfortunately, these ones are a bit too much for the day. Saying that, they’re perfect for doing a night time look, so I can’t complain too much. Also, I’d prefer them to be in colour order (i.e. Light – Medium – Dark) but I get why they’ve laid out the shadows the way they have. And the reason they have done this is because they have a jazzy ‘how to’ on the back. It’s nothing ground breaking but it would have been useful back in the day when I didn’t know what on earth I was doing with makeup. Nice touch though!
I’m impressed with the pigmentation of the palette for the price. The swatches don’t show it as well as they look in real life (darn you miserable weather!) but both the shimmery colours and the darker colours have good colour levels. I’m really impressed with the highlighting colours too. What I do like is the pigmentation isn’t too much – I’m royally cack handed so when eyeshadows are too dark, I make a huge mess of everything. Colours that go on nicely and are buildable are my fave – which these most definitely are.
I’d say the only one that is a bit useless is the middle ‘Dark’ colour – you can see in the swatch that it’s quite weak. I’ve yet to test this colour out properly on my eyelids, but I’ll let you all know how it lasts and how it goes on.
Has anyone else tried this palette? What do you think?
This looks great, I love a bargain palette! That shimmer is a bit scary but they still look really workable. Great review, thanks!
Claire | AgentSmyth
Hahaha yeah, you don’t want to end up looking like a Christmas bauble ITS TOO SOON! Other than that though, the colours are fab 🙂 xxx
Can’t believe this is so cheap…I’m with you on reorganising them into order though – so picky ha! Xx
Hahaha I know what you mean, it’s so frustrating. It angers me a little bit every time I do my makeup 🙁 But it is amazing for the price! Definitely worth it I think xxxx
This sounds really good for the price, will definitely have a look 🙂
Sophie
http://what-sophie-said.blogspot.co.uk/
xxx
It’s so worth checking out 🙂 If you do a review, let us know! We’d love to read it xxxx