I'm probably not the only one who is not as trusting of Essence eyeshadows and to be fair they haven't given us much reason to inspire trust so far. However, I've been hearing some chatter about these palettes, first from Ana Ina from Bijou Beauty and later from Vesna (Chunky Cheeks) and then Petra (Adjusting Beauty), so I gave these a swatch in the shop and was very pleasantly surprised by the pigmentation and quality of these. I picked up two, both very neutral, wearable palettes, All About Bronze and All About Nude.
Texture: In the shop these appeared to be very soft and pigmented, basically a massive step up from what Essence usually does, however, when I tried doing makeup with these at home, I wasn't as enthusiastic any more. These are another set of eyeshadows that need to be built up and I'm the type of person who doesn't like to spend long on my eyeshadow look trying to get the intensity up. Of course, not all the shades all like that, it's mostly the All About Nudes that fails to impress, but the bronze shades in All About Bronze are nice. In general the latter does perform better which is not as surprising considering it's made out of shimmer shades. They blend ok and aren't patchy like some Catrice matte shades can be (referring to the Chocolate Nudes palette). I noticed these perform better if I apply them with fingers, at least when it comes to building up the colour.
All About Nudes
All About Nudes is the most classic neutral palette consisting of vanilla, brown and taupe shades in various intensities, finishes (mostly matte or satin mattes plus two shimmers) and a mix of warm and cool tones. The medium shades (the four in the centre) are not my favourite as they aren't as intense as in the pan, but the darkest one in the top row performs well, while the shimmery taupe is nice, but still not as good quality as bronze shades in All About Bronze. There is a choice of a classic vanilla base and the shimmery vanilla highlighter which has quite a nice glow to it. This is the type of palette I would consider being almost perfect since it's a great mix of mattes and shimmers, but I wish some shades were more intense. In terms of colours isn't not that different from Catrice's Absolute Matte palette except that one performs a lot better.
Jordana Matte Lipstick in 10 Red on the lips.
All About Bronze
All About Bronze is a much warmer palette than the Nudes and also completely made out of shimmery shades. The quality is a bit better, but here the darkest shades aren't as intense on the eyes as I would wish, so all ends up a bit too monochrome. Also missing is a matte base shade as both lightest ones are quite shimmery. The two golden bronze shades (bottom row) are almost too warm-orange-y for my skin tone, but these would look fantastic on skin darker than mine. I prefer the medium brown shades in the top row as the main lid colours, both are nice quality. It's easier to built these up, but still it looks a bit too washed out if I don't use a cream eyeshadow under it. I used the darkest shade in the Nudes palette to deepen the outer corners on my picture bellow because the two in this palette weren't cutting it.
Jordana Matte Lipstick in 60 Plum Passion on the lips.
Staying power: I can't say I've noticed anything special about staying power or how these wear. They're pretty average on my normal lids. Creasing usually happens late in the day for me as at most eyeshadows and even that isn't tragic or at least I'm never bothered by it.
Price and availability: I got both of these in Müller for 4.39 € per palette.
I had the strangest deja vu with these. I have one of their eyeshadows from the Metal Glam Eyeshadow line called 18 Choco-Chic which swatches so pigmented, but I cannot get the same intensity on the eyes. These are better, but still not what I expected based on swatching it in the shop. These are nice palettes for simple neutral eyeshadow looks, but you won't get the same pigment as in more expensive palettes. When I decide to use them, I always pair them up with a cream eyeshadow as a base, so I get the intensity and staying power I expect from any eyeshadow. I would pick these up if I were a teenager or on a very tight budget, All About Bronze especially is a nice addition with its warm medium shades, but the reality is that I will still pick up my theBalm palette more often.
Have a great day!
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