Makeup Revolution Iconic 3 Palette Photos, Reviews and Swatches

I was in Scotland recently and while there picked up a few of the Makeup Revolution eyeshadow palettes. Makeup Revolution is one of a few British makeup brands that do dupes for higher end products. While I was there I picked up three palettes: the Iconic 2 and 3 palettes and a 32-shade palette. You can see my review of the Makeup Revolution Iconic 2 palette here. 

In this post, we'll look at the Iconic 3 palette which is a dupe for the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette. It cost me £4. The Naked palettes cost $64 CDN each. 

My apologies for the first two photos in this post. I'd neglected to take photos of the palette before I swatched it, so apologies for the non-pristine quality!

The Iconic 3 palette is 12 shades of warm mainly-neutrals, a mix of mattes, satins and shimmers. As with the Iconic 2 palette, I do not own the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette so I cannot do a swatch-by-swatch comparison of Iconic 3 and Naked 3. You can see one here, if you're so inclined. 

While the Naked 3 eyeshadow shades are named, the Iconic 3 shades are not, so I will number them (1-12), as I did in my review of the Iconic 2 palette.

But first, here they are swatched together on my arm. My skintone is NW15. 

From left to right the shades range roughly from lightest to darkest. The shades in this palette are in the rose-gold family for the most part, with some copper and purple. It's a predominantly warm-toned palette.

Shade #1 is barely noticeable swatched on my arm. It's a matte pale white-pink shade, and pretty close to my skintone. Pigment is decent.

Shade #2 is a metallic light-medium pink. It's quite glitter-heavy but it is lovely. There's a dustiness to it and a bit of fall-out but if applied with a damp brush, it's fine.

Shade #3 is similar to Shade #2 but peachier and less shimmery. A very wearable shade with good pigment. 

Shade #4 is one of the matte shades in the palette and it's a dusty rose with a creamy texture and average pigment. 

Shade #5 is a beautiful rose gold with lots of shimmer. It has a creamy texture and it applies beautifully.

Shade #6 is a medium copper tone with lots of shimmer. Even though it's glittery, it's got a good, smooth texture and it's quite pigmented.

Shade #7 is rosy plum, or a pink-beige-plum. It's quite creamy and highly pigmented. 

Shade #8 lacks a bit in pigment but can be built-up. It's a lovely, shimmery rose-brown with a bit of gold to it. 

Shade #9 is gorgeous, warm medium red-brown with gold shot through it. It's a shimmery shade, with good pigmentation and creamy texture. 

Shade #10 is a darker version of Shade #9. More brown and less warm and silvery so it reads a little on the grey side. The texture is a bit dry so it goes on sheer, but it can be built up, and you'll want to. such a lovely shade.

Shade #11 is a medium-dark purple taupe, with red tones and silvery shimmer. It has excellent pigmentation and a creamy texture. 

Shade #12 is a blackened brown with red shimmer. This is one that needs a bit of layering to build as it's a touch on the dry side. 

Overall, the quality of the Iconic 3 eyeshadows is a touch better than those in the Iconic 2 palette. Very few of the shades were disappointing. This is an excellent palette for those with green and blue eyes as the rosy-gold shades will enhance cool tones. 

The Iconic 3 palette is a pretty close dupe to the Naked 3 palette, from what I've been able to see online. Because it's a fraction of the cost, I'm happy to forgo a slightly lesser quality.

Here is a look I did using the Iconic 3 palette.

I applied shade #5 to my entire lid, up to my crease. I then applied shade #7 through my crease, blending it into the lid shade. 

Using an angle brush, I smudged shade #12 along my upper lashline focusing on the outer third. I used what was left on the brush to smudge it down along the outer third of my lower lashline.

In the inner corner of my eye, I popped a tiny bit of shade #2 and also pressed some of it to the center of my lid for a bit of glow. 

I don't love this palette as much as I love the Iconic 2 palette. While the quality of the eyeshadows in both palettes are quite similar (some great, some not so great), I don't tend to wear a lot of pink on my eyes. Iconic 3 is a dupe for the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette and I am glad I didn't give in to the rose gold frenzy and buy it, because I wouldn't have liked or used it much, judging by how much I like the shades in this palette. I find there are a few too many similar shades and not enough dark shades. Also, there is a lot of pink and I don't gravitate to pink for my eyes. 

But I don't regret buying it. It was £4 and I will get some wear out of it. Just not as much as the Iconic 3 palette!

Grade: B

LORAC Pro Palette Review, Photos and Swatches

I'm terrible at making decisions, and will do almost anything to avoid making one. I've been looking at the Urban Decay Naked palettes, of which there are now three, trying to decide which one to buy. I haven't been able to decide so why not buy a completely different palette instead?

So here's the LORAC Pro Palette! 16 shades of both matte and shimmery eyeshadows, ranging from white to black, soft pink to silver.

I'd never tried LORAC eyeshadows before, or even any of their other products, but I'd heard some very good things about this palette. Such as, it's better than any of the Urban Decay Naked palettes. High praise!

The palette itself is cardboard, very slim and about nine inches long. There's a good sized mirror embedded in the palette which makes this an excellent palette for travel. Each shadow is 0.02 oz.

Let's take a look at some photos and swatches. The top row of the palette are matte (or mostly matte) colours and the bottom row are shimmery colours. They range, on both rows, left to right, from light shades to dark shades.

Click to view larger.

All 16 shadows swatched.

Let's look at them more closely.

These are the lighter shades. You can see the difference in texture between the matte shades in the top row and the shimmery shades in the bottom row. 

First half of the palette.

First half of the palette swatched on NW15 skintone.
Top L-R: White, Cream, Taupe, Lt. Pink
Bottom L-R: Nude, Champagne, Gold, Lt. Bronze

Close-up Top Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: White, Cream, Taupe, Lt. Pink

The light matte shades are a bit chalkier than the dark matte shades, as you can see particularly with the Lt. Pink shade above. 

Close-up Bottom Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Nude, Champagne, Gold, Lt. Bronze

Second half of the palette.

Second half of the palette swatched on NW15 skintone.
Top Row L-R: Mauve, Sable, Espresso, Black
Bottom Row L-R: Pewter, Garnet, Deep Purple, Slate

Close-up of the Top Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Mauve, Sable, Espresso, Black

Close-up of the Bottom Row swatches on NW15 skintone.
L-R: Pewter, Garnet, Deep Purple, Slate

I'm very, very impressed with the quality of these shadows. The matte shades are drier and dustier than the shimmery ones, but that's typical for matte eyeshadows. All of them are very creamy and very blendable. They blend so beautifully that they can barely be seen on the skin.

I'm absolutely loving the options that this palette gives me. I love matte neutrals, and if you do too, this is a great palette option for you. I've been wearing a combination of Cream, Taupe, Mauve, Espresso and Black almost every day to work. I've also been playing with Gold, Lt. Bronze and Pewter.

The back of the palette has a QR code and a note that says "Scan for tutorials". When I scanned it, it took me to the Lorac website selection of the Pro Palette. 

The Lorac Pro Palette comes with a mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer (0.19 oz) which is a great pairing. The eyeshadows look better applied over a primer and you get to try out the Lorac primer at the same time. 

Lorac Mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer

I've been using the Behind the Scenes Eye Primer and it's up there with my usual primer - the Urban Decay Primer Potion. It goes on smoothly, you need very little, and shadows look truer, and last longer (my eyelids are oily). 

Lorac Mini Behind the Scenes Eye Primer

The Lorac Pro Palette can be tough to find in Canada as Sephora no longer carries Lorac but it's available in Canada at Canada Beauty Supply for $69.99 (plus shipping if you can't visit a store), and Nordstrom.com sells it for $49.23 (plus shipping). You can also order it via the American Amazon website ($42 US).

Grade: A

Introducing MAC Veluxe Pearlfusion Shadow: Preview Photos

It's eyeshadow innovation like you've never seen before. A versatile powder that brings out the pigment's pure and true colour. The result is a glamourous, creamy and lightweight hybrid offering two distinctive effects: applied wet for a super saturation of colour that glistens with metallic brilliance, or dry for sheer coverage with a soft, sparkling finish. Six palettes feature five complementary shades that glide on and blend beautifully for infinite day-to-night looks: Pinkluxe, Bleuluxe, Pastelluxe, Greenluxe, Smokeluxe and Brownluxe. 

Available June 20, 2013 in the permanent line.

Bleuluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

Brownluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

Greenluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

Pastelluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

Pinkluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

Smokyluxe
$47.50 CDN/$40 US

275 Medium Angled Shading

$30 CDN/$25 US

Rimmel London Glam'Eyes HD English Oak Swatches, Photos and Review

I spotted this colourful Union Jack-designed eyeshadows in a drugstore recently and couldn't pass by without buying one. I'm an Anglophile, I have to own a Union Jack eyeshadow palette!

Rimmel Glam'Eyes HD palettes come in eight variations (you can see them all here). I chose English Oak, a blend of warm-toned browns, arguably the most easily wearable palette of the bunch. 

Here's what the Rimmel website has to say about Glam'Eyes HD eyeshadow:

Rimmel introduces Glam'Eyes HD, our first creamy powder eyeshadow with Velvet-HD technology creates colour that looks perfect under any light. Prismatic pigments catch light at multiple angles, reflecting the ideal colour for the light you are in. Unique palettes of 4 shades expertly coordinated to work in sequence, adapting as light changes to give perfectly complementary effect in any light. Crease-proof colour lasts all day.

The Glam'Eyes HD eyeshadow palettes retail for around $6 CDN, depending where you find them. 

Instructions on the bottom of the palette

Each palette comes with basic instruction of how to use the colours in it together and one of those useless little double-ended sponge applicators which always come with drugstore eyeshadow palettes. Always just toss these, they're utterly useless.

The palette has four eyeshadow colours, separated into 13 sections. While it looks really cool, it's pretty impractical as the tiniest section, containing the copper shade at the top and bottom of the palette, is difficult to get a brush (or that sponge tip applicator) into. 

Swatches

The shades in the palette range from a deep brown to a shimmery vanilla. From L to R (descriptions are BeautySquared):

#4 lid colour - warm chocolate. This colour is the least shimmery of the four.

#3 crease colour - shimmery copper. 

#2 outer corner colour - shimmery bronze.

#1 highlighter colour - golden vanilla.

The package instructions says to apply the chocolate shade on the lid, the highlighter shade on the brow, the copper in the crease and the bronze on the outer corner. 

Here's what the recommended application looks likes:

I found the colours all kind of looked the same applied the way the packaging recommended. Either I blended way too well or the shades maybe shouldn't be worn this way. Unless you like spending lots of time putting together an eye look that could have been achieved using one or two colours. 

I love all of the shades individually though, they're all very, very pretty and applied in a way that allows them to stand out a bit more is perfect. 

The shades will work ideally on blue or green eyes since they're all warm brown and copper shades. They'll also work nicely with hazel and brown eyes.

Review:

I was very impressed with how well these applied although getting the shadows onto a brush was difficult due to the packaging. I recommend using a small, stiffer brush or a brush with a tapered tip with these palettes, not a fluffy brush. I found the product crumbled a little when I worked my brush into the palette and the colours powdered into each other a little. Still, the palette isn't expensive and it's easy enough to tidy up when you're finished.

The shadow formula is very creamy, very blendable, and has a great level of pigmentation. The colours are all shimmery, which is to be expected from most drugstore eyeshadows, but the largest shadow, the chocolate shade, has less shimmer. 

Application-wise, they go very smoothly and have a creamy consistency. It didn't take much product to get a good effect and they blended well. The colours in the English Oak palette are very complimentary to each other, making for a very easy way to get a sultry eye look. 

The colours stayed true throughout the day, giving approximately 10 hours of wear without creasing (with Urban Decay's Primer Potion underneath). The shimmer is a bit too intense for workday wear, but would be fantastic for evening and night. I have not tried the more colourful Glam'Eyes palettes but if English Oak is any indication, the colours of the other palettes will go on well and stay true for a long time.

Have you tried any these super-cool looking Rimmel palettes? 

C.

LUSTING: Tarte for True Blood Collection

I apologize if this annoys any Twilight fans out there but Twilight is like unsweetened Kool Aid compared to True Blood's 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. And that's me being nice just because I was a 16 year old and in love with L.J. Smith's fictional vampires in The Vampire Diaries. I'm not 16 anymore.

I'm a huge True Blood fan so this gets me all shivery and V-deprived and prepared to rush out the door the moment it's available at Sephora. Tarte, the line sold at Sephora know for its cheek and lip stains, has released Tarte for True Blood Collection.

For $52 US you get the True Blood palette - 17 eyeshadows in quite wearable colours (they could've gone with dark, vampy colours but they didn't), a black Aqua-Gel eyeliner, black mascara and an eye primer. And packaged in a saucy black and red, corsetty box. Love it!

Tarte is known for their cheek stains. The Tarte for True Blood Natural Cheek Stain is $30 and a shimmery, blood-red (what else?). 

The Tarte for True Blood LipSurgence Natural Lip Tint is a mint-infused, iridescent red shade and is $24. 

Growl. WANT.

C. 

LUSTING: Urban Decay Roller Girl Palette

Ooooh, I don't think I'll be able to resist this Urban Decay palette. Check out the swatches Temptalia's done - hot pink lip gloss, gorgeous shimmery neutrals and one of UD's killer eye pencils. Yeah, this is going to be mine. I have no idea how I'll wear the hot pink Woodstock but that's ok. Everything else is right up my alley.

Urban Decay Roller Girl Eyeshadow Palette:

Eyeshadows: Woodstock, Verve, Suspect and Darkhorse

Eye Pencil: Whiskey

Lipgloss: Crush

Temptalia's done some great looks with this palette too. Click here and here.

LUSTING!

C.