I don’t know about you, but I am constantly on the never ending quest to find THE perfect neutral palette. When I saw the Smashbox Full Exposure Palette, I thought I may have found it.
This palette is made up fourteen lovely shades, seven matte and seven beautiful shimmer shades, they range from shimmery, nudes perfect for a wash of colour on the lid to deep matte blacks, perfect to double up as a liner. It ticks all the boxes for me so far.
This palette has had a lot of hype surrounding it and I completely understand why, before you even try it, it looks absolutely beautiful! Everything from the sleek matte black packaging with it’s huge mirror, to the shade choice, to the double ended brush which accompanies it, it looks like this palette is set to be the holy grail in all neutral eye lovers make up bags.
I bought this palette just before I headed on holiday a few weeks ago and I had the greatest of intentions of packing light and only take this one palette to keep me going for the whole 10 days away…but at the last minute I panicked and snook a few MAC eyeshadows into my make up bag and I am very sad to say that I am SO glad that I did!
The shimmers in this palette have little or no pigment at all and just deposit a strange sparkle on to the eye lids…which I would have loved in my early teens, but not mid twenties. The beautiful colours which appear in pan just do not translate at all when they are blended on to the lids, they almost appear chalky and just disappear. I couldn’t have been more disappointed.
The mattes on the other hand are absolutely beautiful, they are gorgeous and buttery soft, but not too soft that they slip half way down your face after an hour or so’s wear. They blend so beautifully and do not look chalky or dry at all, which is a problem I have had with some matte shadows in the past.
If Smashbox brought out an all matte palette, I wouldn’t think twice about buying it, but they really need to improve the formula of their shimmery shadows before I commit to buying one again.
At £36 I do still feel that this palette is pretty good value as you do get 7 beautiful matte shades along with a great blending brush…so it’s still definitely worth taking a look at.
But I am afraid my hunt is still ongoing to find the perfect neutral all in one palette.