I love lightening shopping–you know, checking out the fire sales with great deals with limited quantities and bargain basement prices. I recently came upon this palette on My Habit, and I couldn’t believe they were selling it for $15.

My first thought was whether or not this was toddler make up or something. How could something once (allegedly) worth $85 be currently sold for $15? Either way, I bit. I figured if it was a bust I could give it to The Babster for entertainment when she shows me her clown makeup look.

Imagine my surprise today when the package arrived, and upon opening, it was fairly decent. As you can see, lots of colors, and I’ll be honest–they’ll be many I won’t use because they are simply too light for my complexion, but many more that I will. This is a great buy for girls on a budget or women just warming to the idea of playing with eye color.

Pigment:

Some of the colors–like the electric blue, deep purple, and pretty much all the darker colors have a decent pigment. But your eyes will absolutely NOT pop and you’ll be constantly reapplying unless you use a primer. That pretty much goes for most shadows, but especially with this one. I applied it around two this afternoon and it’s still set and has stayed put.

It has a combo of both matte and shimmer, which is nice. I used a combo of both in the picture above.

Cons

This palette is not as big as you would think it is, and the pots are on the small side. The sponge applicators are completely useless. Your best bet is to use a firmly stiff, high-quality brush to get a good impact. I find that the cheaper the shadows, the higher quality brush and primer you need.

Here’s my favorite: MAC 217 Blending Brush ($25) and totally worth every penny.

Go get it! For $15 you can’t go wrong.