Monday, January 20, 2014

Stila In The Light Palette - Review and Swatches!

Hi Everyone! I'm back from my holidays and I'm getting straight back into the swing of posting on my YouTube Channel and my blog. Writing is a real passion of mine, and while I love filming and talking and demonstrating makeup techniques, I miss the photography and writing side of things! So, here to begin a series of review and swatches posts, the Stila In The Light Palette!


The Stila In The Light Palette comes in this brown, natural cardboard box with the Stila logo on it. The box opens at the short edge and protects the palette inside from bumps. I like the packaging, I think that it is simple and the neutral, beige toned colours compliment each other, and on top of this, the card box is completely recyclable.

On the reverse side of the packaging is a full colour sticker which shows the colours included in the palette, their names, the ingredients, the life of the eyeshadows and some other information.




The palette itself, once out of the packaging, is light as it is also made from card. The logo on the front is a rose-gold metallic colour which reflects the light. This palette is actually quite wide compared to the Naked palettes, but flatter and shorter. It is around the size of an a5 notepad. 



I absolutely love the colour of the palette; the muted beigey pink fits really well with the contents. The back of the actual palette has a line diagram of the colours too. It is basically a black and white version of the sticker on the back of the outer packaging.


When you open the palette, it has a mirror on the top side, and the colours are below. Can I just say here, how gorgeous these shades are! They run mostly from lightest to darkest, starting with 'bare' and working down to 'ebony'. Below the shadows is the smudgestick waterproof eyeliner in 'damsel', which comes with the palette instead of a brush or applicator. The colours range from a pale nude matte, through metallic shimmering shades ideal for special occasion looks and nighttime looks, through to deep and dark matte colours which are great as a crease or outer v accent.


The shades, in my opinion, are a wonderful range! This palette is such a perfect one for more glamorous evening looks. I'd recommend it to anyone who loves sophisticated, shimmering eyeshadow looks.

BARE: Bare is the first shade in the palette. I would describe it as a pale, yellow toned bone shade, which would be ideal for a highlight for the inner corner or the brow bone. It is a matte shade and due to it being so pale, requires slightly more of a build than the other colours to show up on paler skin tones like mine.

KITTEN: This is probably the most famous colour of the palette, with it being Stila's number one award winning shade! I can see why, now I have tried it. This one is going to disappear from my palette extremely quickly! Kitten is a warm toned dusty pink shade with a golden shimmer. I found it to be highly pigmented with a great colour payoff after just one layer of application. This is something I don't find much from shimmery shades. I'm completely in love with this shade now!

BUBBLY: Bubbly truly is the colour of champagne, the shadow fits its name extremely well! This shade is quite similar to Kitten in its shimmering finish, however, has more of a golden beige tone. Bubbly is the perfect shade for an effortlessly glam look, after creating a darker crease, simply press this shadow all over the eyelid and finish with a winged liner. I am in love with this shade!

GILDED GOLD: This shade is a mid to dark toned warm brown with a fine golden glitter through it. I love this colour for a deep dark crease on a natural, daytime, bronze smokey eye.


BLISS: Bliss is a pale mauve shade. I can only really describe it as a natural purply pink. It is a matte shade and very very pretty. I'd use this shade for natural day time looks, and use it as a transition colour when using more vibrant pinks or purples.

SUNSET: Sunset is just one of those shades you discover and then wonder how you survived life without it. It is a warm copper toned eyeshadow with tiny bronze shimmering pigments through it. I love how pigmented it is, the colour is silky and glides straight on.

SANDSTONE: Sandstone is a very dark browny taupy colour. It's great because I've been looking for a shade exactly like this for a while now. Sandstone is matte and again, extremely opaque when pressed onto the skin using a shading brush. It blends out beautifully to a create soft smokey effect, so it's perfect for brown smokey eyes and a deep crease colour.

LUSTER: Luster is probably the only shade I didn't completely fall in love with when I opened the palette. I'm not saying it isn't a nice colour, because I think the deep brown toned grey matte shade is and would really suit some people. It's not one of the colours I'd reach for, being naturally quite pale, so I think it would look quite harsh on my skin. However, it may come in handy as a transition colour underneath a black smokey eye.

NIGHT SKY: Night Sky is gorgeous! I would describe it as a slightly more purple 'Gunmetal' (Naked Palette). It is definitely a highly metallic dark indigo/grey shade which I find absolutely beautiful. This shade is absolutely ideal for a blue or purple smokey eye. I'd also love to line underneath my bottom lash line with this colour for a really sexy dark vampy look.

EBONY: Ebony is a traditional matte black shade. I will love using it as a softer alternative to a liquid eyeliner and as the dramatic outer v colour in a smokey eye look.


So these are the swatches! They are in the order that they are in the palette. You can definitely see that the matte shades have a ridiculously good colour payoff, they are extremely opaque and solid once on, and this was using one swipe on my finger.
The pictures were taken out of direct sunlight, but with natural light.


I think that the variety of the different colours is great. They aren't traditional matchy-matchy colours you'd find in a lot of palettes. They're sort of mixed up and that helps inspire me when I'm using it to change up usual colours and go for something more interesting.




My favourite eyeshadows are always really clear to me, the leap out pretty much as soon as I open the palette for the first time. In this case, they are 'bubbly', 


'kitten' (big surprise)


'sunset'


and 'night sky'. To me, these are absolutely the most flattering shades from the palette and I can already tell they'll be the ones that run out quickly!


The palette also comes with the smudgestick in 'damsel' which is described by Stila as a blackish brown. It's a pencil eyeliner which twists to reveal the stick. I'm not usually crazy for pencil liners; I'll pretty much always reach for either a liquid or use an eyeshadow. I haven't yet tested this on my eyes, however I put it on the back of my hand to try to experiments with it's smudginess.




I just drew the lines in one swipe, and thought the colour was okay for a pencil liner but not opaque enough (maybe this is because I'm used to very opaque, dark liquid liners). I then tried to smudge the left hand side line using my finger, and I thought that it faded more than smudged.


I went back over the first line a few times, and as the line thickened and darkened, I was pretty happy with the opacity and darkness of the colour. However, after redrawing the line below and trying to smudge it out with a wet pencil brush by Sigma, the line faded and pretty much disappeared again.


I probably wouldn't recommend the use of the Smudgestick if you like liquid or gel liners. I really didn't find it to be my cup of tea and I feel way happier sticking to thick, glossy liquid eyeliners. I didn't understand how to smudge it, and found the line to fade on my hand throughout the day. But of course, if pencil liners are your thing, I absolutely respect that because everyone has different tastes!

The Stila In The Light Palette also came with this small leaflet called a lookbook. It contains pictures of potential eyeshadow looks and very basic instructions on how to emulate them. 



The looks are pretty but I think its so much more fun to experiement yourself than to read instructions. As well as this though, the instructions are pretty vague and unhelpful. The images themselves give you good inspiration though, which is always great!




Overall I'm so so pleased with the Stila In The Light Palette, I LOVE so many of the shades in it and feel inspired to create looks for special occasions or dinners or parties etc! However, I feel like the inclusion of the 'freebies' were kind of trying to tempt you to buy it, when it doesn't require them. In fact, the freebies, I found were a bit rubbish and irrelevant when compared to the gorgeous eyeshadow shades which should pretty much sell themselves! I'm really happy with this purchase and would 100% recommend!



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