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Rant & Rave: Holiday Palettes & Sets
Share: Tell us what you love and hate about Holiday Palettes & Sets!
my answer: I don’t like when brands make it seem like it’s a great value when it’s not, or when they use more basic items like mascara, eyeliner, brushes, etc. to bump the price up. I think that things like that appeal to some, but for me, I’d rather just the color product! I love that you can often try several shades for the price of one or two full-sized ones, as it’s rare to finish a product (for me).
Mostly Loves- awesome value (yes!!!), many different colors or products that I normally wouldn’t buy on my own, great way to try out a brand’s products, portability
A Few Rants -sold out in nanoseconds 🙁 , colors that keep repeating in different kits, there’s always some color(s) that looks bad on me, throwing in substandard products into a kit to unload them
It also drives me batty when colors repeat over and over again! However, a highlight, a matte transition color, and a deep color should always be included and half the time they aren’t! I swear sometimes you buy a jumbo palette with 20+ colors and you still can’t even pull off a put together eye look with it!
However, in general, I’m a total sucker for palettes that are usable and buy them every year! The lame brushes really need to stop in all makeup packaging but bring on coordinated eye shadows with a variety of finishes and colors – YES PLEASE!
I definitely agree with you. I have some holiday things that I bought that I hardly use. I hate bulky packaging (I’m looking at you, Too Faced Everything Nice set…), and there’s just so much that is unneccesary. I do love some of the smaller sets, and some of the bigger sets are nice, but the price point sometimes kills the desire to get some of the holiday sets.
I don’t like when the quality of the product is vastly different from what is sold in their regular line. I also hate when the lipglosses look pretty but then have no pigmentation. I love that I get lots of colors to play with including things I never would have purchased on their own. I love the creative packaging that come out at the holidays.
I love Holiday palettes! I just hate how fast they sell out and that brands never seem to make enough of the palette because some people purchase like five at once and then sell them on Ebay for crazy prices. I am however a huge fan of little extras coming with palettes like mascara and eyeliner, but I agree that this shouldn’t increase the price point so much!
Poorly done releases. As in; Lorac Mega PRO Palette. That was infuriating! If it hadn’t been such an awful mess, I would have bought it, and probably not gotten UD Vice 3, which while not a terrible palette in itself, is still not up to Lorac Pro palettes quality.
You often get a really good bargain and good value for money, so I like that! But sometimes they seem to rush things and the quality of the product seems to suffer.
I hate the inflated sense of value. Some are actual values don’t get me wrong but not all. I hate that most of them this year have been overly warm in tone with the exception of Chanel. I realize that I’m in the minority here with a cooler skin tone but I’d like see some more neutral stuff being offered. Palettes in general often have colors in them that are better in there permanent single offereings and are off somehow making the whole thing even less valuable.
I’d love to have a beautiful one, with gorgeous collectible packaging and precious shades in it.. but it’s so hard to source all the options in Italy, especially around where I live!! So overall they never seem to be worth the splurge of buying online since I can never try them first..
I guess my first issue is just the glut of them and this mad sense of urgency I feel to “buy it all” because it all seems so wonderful that missing it would be so awful. But that’s just my problem and my makeup GREED. The other thing is the crummy brushes they put in to make it seem like you’re getting such a great deal…the Too Faced Everything Nice palette is great but the brushes are a joke and not really worth of the rest of the palette – they’re more like something that would be in a little girl’s play makeup set. I’d rather they’d been left out and the price dropped by a few bucks or that they’d put in a mini lipstick (deluxe???) instead.
Rant: The quality often isn’t as good as the regular merchandise.
Rave: You can score some pretty sweet deals.
I dislike that the quality of some of the products in holiday palettes is lower than what you find in the non-holiday versions. I also dislike the mish-mash of high quality products with throwaway items designed to artificially inflate the supposed value of the set. I’m probably in the minority, but I’m actually not a huge fan of holiday palettes and sets.
I hate it when brands rush out holiday palettes and the standard is very poor. This is disguised by adding lip glosses, mascara and skin products that are generic and do not suit individual people. Several brands are guilty of this so far this year. Some of the eyeshadow palettes have been very under-whelming and all in neutral shades. No competition there.
The only one I have liked is the Too Faced Carousel – this seems to be decent. The rest – very meh. However when Sephora, Ulta etc have percentages off their whole range you can get a good deal on a product that you like.
I love being able to try many different shades for the price of a couple full sized ones. I never finish products so having a smaller quantity makes no difference to me.
I don’t like when it includes too many different products because there is always something in that package that I will not use and so I end up passing on those (ones that include bronzer, ones that include mascara).
I do like it when the set has a good value and/or good qualities. (like MUFE’s sets and palettes, Marc Jacob’s blaque Friday sets).This applies to those in which includes several full-sized iconic products with or without deluxe sample.
I really hate it when they add mini mascaras or deluxe sized things with the face/eye palette because a), that usually makes the packaging very bulky, b) I don’t like the add-on product itself. I personally don’t like makeup deluxe samples because I have too much experience with downgraded-quality items, which eventually ruins my impression of the brand and fails in luring me to buy the full-size. Of course this can go either way, when the deluxe size actually pleases me, I will buy the full-size item right after.
Rants:
1. When the quality is not the same as in the regular line. Note to brands: this is beyond stupid! Lots of people are going to try your brand for the first time in a holiday set, and conclude that it’s no good, all a bunch of hype. This includes throwing in junky brushes, etc.
2. When you can’t get a complete eye look out of an eyeshadow palette with like 20 shades in it — unless it’s specifically a palette of all brights, or something like that, where you expect to have to pull out other products to complete your look. Please include a base shade, a mid-tone matte transition/blending shade, a highlighter shade and a dark shade in (hopefully somewhat original) neutral-ish colors.
3. Getting the 87th black eyeliner that I will never, ever use. A mini is OK to try out if it’s not bumping up the price point. But, believe it or not, not everyone uses black eyeliner.
4. Bulky packaging. Come on, some of us have to do our makeup in tiny bathrooms that we share with masculine members of our family — we have to tote in everything we’re going to use that morning, find someplace to set it all down, and haul it back out again — leaning over my sink to peer into my mirror with my 50+ year old eyes while holding some giant palette that folds out three different ways is just not practical — if I love the shades enough to get the set, they’re just going to wind up getting de-potted, and no one will remember in a year that they came from your holiday palette (yes, I’m talking to you, brands — not everyone has room for a vanity and makeup mirror, not everyone who wears eyeshadow is under 30).
5. When almost every palette of the year seems to be warm neutrals. What’s for me to love? Saving some money this year, I guess.
6. When they sell out ridiculously quickly. People who have to budget month-to-month and don’t use credit cards get left out.
Loves:
1. Getting to try lots of colors, some of which I wouldn’t have thought of for myself, in combinations that wouldn’t have occurred to me, and especially in a brand I know I love or one I haven’t tried before. It’s just fun!
2. Inclusion of extra minis to try IF IT DOESN’T DRIVE UP THE PRICE POINT. C’mon, guys, these are sample sizes! The idea is to entice us to purchase the full size because we like both the product and your brand so much! Especially in products that I can try, then easily sanitize and pass on to a friend if the color doesn’t suit me (eye pencils and lipsticks, say, rather than mascaras and glosses).
3. Inclusion of an actual, fully functional, good quality brush that will entice me to purchase more brushes from the brand, BUT AT A GOOD PRICE. A good brush inside a palette could be a thing of real beauty and utility.
4. Attractive, sleek, clever, functional packaging.
I guess I have yet to see my ideal holiday set, especially when it comes to eyeshadows! This year I like my MUFE Studio Case in spite of the black eyeliner (which is good — just something I very rarely use) and bulky packaging (it’s at least good-looking and has potential uses, even if the shadows will end up in a Z-palette) — the eye shadows are good quality in a good assortment of colors that I can get lots of looks from as well as coordinating well with other MUFE shadows I own; and I’m actually enjoying Vice 3, too, it’s possible to do lots of entire looks with just that palette, I adore the colors ‘Dragon’ and ‘Sonic’, and, if I use a regular eyeshadow primer plus a MAC Paint Pot and makeup setting spray, the looks last all day (without all that, I have trouble with the darker shades disappearing from the ‘outer V’ of my hooded eyes by the end of the day). I think the best sets this year are probably the lip sets, some of which are still on my wish list (Bite Beauty, UD Full Frontal — the NARS set looks too orange for me, the Buxom set is all glosses, which I don’t wear, the Tarte sets are half glosses ).
I’d love Holiday palettes and sets if I could actually get them at the “real” price – the costs of these kind of limited edition products are more often than not ridiculously increased in Mexico, sometimes even more than regular permanent products, which are also quite increased. I do love that you get the chance to try various items with a single purchase. I also like when perfumes include a shower gel, body cream or my favorite – a mini perfume!
Holiday sets often bring together a lot of product for a fraction of the total cost, or a lot of crap for a “good price,” when only one thing is desirable and usually unattainable separately, which is not good. I’ve not been seeing any that I want in totality this year! The Holiday Palettes don’t seem like Holiday Palettes and more like a big confused mess! I’m much more enjoying bits and pieces from a handful of different releases! 😀 The items may or may not be part of a holiday pallette or collection, but the deals around the holidays have helped me adequately purchase what I want together, alone. 😀 In the past, I jumped to collect everything & just don’t feel inspired due to not finding any worthy continuity or originality in what has been offered, and how! Plus, the prices keep increasing! Quality down, maybe there’s too much competition between companies to churn out a real OMG HG option.. Example: The Chanel Eyeshadow Palette from somewhere near the year 2000, forgetting the title, it looked exactly like sequins strung together down the entire way as it changed from a shimmery white/silver to a shimmering bold copper, and then a glimmering black! 😀 Well done and applicable for the holidays! The packs Armani made this year just made me want to be able to choose my own shades but was a good idea! 😀 And kudos always go to Marc Jacobs! 😀 That liner set was the IDEAL set this holiday! (I didn’t need it, do I didn’t get it) It gave an excellent price-point for a delicious generous sized sampling of what I think are the most unique and wonderful eye liners out there! People were able to try more than one and not break the bank! Well done! And any palette of his, always a hit! (IMHO) I wish MJB could make a mini set of their most fab brushes I adore! Hourglass has nice ones as well! So soft!
Positive: Temptalia showing us in depth thorough reviews of everything no matter what! 🙂 That is extremely helpful and fun to view! 😛