Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

Christine — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 17:00:28 +0000

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette

Wish Big with Smashbox for the Holidays

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette ($45.00) is a limited edition holiday palette that contains twelve eyeshadows, four cream eyeliners, and trial sizes of mascara and eyeshadow primer. It’s housed in a yellow gold flip-top rectangular box (think Urban Decay’s Book of Shadows). Inside the palette is a mirror along with a how-to booklet.

1 is a softened dark orange with gold sheen. It’s a touch sheer.
2 is a plum-tinged silver gray. This one was sheer.
3 is a yellowed beige with a matte finish. It wasn’t really chalky, but it was a little sheer.
4 is a pale warm pink. Nice pigmentation and very smooth.
5 is a molten bronze with warm amber undertones. It reminded me of MAC’s Amber Lights + Bronze mixed together. This was one of the nicest shades in the palette for its rich pigmentation and smooth texture.
6 is a pink-mauve with a frosted sheen. The pigmentation was nice with this shade.
7 is a medium blue with aqua-blue sheen and shimmer. It looked cooler in the pan, but it’s still pretty swatched–the sheen just seemed more noticeable in the pan.
8 is a soft medium-dark gray with a soft silver sheen. It had nice color pay off.
9 is a chocolate bronze with a soft frost finish. It went on easily and smoothly.
10 is a muted cool-toned purple plum. This was a little chalky.
11 is a deep peacock blue with a satin sheen. It could have been a little more pigmented, but it worked better during application than swatched.
12 medium-dark gray with a satin sheen.
13 is a chocolate brown with red undertones and flecks of pale gold shimmer.
14is a deep plum purple with light purple and pink shimmer.
15 is a deep teal-blue.
16 is a charcoal black with a silver sheen.

I want to specifically call attention to the fact that the liners are noted as generic “cream eyeliners.” Smashbox has a line of cream eyeliners called Jet Set, which have a good reputation, but these liners aren’t labeled as such, so I am going to assume (and hope) that they are not Jet Set liners. These liners take forever to dry, and they smudge easily–which is nice initially–but they don’t seem to stay in place at all for me. They just migrate, migrate, migrate, and this leads to… a migraine. Ha, ha. I couldn’t even get them to work well as a base, because they sheer out quite a bit and don’t set fast enough before settling into the crease.

I did like how Smashbox coordinated the columns of eyeshadows, though–and there are certainly a lot of looks one could do with this palette. There is a good mix of colors and neutrals, but I will say this palette leans on the cooler side, with the exception of the browns which are warmer. Overall, the eyeshadow quality is good across the board, with some shades being more average (like #1, 2, 3, and 4) and a couple (like #5, 6, and 9) being really nice with full pigmentation and smooth application. The lightest shades (#1, 2, 3, and 4) were the sheerest and more problematic. The texture of these didn’t seem quite as soft of Smashbox’s eyeshadows, but they were still soft, and overall, they seemed less powdery than typical Smashbox eyeshadows.

The palette includes 0.63 oz. worth of eyeshadow (works out to be 0.0525 oz. each) and 0.105 oz. (works out to be 0.0263 oz. each) worth of cream eyeliner, along with a miniature-sized Lash DNA Mascara (0.20 oz.) and Lid Primer (0.02 oz.). Compared to the cost of full-sized equivalent products, the palette has $170 worth of eyeshadow, $23 worth of eyeliner, $12 worth of mascara, and $5 worth of lid primer–the whole palette coming to a total of $210 worth of Smashbox products for a price of $45. To sum all that up, yes, this is a value palette–the eyeshadows alone make it worthwhile (in terms of quantity/price).

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Product: 26/30
Value: 10/10
Ease of Use: 4/5
Packaging: 4/5

RECOMMENDATION: I wouldn’t rely on this palette for the eyeliners, but if you like the colors included for eyeshadow, then it’s definitely a good value.

AVAILABILITY: Nordstrom and Sephora

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette: 1, 2, 3, 4

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette: 5, 6, 7, 8

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette: 9, 10, 11, 12

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette: 13, 14, 15, 16 (Cream Eyeliners)

Temptalia

Smashbox Eye Wish Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

Wish Big with Smashbox for the Holidays