KKW X Mario Eyeshadow Palette

1 Review

1. 

   solidCockatoo9

   Reply

   The colours in the KKW x Mario eyeshadow palette are pretty tame overall, but the shades picked are recreations of ones used by MUA Mario Dedivanovic on Kim for some of his most memorable photo shoots with her over the past ten years, so you have to expect a more editorial colour scheme; 2008 [metallic icy silver], Glam [metallic rustic gold], Miami [matte warm caramel brown], Armenian [metallic bright light gold], Loyalty [matte deep chocolate brown], Decade [matte peachy cream], Albania [matte brick red], Vegas [metallic deep burgundy], Libra [metallic cobalt blue], Bronzy [metallic coppery bronze with gold flecks].

   This is a fairly easy palette to review; all ten shades feel the same, blend the same and wear the same. They’re all very creamy so apply very smoothly and evenly, they all blend out easily and I’ve had zero creasing or colour fade. I have deepset eyes and have had very little transfer from the metallic shades [Bronzy & Armenian are the offenders, thanks to the faint microglitter flecks] – even when I did my version of the promo look of wearing the metallic blue all over my eyes [you can’t help recreating it when that gorgeous shade is right in front of you]. There is some kick-up when I dip my brushes into the pans, but that is something that never really bothers me as long as the shadows apply and perform well, which these do. KKW is made in the same factory as ColourPop and Kylie Cosmetics, but the eyeshadow formulas feel and perform differently to those brands.

   The matte shades and Vegas & Libra need some building, but do reach the pan-shade without any difficulty. This is where I want to defend the palette a bit; Mario does clearly say in the promo video that the mattes and deeper/brighter shades are formulated to need building, as he knew that most of Kim’s fans are younger and might be overwhelmed by majorly pigmented shades. I understand why some people would not want to bother with shadows that need building up, but that is how they are meant to be and it was public information before the palette was released – it’s not some kind of fault with the product, and if people didn’t look into the product that they were buying beforehand, the buck stops with you – it isn’t down to the product quality or the brand trying to trick you. Personally I’m a big fan of this kind of formulation; as you can get the shades to look completely different, so it’s like getting a new 30-pan palette, rather then a 10-pan one.

   What has put me of from happily recommending this palette is the custom tax and handling charges; there weren’t any for my previous KKW Beauty/KKW Fragrance purchases, so the company must have been handling those charges rather then leaving them for international customers to have to sort out and pay ourselves. That’s obviously changed without customers being warned about as I received one of those dreaded charge slips in the mail, telling me to go to my local postage depot and pay £21 over the counter so that I could then get my parcel. When you take the product cost, then throw in the $15 for international postage and the custom & handling taxes = nope – I’d expect Mario Dedivanovic to come with the palette to apply the shadows for me at that price. If I’d have known that they’d changed policy, then I wouldn’t have ordered this. The quality is great and the colour story is nice, but at the end of the day, this palette is no better then similarly priced ones that I can pick up much more easily, with no extra costs being tagged onto them. If the brand get a European/UK warehouse in the future I’d definitely buy more eyeshadow from them as their formulas are great, but it’s a pass for now [they do 3 more palettes, pressed powder singles, loose pigment singles & creme stick singles].

   If you want to treat yourself and have the spare money, then yes, this is a great eyeshadow palette – I was surprised by how much I enjoy it since I’m more of a “give me colour in more than one single pop” girl and I’m not a K Klan fan (missing out on Mario’s ABH palette is still a sore point, so I ‘had’ to get this one). However the Christen Dominique Latte palette has come out highly in comparison videos on YouTube, so if you like the look of the KKW x Mario one, but don’t want to deal with long wait times [6 days for order processing & another 9 for delivery] and extra costs, you can just pick up that one from Beauty Bay [or it’s in Ulta for US/Candians] for less money and free 2-day shipping.