The Vault – Dark Magic Eyeshadow Palette

3 Reviews

1. 

   grudgingHare3

   Reply

   Dark Magic is one of four palettes in Morphe/Jaclyn Hill’s The Vault collection. It contains the following shades; Poof (matte cream), Power Cut (metallic silver), Shhh (matte dusty taupe), Trickery (sparkling emerald), Diversion (shimmeringgunmetal), Potion (matte avocado green), Busted (matte ocean blue), Inside Job (matte dark jade), Mojo (matte smoked hickory) and Temptress (glinting pitch black).

   Like with my Armed & Gorgeous palette, I’m really enjoying my Dark Magic palette and don’t have any problems with the quality. All of the shades apply well, wear well and the shades don’t fade – there was some creasing on my heavily hooded eyes at the end of a nine hour workday, but that’s become pretty normal for me over the past several months, as I’m very concerned that the folds in my lids are becoming more pronounced. In the original Jaclyn Hill palette I find the dark green matte shade [Enchanted] tricky to blend, but I haven’t had any trouble with Inside Job.

   The formula is great and I prefer eyeshadow palettes with larger numbers of matte shades in comparison to shimmers, so that’s another huge plus here. Inside Job is a similar shade to Enchanted from the original Jaclyn Hill palette, so could have been swapped for something else, since most people who will buy this palette are people who have and enjoy her original one and are going to get the same thing twice. I’ve not got any major issues with the formulas or colour story; I just can’t help remembering that Jaclyn has publicly said that she hates cool tones, so just how authentic is this palette?

   Dark Magic is the most unique palette in The Vault with it’s cool tones and I’ve not seen similar colour story anywhere, so think of my review as a 4.5. I can’t help but think everyone has been too judgmental with this collection; the four The Vault palettes are made up from the leftover shadows from the original Jaclyn Hill palette at a fairly cheap price, so maybe we all shouldn’t have expected the best shadows in the world?

   To sum things up; my Dark Magic and Armed & Gorgeous palettes are great – I niggled over a few similar shades in them, but the formulas are very good. Bling Boss isn’t the best in terms of quality, but I love the shades in that palette, so I’m content to work with it. Ring The Alarm was a disappointment due to the soft & muddy formulas and unexciting colour story – I’ve not used it since my testing and review last year.

2. 

   similarLapwing2

   Reply

   So I had really high hopes for this palette. I have been in the market for something with a more unique color variety than the cool-toned/bronze neutrals that are permeating the market and I thought this was the answer to my prayers. However, the color payout that you get does not align with the colors that are seen in the palette. It takes pressing hard on the pan with a brush, for even the matte shades, to get even a hint of the color you see in the pan. also the colors are not what they appear to be. The color ‘inside job’ looks pretty green in the pan but applies a more blue-teal color which is not what I expected or even wanted. Its not nearly as green as it leads on. Also the more khaki green ‘potion’ applies like a lime green. The shimmer shades also take a lot of effort to yield color with. I had to wet my brush and dip several times to even get the shade on the brush which shouldn’t have been so difficult. I honestly expected better quality compared to other morphe non-collab palettes however it just wasn’t there. I’m still gonna try and use it and I didn’t hate what I got color wise, It just wasn’t what I expected.

3. 

   adoringSyrup8

   Reply

   The Dark Magic palette performs beautifully. The mattes are dry but still easy to blend. However, the easiest way to work with them is to pack them onto the area you want them to be, then blend them out. I had to get used to this, particularly when using mattes as transition shades, but I quickly got used to it. Working with greens is definitely different than my usual warm tones, which in general seem easier to blend.

   The 6 matte shades are all very pigmented except for “Potion”, which is like a toned-down chartreuse shade. It also proved a bit more difficult to blend than the others. Again, the “pack and blend the edges” technique is best for these mattes. Instead of building them up gradually, you need to pack on a bunch and diffuse them.

   The shade “Temptress”, which is a matte black base with some glitter in it, blended easily but had some more fallout than the other shades. I don’t use this shade much except when I want to darken up a matte shade underneath it.

   The 3 shimmers are gorgeous even when used dry. They produce very little fallout, although I will say “Trickery” has more fallout than the other two shimmers. They don’t fade much on my oily lids, but that could be because I usually use them on top of the matte shades. “Power Cut” is fun to layer lightly on top of the darker matte greens like “Inside Job” and “Busted”. Also, “Diversion” looks like a brown shimmer in the pan but on the lids, it looks like it wants to be a brown/gold duochrome but is failing. Still a pretty shade!

   Overall, the shadows wear very well with a good eyeshadow primer. I love the colours and I don’t mind learning a new application technique to make these work. Even though it’s mostly greens, the browns keep the palette grounded.
   For myself personally, I wish there was more contrast between “Inside Job” and “Trickery” because they really seem to be the same colour in different finishes. Also, “Poof” and “Shh” are much too light for my skin and do not really show up on me, so those shades are kind of being neglected, except if I want to set my eyeshadow primer (which I don’t do as much when the weather gets dry). All the shades except “Potion” have excellent pigmentation.
   This palette is best suited if you want to do variants of a smokey eye. Otherwise, not too versatile but definitely fun. 4/5 rating.