Lately I’ve came across some great finds in the beauty department of Winners; a few months ago I picked up the Mac Amber Times Nine palette for $23, and a little over a month ago I scored Stila’s Perfect Me, Perfect Hue Eye & Check palette in Fair/Light for $23 as well. This palette looked beautiful and the products I have tried from Stila were pretty limited, so I was pretty excited to test this out!
ABOUT
From the Stila website:
The Perfect Hue for the Perfect You!
Easy to use eye and cheek palettes filled with neutral hues that are just perfect…for you! Long-wearing, one swipe eye and cheek colors expertly curated to work with your skin tone to create the perfect neutral look. Choose from four distinct palettes that house five eyeshadows and two blushes in matte, shimmer and pearl finishes; customizable to create the look or looks you want.
Benefits:
- Curated to work with your skin tone, but each palette is wearable on all skin tones. Choose the palette closest to your skin tone for a natural look or one level up for a more dramatic look. The possibilities are endless!
- Color True Pigments look exactly as you would expect on your skin. What you won’t see? Ashy or unnatural tones.
- 78% pigment saturation offers incredibly vivid, long-lasting color.
- Triple milled powders and mica allow for exceptionally smooth application – no need for a primer!
PRICE
$39 USD / $51 CAD for 0.49 oz / 14 g. This palette contains 5 eyeshadows and 2 blushes.
PACKAGING
I must say I really like the packaging of this palette; the gold is pretty of course, and it has a subtle cheetah print on top. It feels sturdy and is nice and compact for travel.
The back of the palette details the shade names and application suggestions / instructions.
SCENT
No noticeable scent.
INGREDIENTS
EYE SHADOW – MICA, ZINC STEARATE, LAUROYL LYSINE, CAPRYLIC/CAPRIC TRIGLYCERIDE, DIMETHICONE, POLYMETHYLSILSESQUIOXANE, CAPRYLYL GLYCOL, PHENOXYETHANOL, ISOPENTYLDIOL. (+/-) TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CL 77891), IRON OXIDES (CL 77491, CL 77492, CL 77499), CARMINE (CL 75470), YELLOW 5 LAKE (CL 19140), MANGANESE VIOLET (CL 77742), ULTRAMARINES (CL 77007).
BLUSH – MICA, ZINC STEARATE, LAUROYL LYSINE, CAPRYLIC/CAPRIC TRIGLYCERIDE, DIMETHICONE, POLYMETHYLSILSESQUIOXANE, CAPRYLYL GLYCOL, PHENOXYETHANOL, ISOPENTYLDIOL. (+/-) TITANIUM DIOXIDE (CL 77891), IRON OXIDES (CL 77491, CL 77492, CL 77499), CARMINE (CL 75470), YELLOW 5 LAKE (CL 19140), MANGANESE VIOLET (CL 77742), ULTRAMARINES (CL 77007), RED 30 LAKE (CL 73360). CONTAINS CARMINE AS A COLOR ADDITIVE.
SWATCHES
FORMULAS & PERFORMANCE
As mentioned, this palette contains 5 eyeshadows and 2 blushes. The eyeshadows are all matte, with the exception of 1 – Breathtaking, which is described as a champagne pearl. It’s also an exception in terms of it’s texture – it’s soft, creamy and pigmented. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the other 4 shadows. While they are easy to blend, I find them slightly dry and lacking in pigmentation. Alluring and Breathtaking are particularly disappointing; Alluring almost blends out to nothing while I really need to dig my brush into Breathtaking to get it to show up at all. Dynamic and Glamorous can be built up, but I found it took me a while to do so. As a result, it’s a struggle, if not impossible to do anything but a soft, muted look with these shadows. That’s not always a bad thing, but I was hopeful that this could be my new go-to travel palette. I have taken it with me on my last two trips and while it did the job, I spent more time on my eye makeup than I would have preferred to. I prefer to bring something with me that requires less effort.
The blushes, on the other hand, have impressed me. They are soft, silky and smooth and have very nice colour payoff. They blend nicely and can be applied subtly or built up for a more intense look. If their single blushes are on par with the ones included in this palette, I’d definitely consider purchasing some of them.
Performance-wise, I have no complaints. While it states these can be worn without primer, I didn’t bother testing them that way because given my super oily eyelids, it’s never worth the risk (nor has that ever been proven true). With my beloved Too Faced Shadow Insurance, these shadows lasted me a full day of wear (10 hours), after which I started to see some slight fading and creasing. The blushes performed well too, with some signs of fading around the 8 hour mark.
One of the claims of this (and the other palettes) is that they can work on any skintone – unfortunately I’d have to disagree with that, for this palette at least. At most, I think these eyeshadows would work for those with up to a Medium skintone but not likely for anyone deeper than that – the shadows just aren’t pigmented enough. The blushes offer more colour payoff and are more versatile. The other palettes in this collection look like they have deeper and potentially more pigmented colours, so I suspect this one is the sole outlier when it comes to that claim.
VERDICT
I think if you are of a fair or light skintone AND like soft, subtle looks you would enjoy this palette. I like it, but I don’t love it – and I personally don’t think it’s worth the full price tag. I do think it’s pretty cool that they have created palettes that cater to each skintone – that’s a pretty rare feature, but it’d be nice to see that become more common-place. If I came across one of the other palettes in the line, I’d definitely be open to giving one of them a try with the hope that they’d offer me more pigmentation-wise.
What products have you tried from Stila Cosmetics?
Cat Forsley says
prettty xxx
prettyrufflife says
Thanks Cat!
Polished and Inspired says
Good thing you found this at a discount considering it wasn’t amazing quality! Definitely can’t see this working for anyone with a darker complexion. I think that’s why we don’t hear much about Stila – their products are a bit of a hit and miss. On the other hand, yay for finding great deals at Winners! I never have much luck there ?
prettyrufflife says
Oooh I spend a lot of money at Winners – I’m always finding great deals but I have to be in the right mood to hunt through a lot of junk to find it. Depends on the store too – some are definitely better and more organized than others! 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Jennifer @ Mrs Q Beauty says
I have this palette and I really enjoy it. I like palettes that have more than one product in it. I would like to also get the medium in this one. I think it would still work well with fair skin. Great review! http://www.mrsqbeauty.com
prettyrufflife says
I’m glad you enjoy it – it’s definitely a pretty palette! Thanks for stopping by!
jodi - a brashattitude says
The blushes look so soft and pretty!
prettyrufflife says
They really are – totally recommend them!
Chris says
Stila stuff always looks so perfect and pretty! Beautiful finds 🙂
I do wish they’d bring their shadow singles and palettes back. They were my faves back in the day!
prettyrufflife says
Stila seems like kind of a hard brand to find nowadays, I don’t think Sephora carries much of them anymore. I think Shoppers still carries them but they just don’t seem to be pushing out launch after launch like all the other big brands are doing – not that that’s a bad thing at all!
stashy says
I’ve been so surprised at the brands popping up at Winners lately! MAC, Estee Edit,
I can see how that shade “Breathtaking” is the outstanding one among the bunch. I’m glad the blushes redeem this palette.
I still kick myself for not grabbing the old Stila palette in “In the Light”. They were popping up at Winners a while back. Hmm I don’t own much from Stila anymore – just a couple of eye shadow singles which are great formula.
prettyrufflife says
I know – I’ve really had to restrain myself there. Just the other day they had a different Stila eyeshadow palette, the Too Faced totally cute palette, some Shiseido and Bobby Brown products. I just had to walk away…
I had to google the Stila In the Light palette – that almost looks like a smaller version of the original Naked palette – pretty!
Diana says
I love the colours in that palette
prettyrufflife says
They are super pretty and romantic!