It hurts my heart to not have a glowing review for these palettes. I wouldn’t say are total throwaways, but as far as Juvia’s Place palettes go, these are my least liked. Don’t let the swatches fool you. Let’s start with the Magic Palette.
It’s not the colors that are the issue in the Magic Palette, it is the formula of certain colors. As usual Juvia’s Place pulls off the earthy tones well. Even the red shade, Kogi, is amazing. Highly pigmented and easy to blend. But when you get to the dark shades like Ife, Aja, and Yejide it’s a struggle to get them to work. They are patchy and extremely difficult to blend. Even getting the color to pick up on the brush is hard. If you’ve ever had the displeasure to realize one of your eyeshadows is well past its expiration date, this is what I would compare it to. When an eyeshadow has been exposed to both moisture and air it loses it’s powdery feel and is almost waxy. They also clump together, in a way that I can only describe as piling, like a wool sweater. The fallout I had were little balls of eyeshadow and when I went to dust it away with a clean brush they didn’t even leave color behind. Which doesn’t happen with fall out, ever. The shimmer shades were better, but not by much. They are not stand alone shimmers. They need to be placed on top of other colors to get a good payoff.
Now for the Saharan Blush Vol 1 palette. The pigmentation on these is amazing. But with that said, it’s so good that these just blushes just seem like oversized pans of eyeshadows. The shades are way too stark for an everyday blush. But if you are ever channeling Grace Jones for a look, these are a good option. The highlighters are nice though, It’s just the actual blushes are better suited for eyeshadows.
Altogether, I would say skip these purchases. I completed the below look with the eyeshadows and the blushes (using a very light hand), but it took a lot longer than expected because of how hard it was to blend the shadows.
