PR sample. Affiliate code.

Must Have Mattes Palette ($79)
We’ve been Ofra affiliates for awhile now but I haven’t tried many of their products yet so this will be an interesting review. The palette is $79 but our discount code BEAUTYCULT is for 30% off which knocks the price down to $55. Considering that you get 20 eyeshadows (2g each) and a nice palette, I think that’s a pretty good price. It works out to less than $3 per shadow. I’m pretty sure that all 20 colors are sold individually as well but the refill pans are $9 each so the palette is a much better value. 

I love the design of the palette. It’s a sleek black, ‘book-like’ palette with magnetic closures. It has a small mirror and removable pans. I also love the color selection. There’s a nice mix of warm and cool toned neutrals. There’s only one big problem, the names of the shadows aren’t listed anywhere on the packaging. I had to look them up online to label the swatches.

 The formula is on the dry side. Not dry like powdery but they aren’t especially emollient. On the plus side, they have minimal fall out.

When I started doing these swatches, I got a little nervous after finishing with top row. The light shades have really poor color off. Now to be fair, the colors do blend in with my pale skin but I had to layer them a good bit to get them to show up even this much, especially Vanilla and Buttercup. And they didn’t show up much better on my eyes either. Maybe they’d perform better on darker skin but I was pretty disappointed in all four light shades in the top row.

But thankful things began to improve when I got to the second row. For the most part the darker shades swatched much better. Now as a general rule the way a shimmer eyeshadow swatches is a pretty good indication of how it will perform on the eyes. With mattes all bets are off. Many times a matte eyeshadow will swatch like absolute shit but apply beautifully on the eyes. And occasionally the other way around. 

As far as application this palette is a mixed bag. In general the shadows blended nicely with very little fall out and wore well throughout the day. I wouldn’t say these shadows have intense pigmentation but they’re buildable. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Super pigmented mattes can be difficult to work with.  With the sheer shades I found I got the best results when I packed on the color and then gently diffused it.

Okay let’s go through each shade and I’ll give you the rundown. 

Vanilla- matte cream. Poor pigmentation. 

Champagne- satiny pale pink. Better color pay off than Vanilla but still not good.

Buttercup- ivory matte. Another dud.

Khalua- light taupey beige with a satin finish. This one had the best pigmentation of the bunch. Although it was still on the sheer side, I was able to layer it on the eye until I got nice transition shade. 

Navy is a more like a soft denim blue than a navy. But again not the best pigmentation. This one the colors that I had to pack on and blend gently to prevent it from sheering out.

Latte- light soft brown. This one wasn’t intensely pigmented either but it was buildable and didn’t blend away to nothing like some of the other shades. 

Charm- light dusty rose. We have a winner!! I love this color. It had nice pigmentation and I didn’t have any trouble with the application.

Truffle- warm light brown with orange undertones. In keeping with the theme, Truffle also had buildable pigmentation.

French Mocha- mid-toned neutral brown. Okay color pay off, blended nicely. Nothing to write home about.

Lilac- muted blue violet. Sigh. Another problem child. Like Navy, you have to pack it on and blend very gently. I tried to use it as a transition color but found it very difficult to apply a light even wash of color. It would stick in a few patches and blend out to nothing in others. 

Khaki- medium brown with olive undertones. Very nice. Everything on point. No issues.

Brown- medium mahogany brown. This one swatched patchy but worked well on the eyes. 

Country Road- light orange with yellow undertones. Another great shade.

Smoke- medium gray. This one was very nice too. I feel like charcoal shadows can be difficult but this one is very smooth.

Purple Haze- royal purple. Not bad. Purple mattes are notoriously difficult and although I wouldn’t say this one is amazing, it’s better than a lot of similar shades from other brands.  

The entire bottom row was great. All five colors had nice pigmentation and no application issues. 

Olive- medium forest green

Godiva- chocolate brown with strong red undertones

Fire Orange- bright red orange

Bark- deep charcoal brown

Slate- soft matte black. 

Now that we’ve reached the end, let’s recap. I think the palette is a very good value. You’re getting 40 grams of product for $55 which works out to $1.37 per gram. For comparison a naked palette is $3.46 per gram. I also love the efficient packaging except for the lack of labeling. And I think the color selection is excellent. When it comes to the formula, the bottom two rows were great and the top two left a lot to be desired. I think that this would be an ideal palette for beginners. Highly pigmented mattes can be tricky to work with (I’m side-eyeing the eff outta you, subculture) whereas buildable mattes like these tend to be more forgiving. But for someone who’s more experienced, I’d have to say pass. A few duds are to be expected but I found this palette to be very inconsistent. The darker shades are great but they’d have a miraculous to make up for the 8 lighter shades that I found disappointing.

In better news, I’ll be reviewing their blush palette next and so far I’m loving it!