Sephora recently launched these new “Color Shifter” eyeshadow palettes. They are $10 each and they come in 4 color variations. Each contains three mattes, a shimmer, and a topper shade. The color selection in them is pretty straightforward and balanced. I haven’t found it difficult to come up with a variety of looks for each palette.
The packaging was designed to be as recyclable as possible, so they are mostly made of cardboard and metal except for the elastic band which is used to hold the palettes closed instead of magnets. The mirror can slide out of the lid completely and be kept if desired. On the back of the palette there are holes to pop the pans out when you are ready to discard the packaging (BUT be aware that the pans are glued in, so this isn’t meant for rearranging shades). The spine of each palette is color coded with the name so if you stack them together vertically, you can easily grab the one you want.
The mattes are pretty good as far as color payoff and ease of blending but there was a little bit of inconsistency in how they adhered to the skin. I’ll let you know in the comments for each palette below which shades were harder to use. The shimmers in general were my least favorite thing about these palettes because they were drier, sheerer and most of them had larger sparkles that fell out easily during application. The one in the Khaki Illusion palette was the best of them all, being all fine shimmer and adhering very nicely to the skin. The toppers are pretty consistent across all 4 palettes with a flakier consistency and higher shine than the shimmers but a reasonable amount of fallout. I noticed that when I used them on the upper lid, they caused my eyeshadow to crease earlier in the day, so I ended up using them on the lower lashline a lot of the time.
Infinite Nude
The Infinite Nude Palette is super neutral and a good go-to on days when I want to wear “no makeup” makeup. The topper, shimmer and deeper matte are nice to have in here too when I want to kick it up a notch.
The most challenging shades to use in this one were the shimmery nude and the medium matte brown. The shimmery nude, swatched on the bottom right, was a little bit dry and didn’t adhere well when applied with a brush, resulting in lots of sparkle fallout. The medium matte nude adhered a little too well to the skin and required some extra patience to blend out. That said, those downsides weren’t so bad that they deterred me from using the palette. I still ended up reaching for this one several days in a row just because the tones work very well for me and the ease of use is good enough.
For this first look, I used the lightest matte on the inner corner and brow bone and blended the lighter brown matte in the crease and along the lower lashline. Then I applied the ivory shimmer all over the lid, used the deepest matte as a liner, and applied the topper to the inner lower lashline.
Here, I wanted to try using the deepest matte in a way that required blending to see how it would do and use the topper as an actual topper. Both worked out fine. The deepest matte had plenty of pigmentation, applied evenly and blended out well. I’m happy to report the topper doesn’t have a ton of fallout but it does shorten wear time and cause creasing earlier in the day.
Unlimited Mauve
The Unlimited Mauve palette is focused on purples and is the only one that has an actual shifty shade. The topper is a duochrome that shifts between pink and orange depending on the angle of light. The toppers in the rest of the palettes don’t appear to shift at all. The matte purples are more muted than I was expecting, looking a bit more grayish purple on the eye. The deepest matte has good color payoff but doesn’t adhere super well so I had to keep building it up during application. The shimmery purple definitely shows up well as a lavender on the lid but has a good amount of larger sparkle and fallout.
For this one, I used all three mattes on the upper lid and crease. The lightest one is used highest up, just below the brow bone. I didn’t use it as a highlight because it is a little darker than my skin tone. The lighter purple matte is used broadly in the crease and the deepest matte is used on the outer corner. I applied the lavender shimmer to the inner half of the lid and used the topper all along the lower lashline.
I started by applying the lighter matte purple all over the lid and blended it into the crease. I attempted to add depth with the deeper matte on the outer lid and lower lashline and it sort of worked but this shade was somewhat dry and didn’t adhere as well as I would’ve liked. It took me some time to build it up and get it evenly applied. The shimmery lavender is used as an inner corner and brow bone highlight and the topper is used on the lower lashline. If you scroll between this look and the last you may be able to see the difference in color from the topper shade. It’s more pink here and closer to a coral-orange above.
Khaki Illusion
The Khaki Illusion palette has some orange and muted olive shades. The orange shades stand out much more than the greens, which are very grungy so they end up looking brown and grey on me. The deepest matte was my least favorite but it was still pretty decent. Despite that, it’s still a nice little palette. The shimmer on the bottom right is probably one of the best shimmers of all that are available in these palettes with a smoother finish and more opaque color payoff. The orange shades blend out very nicely and the topper is a unique pale gold.
This look mainly features the two orange shades with a hint of the other shades as accents. To form the base of the look, I used the lighter orange shade as a transition and the deeper one all over the lid and along the lower lashline. Then, I smudged the matte greyish green into the upper lashline and used the topper on the center of the lid and on the inner corner. There is just a small pop of the shimmery olive green on the outer lower lashline.
This time I wanted to use the shimmery olive more heavily on the upper lid and focus less on the orange shades in the palette. I used the lighter orange as a transition just for some warmth and applied the deeper matte all over the lid and along the lower lashline. The shimmer is layered over it, focused more on the inner 2/3 of the lid. The topper is used on the inner lower lashline. Maybe you can see how the gold in the topper is a little stronger than the gold in the shimmery olive the way it is layered here.
Bronze Vision
The Bronze Vision palette is perhaps a little intimidating but I really liked the quality of most of the shades and what I was able to do with it. I did some looks I wouldn’t normally do because they are shades I usually don’t wear often. The weakest shade is the gold shimmer on the top right. It has a mixture of fine shimmer and large sparkle and goes on a bit sheer. The rest of the shades are very nice though. The two deeper mattes have strong, even pigmentation and blend out easily. The topper has somewhat of a pink tone to it which was unexpected but I ended up liking that about it.
I started this out with the lightest matte as a transition and used the deeper orange all over the lid and on the lower lashline. Then, I used the gold shimmer on the inner 2/3 of the lid. The matte black is used as liner and I layered the topper over the orange along the lower lashline.
For this last look, I used the black as the main focus which I rarely do but I found it was a very nice quality matte black. I had no issues getting it to apply quickly, blending was not difficult around the edges, and fallout was minimal. No patchiness here. The topper is used on the center of the lid, slightly overlapping the black.