Review! Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette in "Saint"

This neutral palette by Kat Von D begins my foray into nude, neutral, "natural" eye shadows.  I recently cleaned out my makeup stash, and ended up with not a lot of eyeshadow.  Much of the old makeup I threw out was just that... old.  I have this thing against throwing stuff away that is still usable.  Fortunately, this blog lets me justify to myself getting rid of the old stuff to make way for the new.  I kept most of my Bare Minerals, Make Up For Ever, Merle Norman, and Aveda, as well as a few random pans of this and that.  Hmm.  It still sounds like a lot, but believe me, I threw a lot out.

Ok, so that let me go on the hunt for some new shadows.  I bought some online, and some from Sephora.  I bought this palette at Sephora.  First, I judged the eyeshadow by the color, texture, creaminess (as much as a powder can be creamy), quantity, pigmentation, and finish.  All of that can be done with a simple swatching.  Second, they lived or died by their packaging.  I passed over several eyeshadow palettes that I just loved, because they were packaged in cheap plastic or cardboard containers.  I need my makeup containers to be sturdy, easy to clean, and able to be packed for travel.  Cardboard and flimsy plastic (not hard plastic, which is fine) won't cut it.

The True Romance eye shadow palettes are in very sturdy metal containers.  They have a nicely sized mirror inside, and come with an eyeliner.  The compact comes packaged in a box, which opens like an evening bag.  It was kind of cool to open it, as most boxes are just "open one end and slide it out" type boxes.

I love the box so much that I'm keeping the compact in there for now.

Here are the eyeshadows, and the one cheap thing about the compact... the hinge.  That sucker is pretty wimpy.  It's just a basic spring hinge, and all it does is keep you from closing the compact too quickly.  After all the detail they put into the rest of the compact, I would have rather seen a piano hinge used.  But, oh-well.  I don't think these palettes are meant to be re-usable, so I'll overlook that detail.

The shadows themselves are beautiful.  The formula is creamy, soft, easily blendable, and nicely pigmented.  They are all pearlized or shimmers except for one, and the colors left to right are:

• Heavens (subtle shimmer)
• Enjoy The Silence (shimmer)
• <3 (glitter)
• Downtown (shimmer)
• Sunny (shimmer)
• Pray For Me (shimmer)
• Bookworm (glitter)
• Caravaggio (matte)

I took the photo in indoor lighting, and at a funny angle, because when light hits the shimmers, they really light up.  To that end, I think that Heavens is really the only highlight color in the palette (on my complexion, anyway) because when I used Enjoy The Silence as a highlight color, it was too shimmery.  I don't mind, because I have a few other eyeshadows that I like to use for highlighting.  But, if you are the type who buys one palette, uses it up, and then buys another, it may be something for you to consider.

For this swatch, I used cotton swabs to apply the eyeshadow to my arm.  I wanted to be sure that I didn't mix the pigments at all.  I applied them over eyeshadow primer, right now I'm using Merle Norman's Eye Shadow Base.  This base is sticky when first applied, so it grabs onto glitter very well.  It does have an ivory cast to it, so much so that when I applied "Heavens" over it, the color on my arm was still very similar, but now had sparkle in it.  It did not seem to affect the eyeshadow's color, other than keeping them true to pan.

Except for Caravaggio and Bookworm, the colors went on beautifully, smooth and consistent.  Caravaggio and Bookworm were patchy.  I applied more and rubbed it around with the cotton swab, and eventually got them evened out.  I did NOT have this problem when the colors were on my eyelid, but that may have been because these shades tend to be crease and liner colors, so they weren't hitting as big of an area, and they were very close to other colors which may have helped their blend-ability, AND I use a eyeshadow brushes when applying to my eyes.  I tried out the colors on my eyes before I swatched them on my arm, and I did not notice any patchiness until I swatched them on my arm.

The color wears all day on me.  

Also included is a mini eye pencil, Puro Amor Black Autograph Pencil.  I think it's pretty big for a "mini", and didn't realize it wasn't considered full size until I looked closer at the box for the descriptions.  I could have done without the pencil, because I don't favor eye pencils.  I use my Sormeh for that purpose, so I kind of wish they would have included a brush instead.  I did use the eye pencil, and while it stayed just fine on my lashline lid, it did not stay on my waterline.  In fact, it started breaking up before I got the pictures done.  Within 2 hours, it was completely gone from my waterline, so I re-lined my eyes with Charcoal Brown Sormeh.

Next up, I have a tutorial for using the palette!