Irrelevant introduction: it is 1 June 2017, 13:37pm. I’m sitting at Mugg & Bean in Victory
Park because they have free bottomless WiFi and I wanted to post my black
smokey eye blog post. Instead, I’m
sitting here writing my next post (or the one after) because the WiFi is
down.
I mean, if it wasn’t for the
hazelnut ice brewed coffee, I definitely wouldn’t still be here. Yet here I am, one coffee in and another on
the way, preparing to talk about nonsense I have not adequately prepared for
(believe it or not, a fair amount of preparation and planning goes into each
post).
What did we even do before the
internet???
Anyway, speaking of the internet,
that’s exactly where you (the South African reader) can get the palette I’m
going to talk about today. I’m talking
about the Fortune Favours the Brave palette from Makeup Revolution.
UPDATE: The troubleshooting
options say to restart the router or access point. On what page in the menu is “please reset
your WiFi router”?
Makeup Revolution is a British
makeup brand that sells in the British versions of Dischem and Clicks (i.e.
Superdrug, to my knowledge). If you
follow social media and/or Kuckian’s Courtroom, you’ll know that Makeup
Revolution has built its brand on creating eerily similar products to high end
brands and sell them at in an accessible price range (for example, Kat Von D’s
Shade and Light palette was turned into the Light and Shade contouring palette,
and their Flawless palettes are basically Morphe knockoffs). They’re basically the Robin Hood of the
makeup industry, ripping off the high end brands so that the poor (like me) can
have but a taste of luxury. I mean,
there are subtle differences but in the case of Kat Von D’s palette, they
didn’t even try to pretend they weren’t ripping her off.
The Fortune Favours the Brave
(FFB, from here on) palette, however, is totally original in that it was a
collaboration with YouTuber British Beauty Blogger, AKA Jane Cunningham. She has about 43000 Instagram followers and
about 4500 YouTube subscribers. She’s
primarily a beauty writer who has columns in The Guardian and The Express,
before starting BBB as a platform for open and honest reviews.
Makeup Revolution is not
available in South Africa, but you can buy it on www.tambeauty.com, as well as at Makeup
Shack, if I’m not mistaken (don’t quote me).
I did not purchase my palette through Tam Beauty; mine was sent from a
very loving person in the UK. If you do
buy it through Tam Beauty, it’s only R167.57 (which is what the website
says). I’m guessing this fluctuates with
the exchange rate, but it’s still a bargain.
Their Flawless palettes (which are kind of like the Morphe 35 palettes)
are R251.75, which compared to your average R450/R500 per Morphe palette
through a South African distributor is a bargain. Shipping is about R100/R150 – so if you’re
going to buy online, you may as well splurge a little and buy a few at once.
Let’s talk about the palette
itself. The FFB palette has 30 shades,
of which 26 are pressed eyeshadows (in matte, shimmer and satin finishes) and 4
are baked eyeshadows with pigmentation that will blow your mind. In fact, applying any of the baked shadows
with a wet brush gives a foiled eyeshadow effect, that’s how insane it is. The packaging is absolutely stunning: a
sturdy gold case with a full-sized mirror.
The description on the website says that it’s ideal for creating any
smokey eye look you may desire and it certainly delivers in that regard. I love that there are several softer shades
that any skin tone can use as transition shades, or more specifically, that I
can create better gradients with.
I do have a few complaints about
the palette: firstly, there’s an unholy amount of kickback when dipping into
the pans – the mattes in particular. I
mean, I got a heap from just swatching and there’s only so much damage control
you can do trying to salvage those precious dust particles, and the metallic colours
are so ultra-pigmented that even when you do pick them up, there’s not much you
can do with it unless you plan on painting your whole face. The only way to avoid this is to go in with
an even lighter hand than usual.
Secondly, these pans are tiny. I realise that we’re only paying R170, but
jeepers creepers. Thankfully the
eyeshadows are, like I said, highly pigmented so you don’t need that much, but
when you’re a beauty blogger looking for more bang for your buck (alliterative
qween!), these tiny pans do shock you at first.
Lastly, the matte shades in this
palette are very inconsistent. You can
see from my arm swatches how some of the lighter shades didn’t even show up,
while the darker shades are super patchy.
Unless you’re committed to working hard with these shades, I recommend
you use other mattes to complement the baked eye shadows that are out of this
world pigmented.
My favourite look that I’ve
created with this palette, ironically, is not a smokey eye. It’s actually just using all the soft pinks
and purples for a delicate and feminine eye look. This look, obviously, can be intensified with
some of the darker purple shades. I’ll
be posting a how-to as my next post, so be sure to check back in.
Wishing you all the love and light, until next week ♡♡♡