Em Cosmetics Beach Life Palette: Summer Getaway Look

The second last quadrant to be reviewed of the Em Cosmetics Beach Life Palette is filled with promising neutral bronze-y shades, as one would expect from something called a Beach palette.The previous two quadrants reviewed (Sunshine Lover and Poolside) had a mixture of hit and miss shadows, with Poolside being more successful in quality. Unfortunately, the quadrant today performed very poorly.

I swear this picture looked better on my camera

My god. This look like some nice neutral-ish  shades that can even be built up to make a party look, right? Righhht? Yeah. I was heavily disappointed when I started swatching these eyeshadows. Almost all have close to no pay-off and don't feel smooth at all. The peachy golden shade was a nice surprise, just in terms of the colour, I was expecting a duller colour looking at the product in the pan, but it turns more golden and satin-y when swatched. The medium bronzey brown shade (middle left) was probably the smoothest shadow, but the pay-off was the same disappointment.

The lipglosses (lipstick?) were super sticky, the same as the others. And they are quite shimmery, but the colours themselves are pretty nice. Once the majority of the product has faded or wore off (which is actually quite quickly), there are traces of gold sparkle left which gives the lips a nice sheen. 

The blush could possibly be the redeeming point of this palette. This is really smooth, nicely pigmented and has a nice sheen to it that adds a glow to your face. I think this is my favourite blush so far out of the entire palette (I mean, there are only four, though, but still). It's a peachy shade, but not too much glitter or sparkle, perhaps you could call it very smooth, even shimmer? I'm not even usually a fan of peachy blushes, but this looks nice and quite subtle in a good way on the cheeks.

Without Flash

With Flash

I wasn't expecting much from this palette quadrant when applying, based on the swatches, but, as usual, they did perform better on actual application. The shadows are just a slightly more pigmented version than the swatches, but most of them are pretty much accurate in their relation to each other (if that makes sense, the more pigmented swatches are more pigmented on the eyes than the less). The satin peach shade was used as a base and that's pretty much the best shadow that applied on the eyes. The rest were pretty much less average to average. And, in previous, while the colours matched well in the given look, the gold colour just didn't seem to fit to me as an inner corner highlight. Blending a bit on the browbone was pretty okay, but it just seemed a bit of a stretch.

The lipglosses were sticky on the lips as I expected and lasted not long at all, maybe about half an hour to an hour? Just a clear gloss with a bit of shine is all it is really.

The blush was fantastic as I was expecting, and it does apply quite sheer on the cheeks. But you can build it up and it doesn't look patchy, though it gives a nice slight sheen on the cheeks. It goes quite well with my NC30 skintone; I don't really see this shade working too well on lighter skintones, although it could perhaps work as a highlighter for deeper skintones. It's not too shimmery too which I like about it.

Before

After

I stand by comments earlier in this post: this quadrant is the most disappointing in this palette. The quality is just not there, the pay-off is very lacking and the shadows are hard as anything. The lipglosses are sticky and the longevity is pitiful. Again, the only redeeming factor could perhaps be the blush. It's smooth, with a nice finish and a gorgeous colour for medium skintones. I can slowly see what I would actually be using and what will take more work, so the travel palette would work out nicely to choose out the pans that will actually be worth it.