These days, you're no kind of social media influencer or beauty guru unless you're selling something to your loyal followers. And Manny Gutierrez, AKA MannyMUA is no exception! Hot on the heels of his friend Laura Lee, and ex friend Jeffree Star, Manny has now put his name to his own makeup brand.
Lunar Beauty launched its first product in June, the 14 shade eyeshadow palette, Life's a Drag. The palette has 12 matte shades and 2 foiled finish shadows. Life's a Drag is available from www.lunarbeauty.com for $45 and Beauty Bay for £37.
The first half of the palette has a black, white and some neutral shades, while the second half contains some stunning brights. Two neutral foiled shadows separate the sections.
Inspired by drag queens, the palette casing has an image of Manny's eyes with heavy drag makeup (applied by the very talented Lipstick Nick), and the shade names are all inspired by drag culture which I think brings a really fun aspect to the palette, whilst also taking advantage of the fact that drag is super popular right now. I definitely don't think that this is a palette that's aimed towards drag artists, but rather tapping into the current marketability of drag. The palette, in my opinion, is too bulky for a travelling performer to carry around, and I think the pan sizes are just too small for a drag artist to be using on a daily basis.
The packaging of this palette is absolutely beautiful. It feels very heavy and it's larger than I had expected it to be. The palette itself has a holographic overlay with embossed rose gold details, and it comes in a rose gold box with glitter effect writing. This palette also has a mirror - albeit a small one - and a double ended brush.
I, personally, could have done without the brush - I never use brushes that come with palettes, I find that the fluffy end tends to be too stiff and the flat side too wide (and this brush is no exception), but I do appreciate the attention to detail here, it is a pretty little brush. The mirror is far too small for such a large palette, I think that in this case there has been more attention to packaging details than practicality, but again, this is not really an issue for someone like me who doesn't use the mirrors on a palette. I did give the brush a quick try, but after approximately 3 seconds of trying to blend with the "fluffy" side, I threw it down and went back to my Illamasqua blending brush.
I knew as soon as I saw this palette that I would buy it (it says drag and I'm a marketers dream), but I did have my reservations about the shadow quality. I think the idea of a palette with a good range of neutrals, brights and shimmers AND a black and a white shadow is ideal, I really don't know why there aren't more on the market like this. It's SO versatile! I always use a white shadow to set my eye primer, so I always give extra points to a palette with a matte white, although I didn't really get on with the white in this palette. It's just not pigmented enough for my liking and even with building up it doesn't reach full opacity. This is the only shade I had any trouble with at all though.! The black is also a great basic addition to any palette and this one is very black. Manny said in his reveal video that it's a buildable black shadow, but I have found it to be pretty black straight off, which I do appreciate. There's a nice selection of browns and all the bright shades you need! The foils in this palette, although only two of them, and both neutral, are super reflective and shimmery, and the shade Beat makes a beautiful face highlight!
The shadows in this palette are nicely pigmented, and the ones that aren't one swipe opacity are easily built up (with the exception of Cake Face, the white shade). These shadows are very dusty, and although I experienced quite a lot of kick back in the pans after gently dipping my brush in, I didn't notice any fallout while applying to my eyes at all, and the shades blended nicely together using a good brush.
Swatches as always are applied over a base of Urban Decay Primer Potion using a Wayne Goss 18 brush for matte shades and Illamasqua flat shader brush for metallics/shimmers. The second picture is the pans after swatching, this palette has the potential to get very messy very quickly!
I used the palette to try and recreate the eye look on the front of the box, and although I am no Lipstick Nick, I was pleased with the results and how nice the shadows were to work with. And yes, I put on the biggest eyelashes I could find - this is a drag inspired palette after all!
I also used the shade Beat as highlighter on my cheeks and cupids bow, although it's only visible on my cupids bow in this picture. I really like it as a highlighter, and I rarely use warm tones on my cheeks.
This palette is made in the USA, although it does state on the box that the ingredients are "domestic and/or imported" so make of that what you will.
Some of the shades in this palette are advertised as "pressed pigments" which is not a concern if you are in the UK, but if you wanted to know which shades aren't considered to be "eye safe" by the FDA, the shades are Pageant Queen (purple), Kai Kai (pink), Trade (burgundy) and Snatched (red). I have covered the topic of pressed pigments and FDA approval in a previous review on Jeffree Star's Blood Sugar palette if you'd like more information on that though!
In summary, I absolutely love this palette! The white is just not good enough considering it's a drag inspired palette (sorry Manny but no self respecting drag queen is gonna be using this, it's not a patch on Tako from Sugarpill), but the rest of the shades completely make up for that. The white is fine if you use it to set your eye base (which I always do), just not great for building up - in the images above I used Jeffree Star Cosmetics' Drug Lord as a base for the white shadow to make it stand out.
If you are stuck in a neutral rut and would like to experiment with colourful eyeshadows then I think this is ideal. It would be great for adding a pop of colour to the lower lashline or inner corner of a neutral look, and then once you break out of that comfort zone you might even grow up to be a real drag queen!
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