Kat Von D x Divine Collection - Review

Valentine's Day 2018, what were you doing? Romantic dinner? Putting new flowers in a vase? Instagramming your new knockoff MK handbag with the all important #boydonegood?

I'll tell you what I was doing, and it was much more satisfying and heart warming than any of the above; I was stalking the Kat Von D website waiting for the Divine collection to launch. I had been waiting for this day since last October, when the collaboration was announced and there was absolutely no way I was missing out on this palette and lipstick!

Last October Kat Von D Beauty announced an upcoming collaboration with much loved, late drag queen Divine. I don't know enough about Kat to make the connection between her and Divine, so it was a little surprising to me, but nevertheless I thought it was amazing news as drag is such an inspiration in my makeup and my life. I was HERE for this palette without even knowing what was in it!

For those of you who don't know your "herstory" (yeah, I watch RuPaul's Drag Race too you know), Divine was a well known and much loved drag queen who rose to fame in the late 60's - early 70's. Her work with legendary director John Waters made Divine into a modern day icon and an inspiration for many, not just drag performers. One of Divine's most famed roles was as Edna Turnblad in the original Hairspray movie, and more recently there was a whole episode of RuPaul's Drag Race dedicated to her (season 7, episode 9 "Divine Inspiration").

I will say that despite asking for a release time and price on these items, nothing was given (in response to my query or any others that I tried to look for on social media) other than a generic "Coming soon!" which I didn't particularly enjoy. I get severe makeup FOMO and launch dates give me pure anxiety so not knowing drives me up the wall!

Anyway, I actually got an email from Kat Von D Beauty at around 9:30am GMT, so I imagine it launched around midnight. I headed over to the website, and despite the awful layout for mobile users, I completed the transaction easily enough. One thing I really like is that you pay your customs and duties at the checkout with this website, rather than having to wait 3000 years for Royal Mail to process it and then add their lovely £8 charge on top of that.

I have ordered once from the Kat Von D website and I wasn't hugely impressed by the time it took for them to dispatch my parcel - I had ordered the Metal Matte Mini last time, and by the time it arrived at my house, it was only a couple of days before Debenhams launched the damn thing! However, I was very pleasantly surprised to get a dispatch notification the following day, and it arrived 5 days after that. I was really pleased with this, especially considering I ordered from the Jeffree Star website 4 days prior and despite paying for the faster shipping option, my tracking still shows the parcel as being in the USA.

The products were packed pretty nicely, they came in a plain cardboard box with the Kat Von D logo on the inside and plenty of that big bubble wrap. I did have a slight issue with one shade in the eye palette, Babs, which was not sitting in the pan properly. Luckily it hadn't shattered, it had just come loose from the pan but it pressed back into place pretty nicely.

Here's the collection - an 8 shade eyeshadow palette and a Studded Kiss lipstick. The packaging is a crazy neon green colour, which I absolutely adore but don't necessarily associate with Divine. The palette has Divine's eyes on the front, with the shade names on the back and when you open the palette it has a good sized mirror with Divine's iconic eyebrows printed onto it, which I think is such a fantastic touch! The lipstick is the regular Studded Kiss packaging in the neon green colour and it has a vanilla scent to it (which I personally find revolting, but thankfully it doesn't linger because I love this shade).

Let's take a look at the lipstick first;

The shade name is Divine, and it's a very pretty and extremely wearable pinky nude colour. I do tend to wear liquid lipsticks most of the time, but I really love the formula of Kat Von D's Studded Kiss lipsticks. If I am going to wear a traditional bullet lipstick then I would either reach for Charlotte Tilbury or one of these as they are so smooth and creamy and the pigmentation is fab. They glide on easily and aren't patchy or drying. This is a very pretty every day shade, not necessarily something that screams drag at first glance, but in a lot of her more well known images, Divine is usually seen wearing a red or nude lip, so I absolutely get why this shade was chosen. This was the same price as the regular Studded Kiss range, $19 (or £17 in Debenhams if you're buying from the UK when it launches here).

The palette is exactly the same size, shape and layout as the Pastel Goth palette from last year. If you read my review about that, you'll know I absolutely loved it and definitely thought it was worth the price, so I have high hopes for this too! This palette is $38 (the same as Pastel Goth), so I think it'll be around £35 when it comes to Debenhams.

The shades in this palette are Babs (a shimmery champagne), Hard Magic (matte black), Baltimore (shimmery navy), Waters (pale matte blue), Filthy (shimmery gunmetal), Pink Flamingos (shimmery neon green), Female Trouble (matte white) and Hairspray (silver glitter). I am completely in love with the shade names, they are so fitting and were definitely a great choice! I am a big fan of the shade selection too, although I have seen mixed reactions online. I know a lot of people wanted to see a purple shade named Ursula (the character from The Little Mermaid was based on the way Divine did her makeup), but I have not yet met a purple shade from this brand that I have liked, so I'm personally very glad that it wasn't part of this palette!

If you already own other Kat Von D palettes, then you'll probably have a couple of these shades - there are several palettes with a matte black and white in them, and Waters is quite similar to the shade Doom from Pastel Goth. There's a shimmery bright green in the Saint and Sinner palette too, but it's definitely not the same as Pink Flamingos.

I really like these shadows, I haven't seen anything like Hairspray from this brand yet and it's a nice surprise to see such a glittery eyeshadow. It's really nothing like the Metal Crush shadows, it's definitely more like a regular eyeshadow formula, but it's so full of glitter. Waters is such a pretty blue, and can be applied lightly for a wash of colour or built up for a really bold look. I will definitely use this palette, the only shade I probably wouldn't bother with much is Filthy because I much prefer bright colours, and if I use a black or grey to deepen up a look I usually reach for a matte rather than a shimmer, but that is just personal choice.

This is a limited edition collection, it's currently available on katvondbeauty.com and Sephora, but will be launching in Debenhams on March 7th.

Sugarpill x Little Twin Stars Collection

Behold! The most beautiful makeup collection my eyes ever did see!

On January 22nd, Sugarpill announced a mystery collaboration on their Instagram page. I didn't know what it was but I knew I was going to have this! Sugarpill is by far my favourite makeup brand in the world, and I absolutely adore the quality of their makeup, and the packaging is always absolutely perfect.

There was much speculation online about who the collab could be with. Given Amy (Sugarpill's owner)'s love of drag and her close friendships with many celebrity drag queens, most people were guessing a collab with another queen, much like Sugarpill's Kim Chi products. However, on January 24th, the brand announced that the collaboration was with Little Twin Stars, a pair of adorable Sanrio characters who were popular during the 1980's (another point from me, I am obsessed with anything from the 80's).

The collection consists of an eyeshadow palette, two liquid lipsticks and a makeup bag. The eyeshadow palette is available to purchase separately, and you can also purchase the liquid lipsticks as a twin set. They aren't available as singles, and the makeup bag only comes with the whole collection.

The collection launched on February 1st and once it has sold out, will  not be returning (and unlike most brands, I actually believe Sugarpill when they say this stuff....remember the Pumpkin Spice eyeshadow and lipstick? Man, I wish they'd bring those back). The products are currently available from the Sugarpill website and Beautylish, but keep in mind that when you are buying from the US you will have to pay an import fee. I bought mine from Beautylish and the fees were £16, but if I had bought through Sugarpill I'd have had to pay another £8 on top of that for the Royal Mail handling fee.

I have contacted Beauty Bay and Love-Makeup.co.uk who both told me that they will be getting the collection in, but neither of them would give me a launch date. I absolutely needed this in my hands as soon as possible so I chose to buy through Beautylish as I know that their shipping is really fast (and they use FedEx so no Royal Mail fee) and I would probably get this collection before Beauty Bay launched it. As of the time I am writing this blog, the products are fully stocked at Beautylish and Sugarpill and have just been launched on Beauty Bay and Love-Makeup in the UK.

The prices appear to be different on both UK sites, with Beauty Bay listing the full collection at £60, the lip duo at £30 and the palette at £32. Love-Makeup are selling the whole collection at £63, the palette at £30 and the lip duo at £28.

Let's take a look at the collection:

The collection comes packaged in this really pretty little keepsake box. The box is made from cardboard and has a magnetic closure. It's fairly sturdy so can be kept to store things inside - I think I will keep my single highlighters in this box since they are currently taking over the drawer that they live in at the moment!

The box has a cardboard sleeve with the Little Twin Stars in colour, and this slides off to reveal the Little Twin Stars in gold, with the Sugarpill logo on the box itself. 

Once you open the box, there's a removable insert which holds all the pieces of the collection. The packaging on this set is just beautiful. It's so detailed and true to both the Little Twin Stars and Sugarpill aesthetics. I generally don't keep the boxes that my makeup comes in, but I will definitely be using this box again. 

Inside the box you can see the 6 eyeshadow palette, makeup bag and two liquid lipsticks. The eyeshadow palette is the same size as the previous Sugarpill x Edward Scissorhands palette, for reference. 

The palette comes with 6 rectangular eyeshadow pans, weighing 2.5g each, slightly smaller than a regular sized Sugarpill pressed shadow which is 3g. This palette contains three foiled shadows, two frost shades and one matte. I know most people would prefer to have more than one matte shade in a palette, but I have so many eyeshadows that it really doesn't bother me. I very rarely use one palette per eye look anyway. 

L-R: Wish, Sky Candy, Dream Dust, Twinkle Twinkle, Star Ribbon, Cloud Maker

The shadows swatch beautifully and perform really nicely, just as I would expect from any Sugarpill shadows. They are very pale in colour but can be built up for intensity or applied with a damp brush to really bring out the foiled aspect of the shades.

The lipsticks are absolutely adorable. There is one lip colour to represent each of the twins hair colours. Kiki is a beautiful aqua shade with gold sparkles, and Lala is a bright bubblegum pink which also has the gold sparkles running through it.

Please excuse my awful swatches, I tapped them to bring out the glitter before they had dried! Both of these shades can be worn on the eyes, and I like to use Kiki in my waterline if I'm wearing the eyeshadow palette, I think it goes so well with Star Ribbon! When I was playing about with this collection, I mixed the two colours together and got this muted purple colour, which is probably much more wearable as an every day shade than either of the two lipsticks alone.

The makeup bag is fairly small, but it can fit a decent amount of products inside. I am not a collector of makeup bags really, I prefer to have everything out so that I can see it, and I don't ever travel at all but this is very cute. I like the frosted plastic on the front, which means you can see what's inside but you can't see through the bag completely. It's a very cute design with the Little Twin Stars sitting on a cloud and the zipper is the Sugarpill logo.

I'm so pleased with this collection. I think it's so cute and such a refreshing change from the constant stream of warm toned red and orange palettes we've been bombarded with lately. Yes, you may need to incorporate another palette if you're using this one for a full eye look but it isn't necessary and the foiled shades make a great accent to a neutral look if you want to change up your eye look now and again. I absolutely adore the lip colours, but if you're a nude lip kind of girl then you might want to skip the lip duo and just go for the eyeshadow palette - or give bold lips a try, you never know, you might love them!

Brand Review - Kat Von D Beauty (Part 1)

I've been writing this brand review for what seems like weeks now and it's getting a bit long winded so I've decided to split the review into 3 parts. I'm doing this because I have too many eyeshadow palettes to talk about, so I'll write a separate  blog post about those, and I have wanted to try the brushes forever, so I've just ordered a few and will do another post on my feelings when they arrive. This part will be a pretty long one, as there are quite a lot of products to cover, but I've tried to break it down and add as many pictures as I can so I don't bore you to death!

After being catapulted to stardom in the reality TV show Miami Ink, globally renowned tattoo artist Kat Von D launched her own makeup line for Sephora in 2008. Kat Von D Beauty was originally a Sephora exclusive and the initial launch included two eyeshadow palettes, eyeliners, brushes and four lipsticks - including the now iconic Lolita shade.

The brand has expanded over the years and now comprises of a full collection with everything from primer to setting spray. Kat Von D Beauty launched in the UK at Debenhams last year and counters are popping up in stores all over the country already. Super handy if you want to check out swatches or get shade matched to a foundation. All of the products are cruelty free and a good selection are vegan - the Kat Von D Beauty website will tell you which shades and products are vegan by the #VeganAlert hashtag on the product descriptions, which is pretty useful as so many consumers are switching towards veganism these days.

I've not got everything from the range but I have a decent selection so I'm going to give my thoughts on the products, and then the brand as a whole. In these reviews I'm going to try and stay away from the more problematic aspects of the brands and owners, as if I got into the whole drama aspect of the makeup industry I'd be here writing all day. It's all available on Google if you are a gossip lover though!

Let's start with the foundation;

The Lock-It foundation is SUPER full coverage. It's great for oily skin and it gives a matte finish. I initially didn't like this product as it is so thick it transfers really easily, even if I set it with powder. I've recently started to use it again though and I find that if I apply it with a damp beauty blender tather than a brush, it doesn't go on as thick and its much easier to set. Despite the heavy coverge and thicker formula, I don't find this foundation to be particularly cakey, it's a pretty nice foundation if you need full coverage - which I absolutely do! As you can see from the swatch image, it is not heavy enough to cover a tattoo, and it does enhance skin texture!

Might as well do this in the order I'd apply my makeup, so concealer is next up!

The Lock-It Concealer Creme was launched last year to replace the brand's original concealer (which I utterly hated). I do only have the shade White-Out which is pure white, so my review may not be totally accurate of the more pigmented shades.
I am very fair skinned, so when I read that Kat was coming out with a completely white concealer you can bet I was sat by my computer on launch day ready to buy this stuff! I do struggle to get a concealer that brightens my NW10 skin so this was ideal.Unfortunately, the coverage is absolutely diabolical! It's good to brighten the skin but it does not conceal at all unfortunately. I still use this concealer every day but I have to mix it with another one in order to conceal my dark circles.

Lock-It Setting Powder. I hate this stuff. I really cannot stand it. It cakes up around my oily patches and enhances my already gigantic pores something rotten. And baking with this is an absolute disaster. I'll stick to Laura Mercier.

Shade and Light Contour palettes;

The brand has two contour palettes, a cream and a powder. The shades are the same in each palette. I only have the cream contour palette though as I like to use one of the shades in the Shade and Light Eyeshadow palette for powder contouring! The cream formula is nice and soft, not super stiff and blends out really nicely with a brush or a sponge. There is a cream contour brush available from this brand, and although I've not tried any of the brushes I definitely plan to in the future.

Kat Von D Beauty currently only has one "blusher" in the range, and this is an "eyeshadow and blush" in the shade Lolita. It's the same size as the regular single eyeshadow pans and is EXTREMELY pigmented - I definitely had Aunt Sally cheeks the first time I tried this! Lolita is marketed as a universally flattering colour, and while this is certainly true as a blush, I would like to see more shades available for those of us who would generally sway towards a pink or orange blush, or even a more luminous blush.

Lolita: finger swatch, blush brush swatch and flat brush swatch

The brand currently has two highlighter palettes, Alchemist and Metal Crush.

The Alchemist palette is very much like Moonchild from Anastasia Beverly Hills - a palette of duochrome shades best suited to pale skin tones, which can be used as highlight, eyeshadow or eyeshadow/lip toppers. I am not in love with this palette for highlighting, I find it to be quite chunky and a little more chalky than Moonchild, and the pan size is very small. I do, however love to use this as a topper on a smokey eye to give a stunning pop of colour. Here is my client Emily wearing the shade Saphyre over a black smoked out look:

The Metal Crush Extreme highlighter palette contains 3 pans of the Metal Crush formula, although the pans are larger to accommodate a highlighter/fan brush.  A couple of years ago, the beauty community went crazy for the Metal Crush shade Thunderstruck as a hightlighter, and although I have never tried it personally, I was looking forward to the release of this palette. It contains a pink, white and peach shade and oh my goodness I absolutely HATE this palette!
I can't put into words how much I can't stand this bloody thing. It looks SO stunning, the packaging is beautiful, the shades are so pretty and when first applied to the skin it gives the most blinding, metallic shine. Give it two hours though and your face looks like you've just had a glitter bomb go off in front of you. There are so many glitter particles in these highlighters, they are so glitter heavy that it just ends up looking a mess if you wear it for anything other than taking a picture for Instagram. I'm super disappointed with this palette, it's definitely not what I had hoped for.

Brows:

The brand does have a brow product, Tattoo Brow, but it isn't available in the UK. I've not tried it so can't give my thoughts. I do, however, use the Shade and Light eye palette for brows a lot!

Eyeshadow:

Kat Von D Beauty sells individual metallic eyeshadows, the Metal Crush range. I don't own any of these individual pans, however I am fairly sure that the formula is the same as that of the metallic shades in the Metal Matte palette, and I absolutely adore those. They are super soft and full of pigment, and they are highly metallic. If I was going to pay £16 for an individual eyeshadow then this is exactly what I'd expect from it. Currently the only single matte eyeshadow available is Lolita, which I have discussed above. Here is a picture of me wearing Lolita on my eyes and cheeks and also the Lolita 2 liquid lipstick:

Eyeliner:

Ok, I know that everyone in the entire universe RAVES about the Tattoo Liner, but I have honestly never even wanted to try it because I am so emotionally attached to my NYX liquid liner (seriously, I have gone through 3 of these this year). However, I picked up one of the very cute mini kits from Debenhams (if you want to try this brand but don't want to spend a fortune, take a look at Debenhams, these little kits are excellent value for money) which included a deluxe mini Tattoo Liner, so I thought I'd give it a little review.
I don't hate it. I actually really, REALLY like it. I hate to say that I completely get why it's hyped up so much. It's super matte, super black, stays on all day and doesn't crack or flake...but neither does my NYX one, and that's £6 compared to £16 so I know which one I'll be repurchasing.

Top two swatches, Kat Von D. Bottom two swatches, Nyx.

The brand has recently released a limited edition eyeliner collab with Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day

Marketed as an "anti-precision" liner, Basket Case is a smudgeable black pencil. It is  super soft and creamy to apply with the idea it can be smudged out to get a super black smokey eye, just like Billie Joe wears. I haven't had chance to play about with this yet so I'm hoping to do a separate review later.

Lips:

Kat Von D Beauty has an impressive selection of lip products. You can choose from the old school bullet lipstick or the current favourite, liquid to matte lipsticks. There are also lip liners in an array of colours, and the newly released Everlasting Glimmer Veil liquid lipsticks.
The Studded Kiss Lipsticks come in absolutely beautiful packaging. The casing is studded (obviously) and feels nice and sturdy. I have never been a fan of bullet lipsticks, but I have tried a couple of these and I quite enjoy them. They don't drag on the lips or cling to texture and imperfections like a lot of lipsticks can. The colours are nicely pigmented and opaque and they apply very smoothly.

Considering I really don't love the Everlasting Liquid Lipsticks, I own an awful lot of them!


I definitely don't hate this formula, but it is really not my favourite at all. It applies nicely, although I'd prefer a little more pigment in some of the nude shades and although they are comfortable to wear, I find that the wear time is not great. I also hate the giant applicators on the full size lipsticks, so I do prefer the minis. There's usually a box of mini liquid lipsticks out at Christmas, so if you are wanting to try these particular lipsticks then I definitely reccommend starting with one of those little sets.

The Lolita Vault which includes three lip liners, two liquid lipsticks, a studded kiss lipstick and the lolita blush.

I'm going to say pretty much the same thing about the Everlasting Lip Liners that I said about the Tattoo Liner. These lip liners are beautiful. They are soft, creamy and pigmented. They glide on beautifully. However, so do my NYX lip liners. I love the three Kat Von D lip liners that I own, but unless I need a specific colour in future, I think I will be sticking with NYX.

I find Kat Von D Beauty as a brand, pretty appealing. The packaging is always fantastic, but that is to be expected from a world renowned artist (Kat designs the lettering and packaging on all of her products). The brand has a great selection of products and colours, and are always coming out with new and innovative ideas - I am incredibly excited for the range of rainbow coloured eyebrow pomades coming this year, and I almost peed my pants with excitement when I found out they are bringing out a Divine palette in February! The brand does have some products which I personally think fall short of expectations, but I would say that this is true of most makeup/beauty brands. The fact that Kat is so passionate about animal rights and veganism makes this brand appealing to the many consumers who are moving towards cruelty free makeup these days, and it is great to see a brand of this size have so many vegan options. I know that, as a makeup artist, if I have a client who requests vegan products only, I would be able to get pretty much everything I need just from this brand. I definitely enjoy a lot of Kat Von D Beauty products, and I will continue to buy from them in the future as long as they keep up the same level of quality and innovation.

Review - Oh My Glitter by Robyn McCattrall Liquid Lipstick - Sakura

Oh My Glitter by Robyn McCattrall - Image from www.facebook.com/OhMyGlitterOMG

About a week or so ago, a Facebook page that I had been keeping my eye on, but never actually purchased from made a post that caught my eye.

I  have been following Oh My Glitter by Robyn McCattrall for a little while, I think I had seen her products mentioned in one of the many Facebook makeup groups I'm in, although after receiving my lipstick I reached out to Robyn for a little chat as I wanted to write this blog. 

Robyn Makes eyeshadows, highlighters, pressed glitters and lipsticks. Robyn started her business around 7 months ago, after her friends had mentioned that they struggled to find vegan and cruelty free makeup so she created some products to pass around friends and after the great response she got, she decided to look into making and selling her own makeup. 

You will probably recognise this very pretty packaging as being similar to a certain well known fashion designer's lip gloss component. Very expensive looking, with a mermaid scale design on the bottle, these lipsticks are a packaging lovers dream (and at a fraction of the price of the designer lip gloss)!

I ordered a mini liquid lipstick in the shade Sakura. This is a VERY pale pinky nude with a gold duochrome shift to it, and it is absolutely stunning. I'm very fair skinned so I do prefer to wear it on top of another lip colour, although I have worn it alone a couple of times. Here's a swatch of Sakura.

And a lip swatch.

And Sakura on top of a purple liquid lipstick.

I do really like this lipstick. I paid £8.99 for a mini, and the full size versions retail at £14.99. Postage (within the UK) took two days and I don't remember the cost but it was certainly reasonable.

I find that when applying this lipstick I do need to dip the applicator back into the tube a few times, but I wonder if that could be an issue with the actual doe foot applicator than the product itself. The product is not at all lumpy or patchy, just a nice smooth formula that dries down completely  matte and most importantly, is comfortable to wear.

I have to say, the last time I wore this lipstick out I ate like a pig (burger and ice cream) and it barely budged. A bit had come away from the inner bottom lip, but I had expected it to have completely vanished, especially with it being such a pale colour.

I am certainly more than impressed with the wear time and formula of this lipstick and I can't wait to try more colours and maybe even one of Robyn's subscription boxes!

Robyn's Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/OhMyGlitterOMG

Robyn's Website: www.ohmyglitteromg.com

Review - Charlotte Tilbury Bar of Gold

First released in 2013 as a limited edition, the Bar of Gold highlighter is now back in stock! This highlighter has become a cult favourite among collectors, mainly because of how stunning it looks! 
Charlotte Tilbury is well known for her high end products and beautiful packaging. The products look astounding and the items I have tried from her range have all performed really well. It's nice to find a brand that has eye catching packaging and that works like a dream too.

If you Google reviews on the Bar of Gold, probably the first thing you will notice is people saying that it is smaller than expected. It. Is. Tiny. Absolutely miniscule, especially for something that retails at £32. The packaging is also cardboard, which I have seen quite a few complaints about. Ideally I'd like to see this in a plastic or metal component, but it's not the end of the world for me that it's in cardboard. Here's a comparison with a Charlotte Tilbury Lipstick box:

See. Tiny. Good job it's highlighter and that you don't need to use much of it at a time!

On to the swatches! Here is a finger swatch (top) and a brush swatch using the Illamasqua highlighter brush (now discontinued, but I'd compare it to the Morphe M510 if you want an idea of the brush used). No primer, NW10 skin:

I was worried that this would be too dark for my skin, as I tend to find gold highlights too warm toned and dark for me. I was very pleasantly surprised, however, to find that this is very much a white toned gold shade on the skin and looks great on us ghost faced girls (and boys, of course)!

If you're expecting Instagram levels of glow, then this highlighter is definitely not for you. It gives a really pretty, subtle glow to the cheekbones. I'm sure it can be built up, but I really don't think it's necessary with a product like this. I don't have a picture of me wearing this highlighter so I threw some on this afternoon and took a quick picture - please excuse pretty much everything about this picture!!

That's a shadow, not muddy contour I promise!

I really do enjoy this highlighter for day to day use, and I will get a lot of use out of it. I can't see this working well on anything darker than a medium toned skin though (although I'd love you to prove me wrong, please tag me in your swatches on Instagram), and as I said before, if you like the whole "glowing to the gods" Tin Man look then this is definitely not for you. I think it's a great little item for a makeup collector as it's fast becoming an iconic piece of makeup and it's bound to sell out again this time around!

Review - Kat Von D Pastel Goth Palette

I don't think anyone will ever understand how happy my heart was when I first saw this palette! The promo pictures showed the eyeshadow pans as being really bright colours, and prompted one YouTuber to ask "honestly, where's the pastels?" In truth, although the colours do look fairly vibrant in the pans (although perhaps not as much as in the promo images), on the skin they absolutely do translate as pastel shades.

The palette is smaller than the palettes we are usually used to seeing from Kat. In comparison to the Shade and Light, Chrysalis and Innerstellar palettes, for example, this palette has 8 shades rather than the usual 12.

The Pastel Goth palette is currently a Sephora exclusive, retailing at $38. If you are in the UK, you can order from Sephora or wait until the spring, when Debenhams will be stocking it. I have no patience whatsoever so I went for the first option.

The 8 shades in this palette are Star (sunshine yellow), Clementine (peach), Meow (pinky lilac), Dope (cool toned purple), Doom (bright blue, probably the most vibrant in the palette), Gloom (cool toned green), Dagger (grey) and Skull (white).

I really love all of these colours, but Dagger is a bit out of place for me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice matte grey shadow as much as the next person, but I can't see me using it in conjunction with the rest of the shades in this palette.

Brush swatches over primer on NW10 skin

The palette comes in a matching box, complete with Kat's artwork on the front.  I know her packaging is a huge selling point for a lot of people. I'm not generally a fan, but I do like the colours on this one, it's very pretty and definitely screams Pastel Goth!

I think my favourite thing about the packaging is that the palette has the names underneath the shadows rather than just on the bottom, making them much easier to refer to by name!

I also like that this palette doesn't kick up anywhere near as much shadow as Kat's palettes usually do. Yes, they are still a little dusty but that is due to the amount of pigment, and although there is some kick up, I haven't experienced any fallout when applying to my eyes, which happens with every other palette of hers I have tried.

The colours blend easily and they last a really good amount of time on the eyes (I always use a primer, I haven't tested them without) without fading. I think this palette is a pretty versatile one, there are tons of different looks you can get from it and a great way to introduce yourself to colour if you are a bit scared of it and prefer your neutrals!

I've done a couple of looks with this palette so far and I think my favourite shade definitely has to be Clementine! It's so pretty and summery. Although at the rate I've been using it, I don't know if there will be any left by the summer.

I'm really enjoying this palette and I will definitely be picking up a backup when it comes to Debenhams in the Spring. I can't wait to play around more with it and see what other looks I can come up with!