I had a little bit of money left over on an Ulta gift card from my birthday in November so when I walked into my local Ulta and saw the new Stila Matte 'N Metal Palette ($49) I grabbed it without a second thought! I have always been tempted by the Kat Von D Metal Matte Palette, especially since I know her formula is amazing, but there are some shades in that palette that I know I'll never wear. Looking at this palette, on the other hand, I knew that I would wear every single shade which is important, especially when you're dropping almost $50 bucks on it.
Let's take a look!
Description/Details: Create eye-catching color combos with just the right mix of matte and shimmer. Featuring six modern matte and six mega metallic shades in range of pink rose golds, cool-toned pewters and golden bronzes that flatter all skin tones, it's the one color palette you need to design eyes that truly dazzle.
Price: $49
Where to Buy: Ulta, Sephora, and Stila Cosmetics
The Stila Matte 'N Metal Palette comes in a plastic compact with a clasp closure. It's a gold color with a checkerboard pattern on the outside. The back of the palette lists all of the shades and inside, there's a large mirror (no brush). It's also the exact same size as the Eyes are the Window Palettes.
At first glance, the shade selection was perfect...but I think I was looking at the palette as a whole and thinking, "oh, those colors are super wearable!" and not really looking at how I would use each shade. For example, I three pale highlight colors is too much. I appreciate that they wanted to give us more of a variety, but at the same time, I think they take up some valuable space. I probably would have done two highlight colors...one cool and one warm.
I love the next three matte shades because they're perfect transition colors! The problem is, there's no deeper matte shade if I want to deepen up my crease a bit. As you'll see in the swatches below, the matte shades already swatch a bit lighter than they show up in the pan. I think if I were to design this palette, I would have done two highlight, two transition, and two deeper matte shades to keep it from skewing too light as a whole.
As far as the metal shades go, I really like the shade selection! I think they did a great job of including both warm and cool shades in light, medium, and deeper colors.
Formula/Swatches:
All of these shadows felt soft and buttery...I had no issues with them being dry. But I did have trouble getting many of them to show up well on my skin.
The matte shades felt very creamy but they go on much sheerer than they look in the pan. This is one reason why I feel that including some deeper shades would have helped a little bit, because looking at the swatches below, the top row of mattes looks very light overall.
The metal shades had a couple of standouts, particularly the last two shades on the bottom row, sizzle and flare. They went on smoothly and are highly pigmented in one swipe...just gorgeous! The rest of the metal shades, however had more of a flaky texture...you know when you dip your brush or finger into the pan and it feels a bit grainy and there are chunks of color and glitter falling everywhere? They went on a bit more patchy and sheer so I did have to build them up a little bit in the swatches below. If you look closely, you can see how the first four metal shades have a lot of visible glitter while the last two shades look more smooth and shiny.
I can definitely appreciate the need for more subtle eyeshadow shades and understand that not everyone wants crazy pigmented shadows...especially if you work in an office or just want a very natural, everyday look. But for me, I'm usually applying my makeup really fast and I like a more pigmented shadow that I can just apply quickly and be done without having to build and blend so much. I also gravitate toward palettes that I can use to create an entire look without having to reach into another one, and the lack of deeper shades in this one means that I may not be able to do that all the time.
What do you think of the new Stila Matte 'N Metal Palette? Let me know in the comments below! :)