Review: MUA (Makeup Academy Professional) Metallic Eye Shadow Palette

This was purchased for me, by my husband, at CVS.

Swatch Picture

The swatches were does over the e.l.f. eyelid primer, running the brush through the eye shadow once and then patting it on the primer until the color showed; this is important to keep in mind while reading the review. These are eye shadows that do not show the same with finger swatches as the do with brush swatches.

The statement on the back of the packaging:

This set of artist-inspired shadows is everything you need to play up your eyes. Enhance your eyelids with base shades, intensify with crease shades, and add a luminous touch with highlighting shades. Palette holds 10 coordinating shades that apply with ease for fallout-free intensity. Build, blend and play for hours in this spectrum of supreme pigmentation. Featuring pearl and metallic finishes to dress eyes up or down. Every enviable look stays put for hours on end, day or night.

To Apply: Prime eyes with the MUA Pro No-Crease Eye Shadow Base. Then apply eye shadow with MUA Pro Brushes.

How it worked for me:

First, if you have not read my review of the MUA Pro No-Crease Eye Shadow Base, I would not recommend using that with this or any other eye shadow palette you might have. The longest I was able to get the eye shadow to last when using that primer was 60 minutes. But this is not a review of the primer, this is a review of the eye shadows so now I will go on and talk about how they worked with my standard testing primer and my every day primer.

When doing the individual time tests for this palette with the e.l.f. eye lid primer, so long as I kept the application sheer, it lasted six hours, consistently across the palette. The problem with this is that a sheer application of this palette means that half the palettes eye shadows are going to look mostly gray. The gray eye shadows in this palette are the black eye shadow on the top row and all but the white eye shadow on the bottom row. I even asked my husband what color he thought I had on my eyes when I used the reddish brown eye shadow in the second row, by itself, and he did not see brown at all. The green and the top purple were the only eye shadows that were a colorful eye shadow that actually showed sorted of the color in the pan and even then, it was a very muted version of that color. With finger swatches you could get something much closer, but with a brush, I was never able to achieve anything close to what was in the pan on the individual time tests or the blending tests.

When doing the blending tests with the Wet n Wild Fergie primer, these lasted at least 12 hours and blended well. I was able to build up a little more of the color from the pan with the green eye shadow, though not with the top row purple eye shadow.

The primary brush I used to apply these was the Wet n Wild eye shadow brush because these eye shadows seem to apply best when using a dense, yet fluffy, brush in a swiping motion. I did using the MUA Crease brush to apply darker shadows to the very outer most part of the lid and then would blend inward with a separate brush, usually a clean Wet n Wild eye shadow brush.

Because half of the eye shadows ended up looking mostly, or completely, gray on the lid or in the crease, the variety of looks ended up being much smaller than I thought they would be. Also, I could not tell the difference between the two finishes when applied on the lid, they just all looked shimmery unless I really blended them out and then a lot of the shimmer tended to disappear.

Once I realized how the eye shadows were going to appear, I was able to create looks that I liked from this palette and in combination with the Nude Eye Shadow palette, but when I was initially using it, I was very disappointed with the eye shadows because they did not look how I thought they should have on the lid, based on how they looked in the pan. Even at a discount from the $15 regular price tag, I would not recommend getting this palette. I will probably still get use out of mine, but because half of the eye shadows ended up looking gray in this palette, I am transferring it to the night makeup collection where its function will be mainly to look at, because the colors in the pans are pretty.