MAKE UP FOR EVER SMOKY PALETTE: Here's to Smokey Eye Lovers

I don't know if I have mentioned that I have a band before. Yes, a rock band, there are 5 of us and I'm the singer. We started only half a year ago because of a rock competition among a few competitor firms, Battle of the Bands. As a makeup fanatic, naturally, I want to look my best when I'm on stage. I associate rock and roll with heavier makeup, and I always go for smokey eyes. The thing is that I am not the best at doing smokey eyes makeup because of my eye shape. Frankly, I've seen smokey eyes attempt, which turn badly into panda eyes on celebrities who have similar eye shape with me. So I have always been afraid of these types of looks... that's until I found this palette.



Make Up For Ever Smokey Palette is a 8 colour eyeshadow palette that is specifically designed for users to achieve a smokey eye look using different colour combination. The quality of the eyeshadow in this palette is consistent with their single eyeshadows. This means they're pigmented and they stay on quite well with a primer. They're also buttery soft, but not too powdery, which didn't give me too much fallout when I apply these shadows.


The palette includes the following 8 colours, and they have described it really well:

• #4 Black - A matte black
• #79 Deep Plum Shimmer - The description says it all
• #81 Metallic Navy Blue - The description says it all
• #80 Peacock Green - A moss green colour satin finish
• #122 Metallic Copper - It's more like a metallic bronze to me
• #127 Metallic Taupe - A taupe colour with satin finish
• #126 Yellow Beige - A skintone beige colour with satin finish
• #7 White Shimmer - The description says it all

I really like the colour selection here, because they included 5 darker colours that I would use for a smoky eye look, a taupe/brown colour for creating depth, and two highlight colours. But these are very dupable colour, so it's not quite unique. My go-to rock look is blue smoky eyes: I would use the blue shadow as main colour, add the bronze colour in the crease to warm up the look, use the black to tight-line and darken the lash line, use either highlight colours for... well highlight.

Here are some swatches of the colours:





It also came with two small eye brushes (10P and 16P). They are good brushes to have, but I think they're not quite useful in this palette. 10P is a utlra small flat paddle brush, which they recommend for applying shadow on the lid and in the crease. Because of its size, I find that it'll take too long to pack shadows on the eyelid. It's also too precise for crease work. It's not fluffy enough to blend the eye shadows in order to achieve a smoky look



16P is a precise tapered brush, they say you can use it for highlight and for thick eyeshadow liner. I agree that it can be used like that, but that's all what it can do, really. Of all brushes that they can pick, they picked this one, but not a fluffy blending brush, or a pencil brush. Like I said, I find them pretty irrelevant to the palette.



Overall, I really do like this palette. I only bring this palette with me for my eye makeup and it's really all I would need. It's a great palette because, say, you want to do a neutral look, you can just use the 4 colours on the right side (#122, #127, #126, #7). So I think it's also very travel friendly.



I don't see it on the Sephora website anymore, but it's still on the MUFE site and at Sephora stores (there're lots of them left last week). I think this would be one of those underhyped product, because, to me, it's a no brainer choice for smoky eye colours. It's great for refining your smoky eye skills with this palette. So if you are fond of smoky eyes, and don't already have these colours, you might want to check it out!

How would you do your go-to smoky eye look? With what colours?

x Rica