IsaDora Highlands Palette Review and Swatches

IsaDora's autumn collection this year has been seen in many blogs, and in the end I just couldn't resist their palette! The palette was sold out in many places but I found mine at Sokos in Tampere. It's called Highlands and boasts five pressed eyeshadows. Two are matte, two glittery and one has a shimmery finish.

The palette has a wide mirror and an applicator with a small brush and a foam applicator end.

The light shimmery champagne shade.

Golden brown glitter shadow.

This matte shadow is actually more like an olive green than brown.

Dark brown glittery shadow.

Matte brownish-plum shadow, looks too brown in my picture.

The pictures were taken before I tried the palette. I mainly own loose shadows and one reason for that is that palettes start to look dirty and worn quite fast. This doesn't affect their performance, but I'm a visual person and like my items looking pristine. Cleaning up palettes takes a lot of time if done properly.

A look done with the palette only. I used the shimmery champagne on the whole lid and brow bone, then added the dark brown glitter shadow in the crease and put a little bit of the matte plum on top of it to darken the crease further.

Matte brownish-plum (swatched on top of Urban Decay Primer Potion).

Matte olive green (swatched on top of Urban Decay Primer Potion).

Glitter gold (swatched on top of Pixie Epoxy).

Dark brown glitter (swatched on top of Pixie Epoxy).

Shimmery champagne (swatched on top of Urban Decay Primer Potion).

I decided to take close ups on the shadows again after using the palette a few times to show what I mean with palettes becoming worn fast!

Brownish-plum matte.

Dark brown glitter, barely used.

Dark olive green.

Gold glitter shadow. This one seemed to have a little problem with starting to crumble on the top edge after a few uses.

Shimmery satin.

I tried the applicator that came with the palette, and as usual, it's not great. The foam end was more useful for me since I don't own any of those. It was excellent for applying the glittery shadows with minimal fall off.

The matte shadows are great, they have a lot of pigment and are easy to blend. I still had some problems with the glittery ones, they go on very sheer and tend to give a lot of fall off, but work ok with a sticky primer like Fyrinnae's Pixie Epoxy. I have plenty of glittery loose shadows that are easier to work with, so I suspect I'm not going to go for these two any time soon. Their shades are very nice and work well with the rest of the palette, but I'm too lazy to fiddle with tricky shadows! The shimmery one is almost as nice as the mattes, to me it seems like it could use a little bit more pigment.

The colours go really well together and the palette is great for quick, dramatic looks. A smoky eye with either of the mattes works on my skin tone, and using the champagne as a base you can easily do a contrasting shadow on the crease to bring out your eyes. The colours contrast so much that for light, daily looks you might need a middle brown to smoothen the transitions. This palette is better for evening looks or if you just like dramatic make-up, like I happen to do :)

Pros
+ A nice selection of colours that go well together
+ Excellent mattes with good pigment and great consistency
+ A great shimmery light shade that works on many skin tones
+ Big mirror
+ Sturdy palette
+ Window on the lid to easily peek at the colours

Cons
- Glittery shades may be a bit tricky to work with and require a sticky primer
- The dark plastic shows all fall off and looks dirty fast
- The applicator isn't very useful
- Colour contrast too stark for soft daily looks