So it’s another week, and we have another #instafaminvestigates post! This time, however, we’ll be featuring a product that isn’t available locally. Huda Beauty is often imported by companies here, however, the price is then often up to double what you’d pay if you bought it overseas.

Thanks to the glorious (and enabling) Insta Fam, I’ve recently started shopping on Cult Beauty.  They ship to South Africa with a courier (no sitting at the post office waiting to be collected).  Not only that, they have promotions where one brand will get free international shipping for a certain period of time!  It’s then up to you to decide whether the amount you spend will get you slapped with customs fees.  I find that if I keep it under £20, for the most part there are no customs fees to pay – just don’t hold me to this!

There was recently a promotion on Huda Beauty, with free international shipping on the brand, so OBVIOUSLY it was all we could talk about.  Three of us decided to give the mini palettes – the Obsessions – a go.  The other lovely ladies are Yolandé from Sheer Empowderment and Simone from An Ordinary Gal.  You can head over to their blogs to see what they thought of their palettes!  Alternatively, search #instafaminvestigates on Instagram and you’ll find all of our collective reviews.

PRODUCT

The Huda Beauty Smokey Obsessions Palette.  The description according to the Cult Beauty site:

“Smokey Obsessions Palette, a slimline edit of the most sought-after, sultry and hazy shades – all you need to achieve an array of mesmer-eyes-ing smoky eye looks. The ultimate capsule make up wardrobe, this unites nine ultra-versatile, buttery smooth shadows – five magnificent metallics and four saturated mattes. We’re completely besotted with the range of hues and textures and you’re guaranteed to fall head-over-heels too – especially with the beautifully burnished rose gold and copper hues, as well as the rich cocoa and mahogany brown mattes.”

These mini palettes come in a range of 11 different shade varieties.

PACKAGING

The packaging is solid and sturdy, with 9 small eyeshadow pans and a good quality mirror.  It seals magnetically.  Size-wise, it’s only slightly bigger than my Wet n Wild Megaglo Highlighter.

FORMULA

I’m a little touch and go with the formula of these eyeshadows.  To be very honest, however, I’m yet to come across a brand that is 100% consistent in the formula of the eyeshadow palettes.  Every brand I’ve tried has at least one kind of meh shade, one that doesn’t apply or wear nicely.

If you watched my LIVE on Friday night last week, you’ll know what I mean.  I wanted to create a deep smokey eye for a dinner-date with Hubs.  I went in with the warm orangey-tan shade as a transition colour.  It was ok, although I have fair skin and it didn’t show up too much, so for a darker skin this won’t be the best transition shade.  To be fair though, transition shades don’t have to be super pigmented or stand out that much, so I wasn’t worried.  It just swatched much better than it applied.

I then went in with the light/cooler of the two browns in the bottom row – and that’s where my problem began.  I blended and blended and blended until I wanted to cry, and barely any colour was being picked up by the brush (I switched brushes at one point, worrying that it was the brush).  It just wasn’t depositing colour, and the little it did deposit was patchy.

I eventually moved on (after much complaining) and went in with the darker brown on it’s left.  No problems whatsoever – it was smooth and buttery and a dream to work with.  Same for all the other shades I used in that Live, and the other times I’ve used the palette.  The copper and silver metallic foiled shades are just so beautiful that I want to use them daily.

I also did notice a lot of fallout from the darker shades.  During the Live I started with my eyes so that I’d minimise fallout on my freshly-applied foundation and concealer.  I then finished my face, and went in to touch up the eyes and smoke out my lower lash line.  Even though I’d set my whole face with powder, the fallout from just this little bit of use was pretty bad, and I couldn’t even manage to brush it away with a powder brush.  Thankfully I managed to fix it with some of my Maybelline Instant Anti-Age Eraser.

WEAR

I had no issues with the wear of the eyeshadows – even without primer, they wore throughout the day with no creasing or fading.

I experimented as well, by doing a simple day-time look – transition shade and then single colour blended over lid.  There was no primer used, and I wore this the entire day.  That evening when going for dinner, I took the palette and just touched up to deepen the makeup and make it more night-time appropriate.  It all applied smoothly and wore beautifully.

I also didn’t experience any staining on my skin from the shadows.  The fallout stained my foundation (as I mentioned above) so that even though I’d powdered, I couldn’t brush it away. However, after using a good cleansing balm everything came off without a hassle.

HOW MUCH?

I bought mine on Cult Beauty for £25.

You can find these on stores like Muse Beauty or Fashion Police here in South Africa.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

I didn’t HATE the palette, but I was a little frustrated with the transition shade and lighter brown, and the amount of fallout that I had from using all the darker shades.  To be very honest, I did expect a bit more from the brand though, particularly with the way Huda Beauty is raved about.

Sure – the copper and silver foiled shades are GORGEOUS and make the palette, however, my Colourpop Super Shock Shadows (I have two in almost identical colours) are just as good, and wear just as well for a lot less.

To me, these palettes are more about the convenience of having a tiny palette that you can create more than one look with, and you can use for both day and night.  They’re also great if you want to try out some of the Huda Beauty eyeshadow formula, without splurging on her full sized palettes – we all like to test products out first!

Overall, it’s a nice palette, and I’ll definitely get use out of it.  It’s also versatile in that you can easily create day and night looks with it, and transition easily from one to the other.  However I probably won’t purchase another one of these Obsessions palettes unless they were on promotion or on sale.  I don’t think this will stop me from purchasing the bigger Huda Beauty palettes though – I still want to give them a go!

Have you tried any Huda Beauty products? 

What did you think of them?