Kat Von D MetalMatte Eyeshadow Palette – Review & Swatches

I feel like Kat Von D palettes always make waves in the beauty community, and her new MetalMatte palette is no exception! This is not “another boring neutral palette”, clearly, but with that said there were a few unexpected surprises that I ran into when I started using this palette. 🙂

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Kat Von D MetalMatte Eyeshadow Palette

Retail: $60 | Click for Ingredient List & More Information

First off. Must. Talk. About. Packaging! Oh my goodness, the medival-era-lover in me was instantly captivated. It’s simple, yes, but such a show stopper. And, c’mon, you’ve GOT to admit that the whole MetalMatte flipping thing is freakin’ awesome!

I mentioned this in my live swatch session, but the names are not only below each color, but also on the back. I know I can be kind of dyslexic sometimes, so maybe that’s why this is so useless to me…but whenever I needed to figure out a shade I still have to open the palette and look. 😛 Either way, I am just glad they didn’t neglect to include it underneath each shadow!

The palette leans very cool toned…and that’s okay!

There are so many warm-toned eyeshadow palettes flooding the market all of a sudden, so I think it’s nice to have a change of pace. I’ve mentioned this before, but I am personally really attracted to using cool-toned eyeshadows (even though they aren’t necessarily the most flattering on myself). So, honestly, that is one of the reasons I decided to spring for this palette. Ahh, cool tones, I love you! <3

The palette is very thin — comparable to LORAC PRO palettes or the other KVD palettes — but it’s extremely long. I wish I had taken a picture with it beside another palette for comparison…but just check out my live swatch video. You can see how large it is there. At least it’s for a good reason — you get a lot of product in this palette. The metal shades are almost as large as my MUG single shadows. 😮

I will say, though, that this palette is NOT travel friendly. Not only is it large and bulky to pack, but it is heavy to hold up and use the mirror to apply your makeup. I did that once…nope, not again after that. My wrist started to hurt, haha!

Time to Swatch the MetalMatte palette!

As always these are done with NO eyeshadow primer underneath. I go once into the pan, and twice on my arm.

The shadow formula is drier than some formulas (like my holy-grail LORAC PRO), but I was pleased with the pigmentation I got from the swatches. Suede is a gorgeous color and shows up just as well as all the others, but keep in mind it’s almost identical in color to my arm. Linen didn’t swatch as stark as it appears in the palette, but that personally makes it more wearable, in my opinion.

If you thought the mattes were nice….well, the metals just blew it out of the water! Most of these are two swatches, like normal, but a few are actually just one swipe — like Nebula. It was just so pigmented I couldn’t go over it again with another swipe. Wow! Totally, totally impressed with my initial swatches.

Swatches are nice…but how are they on the eyes?

The mattes are totally dreamy! I had no issues blending them out and while they are very pigmented, if you tap your brush off before using them they build up nicely. I’ve used all but two matte shades (Feather and Fringe I have not worked into a look yet) and for each one I found it very effortless to blend.

Here’s a look I created using the blue shadows in the MetalMatte palette. Since those were the most vibrant in the palette, I wanted to see if they performed as well as they promised. Nebula did, hands down, totally live up to the swatch. Velour is really nice, too, but I found that unless you really packed it on, it didn’t show up true to color when blended out. It turned into more of a muddy blue/green/grey-ish color. I want to try using it packed on the eyelid for an all-matte look someday soon, and I am sure for that it will be as vibrant as it is in the pan. 🙂

Very oily girls might need to be cautious…

So, I have very oily eyelids. There is NO eyeshadow that will hold up if I do not prime with one of my holy grail primers first (see them HERE and HERE). However, when using these metal shades (specifically Tinsel I noticed it the worst) the shimmer/glitter would start to bleed across my lid and crease throughout the day. 😮 After some testing I found that I had to prime with my regular eye primer AND apply some  NYX’s glitter primer on top of that. I didn’t have any issues having my eye makeup last with this combo. I haven’t tried any high-end glitter-glue-type-primer, but for the NYX one I owned…it still didn’t help prevent creasing. Together, though, they’re perfect! Problem solved, I just wanted to make you aware of this problem I had to figure out. 🙂

Would I recommend?

Yes! I have no regrets that I spent $60 on this palette! I think this palette is most ideal for girls like me: the eyeshadow-addict who prefer to use neutral shadows…but likes to try something funky on occasion. Not that color-lovers won’t enjoy this palette — but I just think that us neutrals will find this palette very ‘safe’. There are those bright blue, violet, white, and green shadows. But there are actually a lot of neutrals. I honestly could probably use this palette for a few weeks, changing up the shades I use, and keep it all very neutral and safe. 🙂

So while *I* am happy I got this palette…I realize it’s not for everyone. What are YOUR thoughts on the MetalMatte palette? Will you (or did you already) purchase this?

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The product was purchased by myself. Some affiliate links are used. Any questions about my disclosure, please read here. Thank you for your support!