The Rainbow palette by Violet Voss was something that I'd picked up when Beauty Bay had been having some kind of flash sale, since I'd been interested in trying the brand and as this palette only has 10 shades in it, I didn't feel as though this would be as big of a mistake if it turns out that this palette doesn't work out for me.Has this palette been a wise investment?
Violet Voss palettes usually contain 20 shades in 1.6g pans, so this smaller palette has 3.2g pans:
Flamingo (rich pinky red metallic), Peach (dual chrome rusty peach pearl), Buttercup (rich golden gold metallic), Seaform (seafoam green metallic), Figi (exotic aqua metallic)
Royal (rich deep blue metallic), Indigo (true purple metallic), Violet (duo-chrome pink pearl), Pearl (sheer iridescent white pearl) and Eclipse (black matte-with-glitter).
The shade Pearl also makes an intense cheek highlight.
None of the permanent Violet Voss palettes made before The Rainbow palette was released contained really vibrant shades (the two more recent palette releases have more punchy shades), so The Rainbow was designed as a companion piece to those palettes, filling in the gaps with the highest customer requests. I'm really into this more compact type of palette now, where almost every shade is something fun and unique, something that doesn't waste space and our money by including the same kind of basic highlight/crease/transition shades that most of us already have over and over again. Technically you can make looks using this palette alone as there is a matte shade here and I've also found that the metallic shades do wear well in the crease, but I have hooded eyes so vastly prefer pulling in matte shadows from elsewhere for crease/transitioning, as there has sometimes been a spot of transferring.
As soon as I tried these shadows, I fell for this palette despite my niggles with it (see below); they are buttery smooth to apply and to blend. All of the shadows are non-fading and I haven't experienced any creasing - I apply them in the morning [no primer] and they'll still look good in the evening, when I remove it. The metallic shades have a bit more kick-up and fallout in comparison to the pearl shadows which have not to none, which isn't a dealbreaker for me but I still thought I'd mention it in case it's a dealbreaker for you. Kick-up and fallout in shadows don't really bother me as I do my eyes before my base - all pigmented & softer shadows have a bit of these issues, so I do think that all good-quality shadows should kick-up a bit. Royal does feel a bit drier and takes 2 swipes instead of one, but it's not a big deal for me.
Matte shades are from Soph x - Extra Spice
Unfortunately there is a downside to this palette: the shades Seaform & Fiji aren't hugely dissimilar, and neither are Indigo & Violet - there is a bit of difference, but if you couple the mentioned pairs up onto the lids they'll end up bleeding together. With only 10 pans, the brand should have taken more care with their shade selections - I do love the idea of having more then one shade in the same family [makes it more cohesive], but some shades are just too close. Also; what is the point in the black? This is a companion to the brand's regular palettes, and they all have black and/or other deep matte shades in them, so this shade is needless.
Matte shades are from Take Me On Vacation
