Rated XXX: Soph x Extra Spice eyeshadow palette, by Revolution...

I have the original Soph x eyeshadow palette by Revolution and am pretty "meh" about it and just can't grasp the raves for it - I'm not even sure when I last bothered to use it. Therefore when I got an email about the launch of this new palette, my sensible side was saying "just ignore it, because you already own similar shades in better formulas"... but my inner palette whore screamed "pink! Purple! Yellow! Orange! Buy it now!! you've not got these exact shades yet!!!" Guess which part of me won? 

I started using Extra Spice as soon as it arrived, after ordering it on it's launch date and I've now had plenty of time to give every shade a good trial run, so it's final verdict time = does my inner palette whore need taking out back and shooting, or has she uncovered a gem-in-the-rough? The packaging certainly looks better, but what about the formula?

Everyday (very pale purple with a white shift, duo-chrome finish), Running Late (carrot orange, matte finish), Infinity (silver, metallic finish), Cheesecake (chestnut brown, matte finish), Cookie Dough (soft brown, matte finish), Dreams (warm champagne, shimmer finish),

Vitamin C (canary yellow, matte finish), Sweet N Sour (electric orange, matte finish), Twenty One (cerise pink, matte finish), Romance (burgundy with a pink shift, shimmer finish), Enchanted (wine purple, matte finish),  Lakes (dark olive green, matte finish)

Brownies (deep brown, matte finish),  Chocolate Orange (sienna brown, matte finish), Mulled Wine (red violet, matte finish), LA Sun (gold, shimmer finish),  Aurora (khaki green, shimmer finish), Reputation (charcoal black, matte finish)

Like the biggest plus for the original Soph x palette, a really big plus here is that it's easy to see how a lot of thought went into the colour selections for this palette; the shades are all very wearable, can be worn on all skin tones and they compliment each other. I really enjoy this palette and will use it regularly as the powders are so easy to work with considering the low price-point, the shades can be worn all year round and either dressed up or toned down to fit any occasion. 

The pigmentation of the products in this palette is good for a mass-market drugstore brand, and everything wears well on my drier skin - there is some kick-up when I dip my brushes into the pans, but that is something that never really bothers me as long as the powders apply and performs well, which these do. A much nicer quality compared to the original Soph x. I just want to mention that the shimmers perform nicely on my eyes as I apply them with my finger - that's why the swatches [stiff brush] look poorer.

My main niggle is that a couple of the shades are too similar to each other or/and shadows in the original Soph x palette once applied, so maybe a few more bolder shades could have been included seeing that this palette is meant to be a spicy complimentary companion to the first one and not a remastered version of the original, so we don't need the same kind of easily-found toned-down 'everyday' options repeated. All of the darker shades (especially Brownies) take a bit more work, but that's to be expected in a low-cost mass-market eyeshadow palette - Soph x has the same problem, but on a larger scale.

The shades Vitamin C and Reputation are both are very patchy and under-pigmented so the colours are wishy-washy - I can get Vitamin C to work[fyi Revolution released Kiss Of Fire just before All Spice and that has an awesome matte yellow shade] and I'm not bothered about yet another black matte, so no great harm done. Lakes looks more grey than olive on my eyes, but it is so nice to apply and blend so I'm not really bothered about that either, but I want to let people who may be thinking of getting All Spice for that shade know.

This palette has lots of the same kind of  neutral mattes and shimmers that are in the first Soph palette for workday looks, plus I prefer the bolder colour pops and additions of duo chromes & a blingy metallic finish that you get in Extra Spice, so I wish that I'd skipped the first Soph eyeshadow palette and had gone straight to this one; we're getting the same sort of shades in a better quality of formula and in a better quality of palette - the palette feels more substantial and the shade names are printed underneath the pans this time. I watch a few smaller beauty channels on YouTube, but I'd actually never heard of SophDoesNails before discovering the first Soph eyeshadow palette, so having a certain name on the palette doesn't sway my opinion of it one way or the other.

The Soph - Extra Spice eyeshadow palette can be bought from the Revolution site and the Superdrug site for £10. It'll be coming to Superdrug stores soon [it may be already available in some larger stores.