Hourglass Modernist Eyeshadow Palette Graphite (Smokey)

Hourglass Modernist Eyeshadow Palette Graphite - $58 US / $67 CDN

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So lately I have been on an Hourglass high.  I mean come on, can you blame me?!  Have you seen their cosmetic line? It's incredible! And with that, so is the price!! Eh!!  But if you can get past that, trust me you will truly appreciate that the majority of their products are really worth your time, money and face!

Back in November 2014 I saw that Hourglass had release a new line of eyeshadow palettes that were ONLY being sold at Barney's NY.  At that point in time they had only released the Infinity palette and others were to come.  I was quite disappointed that Sephora did not have these items in store or online.  I was very tempted to order from Barney's when I heard that it would be coming to Sephora in the New Year.  And being a loyal and I mean loyal Sephora VIB Rouge member (where I won't buy a single thing anywhere else if Sephora sells it) I decided to sit on my hands and mouse and wait.  When January rolled around, one night Youtubing I came across Wayne Goss stating that Sephora had released the palettes on January 11, 2014 online to VIB Rouge members ONLY.  So of course I jumped at the chance.  I noticed not only did they have the palette online and still available, but there were a total of seven of them!  

I started looking at each color palette and realized just how beautiful they truly were.  Furthermore, Hourglass is the first company to make palettes where their eyeshadow colors were not stuck in pan like circles or squares.  Instead these palettes literally represented a work of art.  A picture canvas where each color flowed seamlessly and effortlessly into each other.  I was actually taken by the beauty of these palettes and their "modernist" design which is something I have never seen in a makeup palette...ever.

As I explored their seven range color palettes, I did notice one thing.  A lot of their colors looked very much alike in each palette.  That really threw me off as I was excepting a different range and variation of color amongst each palette.  And while I can't deny the colors are stunning and beautiful, I just couldn't see myself buying more than one palette or a single palette that carried very generic earth tone colors.  That is until I saw the Graphite palette.  One look at this palette and I was left speechless!  I normally buy very earth tone/nude palettes and hardly venture out into colors.  However while there was no denying that this palette was a nude/earth tone palette, nonetheless it had a pop of two colors that I didn't seen in the other palettes.  First that splash of brown gold was just beautiful and then their blue/grey/teal color was exquisite.  I realized this was a smokey eye palette right away and bought it.

 Reading online I realized that some people had a number of complaints about these palettes.  Some said that it had a lot of fallout, others that it didn't blend well and yet others just didn't like the shade range.  I'll be honest, does it have a bit of fallout? Yes, yes it does.  I can't and won't lie about that.  However because these eye shadows are very powdery, you don't actually need to rub your makeup brush hard in order to pick up color.  A slight tap will pick up more than enough color for your eyes.  I also noticed that the matte eyeshadows had the most fallout while the shimmer shadows had little to none.  With my shimmer shadows I experienced literally no fallout!

 Are the colors not that pigmented? Yes its true some are not.  However the majority of these shadows are matte and normally matte shadows, while they can be pigmented are not very vibrant compared to shimmery shadows.  Also, a lot of these colors are the same per palette so you will have this pigmentation issues on the same color (or almost same colored) shadows.

Do they have issues in blending? That depends.  It depends on how much product you put on your eye and what type of brushes you are looking to blend them in with.  I found that while they weren't the easiest to blend, however I have handled a lot worse.  So this was really not a big deal.  Moreover all the colors in each palette are made to blend with each other (color wise) with no problem.  So for me, it wasn't something I couldn't tackle and it blended well into my eyes.

The main ones in my opinion that have a vast difference in colors are the Graphite palette and the Olive palette (show above).  Both these palettes have a mixture of shimmer and matte shades with different colors that are not found in the other Hourglass Modernist palettes.  I honestly prefer these two palettes and can't wait to buy the Olive one.  I like the fact that these two palettes have three different shades in each palette that are not similar to the other five palettes and allow you to make different looks.

The ONLY issues I have with this palette is the price in comparative to the size. Both the Ambient Lighting powder and blush palette retail for $58 US  and $67 CDN.  However they are both the same size.  Nonetheless this palette is significantly smaller than those two palettes and it retails for the same exact price.  Now don't get me wrong, I didn't expect these eyeshadow palettes to come in the same quantity of the other two palettes.  That would just be overkill in the amount of product these palettes would have.  However for the fact that it is a much smaller size I would of excepted the price to be at least $10-$15 difference in reduction and its not.  

I truly love these palettes and would recommend them to anyone who is not heavy handed, willing to blend and understand the difference with pigmentation amongst shimmer and matte! While yes the price tag is high, but isn't everything that looks like a work of art?!

Keep Smiling

Dayana