Sunday, February 2, 2014

Smashbox Full Exposure Palette - Review, swatches and comparisons

Smashbox came out with a neutral palette--the Full Exposure palette!



It has seven shimmer and seven matte eyeshadows, which is really good for people who want a variety of finishes.


The colors are all really, really neutral--as in, a variety of browns and grays. It also consists of half warm (left) and half cool (right) tones.

Top row is shimmer, bottom row is matte.

Something that is really important to note about the shimmer eyeshadows is that they all, excluding the center one, have the same chunky, glittery finish. It tends to have quite a bit of fallout, so you have to be very careful with them. The center shimmer shade and the matte colors, though, are really nicely textured and are super soft, pigmented, and blendable.

Matte eyeshadow brush

Shimmer eyeshadow brush

The palette also comes with a double-ended brush, with each side designated to be used with matte or shimmer eyeshadows. The matte end is a nice fluffy blending-type brush--a lot like the Sigma E25 brush that everyone loves (maybe just the tiniest bit fuller). The shimmer end is really interesting--it's half synthetic and half goat hair (the texture of the matte end). I've tried both sides to apply the shimmer shade separately, and I've found that I get a lot of fallout either way. If you use each side together straight down the middle, though, it applies and blends the glitter a lot more nicely. The goat hair side is also nice for packing on the matte eyeshadows.

Another popular palette that has the same half-matte-half-shimmer concept is the Lorac Pro palette, so I've compared them side-by-side below:


They do have some overlaps in colors, although there aren't that many. Top row is Smashbox, bottom row is Lorac.

Top row: Smashbox Full Exposure palette
Bottom row: Gold, Lt. Bronze, Slate, Espresso, Taupe, Cream, Black

Although the Lorac Pro palette is really different from the Smashbox Full Exposure palette, I would go for the Lorac one just because it gives you some more interesting colors, like Garnet, Mauve, and Pewter, and the texture of the shimmer eyeshadows are so much nicer.

Overall, I don't see the Smashbox Full Exposure palette to be a total musthave. The matte eyeshadows are really fantastic, but you do get quite a bit of fallout from the glitter, and there aren't any colors that are particularly thrilling. If you love browns, you might like this a lot, but if almost half the palette is a miss for me, it's not worth it.

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