The Best Eyeshadow Palettes in my Collection

Meet the only two palettes you will ever need…

Illamasqua has always been one of my favourite brands, their products cater for such a wide range of skin tones and types, their eyeshadows span from neautral browns to acid greens and their lipsticks come in every colour imaginable! Recently I realised that i’ve only been using my two Illamasqua palettes for the last three months, you could say they are the only 2 palettes you might ever need – yes that is a bold statement!

Illamasqua Vital Palette (No longer available but would highly recommend Neutral Palette instead) & Illamasqua Complement Palette – £35.00

First up lets talk about why these eyeshadows are so damn good. They are possibly the creamiest and most pigmented shadows I’ve ever used, they blend easily and there is no fall out, not even from the darker glitter shades. Second of all the colour combinations in the palette are fantastic, sometimes you get such random shades thrown together but both these palettes just make sense, each palette comes with a complete eye look – see below my interpretations. Lastly what I love is the packaging; sleek, compact, no nonsense and it has a decent mirror included so perfect for having on your make up table, in your bag or for travel.

The Vital Palette is just that, vital too my everyday make-up. Now usually because I’m in a rush I prep my lids with Illamasqua Cream Pigment in Hollow and then blend into the crease Envision the warm brown, pop on some lashes and dash out the door. However if I’ve got the time, these are the perfect shades to create a gorgeous matte neutral look.

Starting off the same way with Hollow as a base and Envision in the crease, I then blend with a fluffy brush Drop the deeper brown into the outer v to create more dimension. Then with a smaller more compact brush I pat on the beautiful peachy shade Bubbles onto the inner corner, blend onto the lid to brighten and widen my eyes. Before I top off with lashes I smudged Trace, a cool grey brown into my lash line to help the false lashes blend in with my natural ones. Sadly this is now sold out and it doesn’t look like it’s coming back so i would recommend picking up the Neutral Palette instead.

Smokey eyes can seem a little daunting, mainly because I think people are under the impression that they can only using black eyeshadow and something silver and shimmery however with this palette you can create a much more sophisticated look but still with that smokey element. Again I prep with Illamasqua Cream Pigment in Hollow before blending with a fluffy brush Forgiveness into the crease, it’s such a gorgeous plum shade but doesn’t make your eyes look bruised.Then to deepen the crease to get that smokey feel I add Queen of the Night and then blend out. It’s a dark purple with a subtle glitter running through it. To brighten up the look and add a bit more glitz I pack Slink, a shimmery champagne onto the inner corner and then blend onto the rest of the lid.

Now the last eye shadow in the quad is not a powder shadow but one of their liquid metals in Focus. They are slightly wetter in formula when compared to the Cream Pigments but are great for creating that subtle wash over the eyes when used alone and blended all over the lid with your finger. However for this look I blended it underneath my lower lashes as well as the top lash line to make the look softer and to help blend my false lashes into my natural ones.

If you’ve made it this far congratulations! What are your favourite palettes?