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| Sleek palette in Storm |
Tempted by good reviews of Sleek palettes I decided to try them out. I checked out the swatches and selected the Original, Storm and Bad Girl as the most suitable for me. To my surprise the palettes were much smaller than I imagined them to be. I thought they would be the same size as MAC palettes, but they are substantially smaller. It's not a disadvantage for me, just they are different than I expected.
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| Sleek Bad Girl vs MAC Deep Truth |
What disappointed me much more is that these eyeshadows are made in China, just like ELF products are. I know this helps reduce the cost, nonetheless I can't help feeling distrust towards this sort of outsourcing. Fortunately, the quality of the packaging and the quality of most of the shadows is so amazing that I feel ashamed of my biased behaviour. Each palette contains 12 shadows decorated with a grid pattern, which disapperas once you've started using the product. The 3 palettes I've got contain almost completely different set of shadows each, I've found only 2-3 dupes within 36-shadow range. The shadows are packed in a very nice-looking, sturdy black case with Sleek logo, which opens and closes easily and tightly so I guess you can travel with these safely. Each palette is equipped with a mirror and a sponge applicator, though it's much better to use a brush. Most of the shadows (they will be described in detail later) are incredibly pigmented and creamy. While the colour pay-off is excellent, their creamy consistency makes them rather hard to blend. I don't mind, my make-up doesn't depend on blending that much!
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| MAC and Sleek palettes |
THE ORIGINAL
I started my sampling with the Original palette, as it caught my attention as the most diversified one, though this one I wasn't sure about, finally I got it on the spur of the moment. Ironically it's the Original, which seemed so bright and so "not me" became my favourite. The packaging didn't contain any names of the shadows, so I'll just number them horizontally from 1 to 12:
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| Sleek i-divine palette in the Original |
TOP ROW, left to right
1. matte black, when swatched this seemed sheerer and drier than the other 2 blacks from other palettes. However, when applied it's opaque, deep, dark black with creamy finish.
2. vivid, bright purple with shimmer. I was scared to use it on its own, but it blends nicely when used on top of darker colours eg. dark violet or even black.
3. gorgeous dark slate blue with shimmer, I have nothing similar in my collection. Reminds me of Nars Underworld, which I had the pleasure to swatch, but I don't own, so it might not be an exact dupe.
4.bright turquoise, shimmer, same tones as MAC Deep Water or MUFE Intense Blue cream shadow.
5. lovely teal with shimmer, first teal in my collection.
6. pea green with shimmer, much nicer on the eye than I could expect.
BOTTOM ROW, left to right
7. light yellow shimmer is the colour I won't rather use.
8. quite unusual muted, mauvey pink with shimmer, not my favourite shade.
9. kind of mauve with shimmer, depending on light sometimes looks fairly similar to shade 8, just a tad darker, sometimes there's a brownish hue to it. This shade has its dupe on Storm palette, shade no.5
10. golden brown or copper with shimmer.
11. antique gold with the most shimmery (not glittery) finish of all, lovely over matte black.
12. nice olive green with shimmer.
While I absolutely adore the the top row, I find it hard to find any use for the 2 pinks, which are definitely too pigmented to be used as highlighters, I applied no.8 on my brow bone and I looked as if someone tried to give me a black eye and I used no.9 to blend out the sharp edges of my shadows and again the effect was quite similar. I think women of colour would look fab in these shades, but definitely not me. Nonetheless, the palette is absolutely stunning as far as quality and colour range is concerned.
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| Sleek i-divine palette in the Original - swatches |
BAD GIRL
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| Sleek i-divine palette in Bad Girl |
I couldn't resist a palette bearing such a name, could I? When I swatched the shades from the palette I was highly disappointed at first. As you can see on the picture below a number of them turned out to be dry, crumbly and shearer than others. Also the colour range can hardly be called diversified. While I changed my mind about the quality of the eyeshadows (the crumbly ones turned out to be opaque and creamy once applied with a brush), my opinion about the colour range only got worse. The colours may look a tad different in the palette, the differences between them become indiscernible when applied. There are 2 almost identical blacks, navy blues and silvers. This would be all right if they differed in finish, I would highly appreciate a matte gray instead of yet another silver or a matte navy blue and a shimmery one instead of two matte ones. This palette is also hard to define in terms of finish cause some shadows which in the palette are evidently shimmery apply absolutely matte and I'll classify them as such in my detailed description below. This time the producer provided names of the shadows for reference.
TOP ROW
1. white shimmer, nice highlighter and shadow
2. light beige, shimmer, also good as highlighter and shadow
3. nice light silver
4. darker silver
5. anthracite shimmer
6. matte black
BOTTOM ROW
7. very dark green with shimmer, similar to no.9, Storm palette
8. to me this looks exactly the same as no.5
9. looks like dark indigo blue, when applied its navy blue proper
10. extremely powdery, cooler than no.9 (avoid this shadow like hell, produces clouds of highly pigmented dust)
11. blackened grape purple with shimmer, very nice shade actually
12. reddish plum purple
All in all this is the least diversified palette of all 3. In theory you've got 12 shadows at your disposal, but in practice there are only 8 different colours in the pan. Most of them are easily dupable. The only thing I like about the palette is that there are so many matte shadows, and in this sense Bad Girl has definitely enriched my collection.
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| Sleek i-divine palette in Bad Girl - swatches |
STORM
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| Sleek palette in Storm |
I don't know what I had in mind when I ordered the Storm palette. I guess the name and the bottom row appealed to me so much. I also wanted to have a nice collection of highlights and this palette seemed a good opportunity to get a lot of them cheaply. However, it turned out to be a nude palette, very much in the vein of Urban Decay Naked (I'm not saying it's a dupe). The thing is I don't really wear nudes and there's only one shade that could work as a highlighter, though too shimmery for everyday purposes.
TOP ROW, left to right
1. dark gold
2. shimery beige, will do as a highlight on festive occassions, though MAC shadows are irreplaceable for the purpose
3. matte ochre, seemed sheerer than others when swatched, in actual use turned out to be nicely soft and pigmented. One of my favourites in the palette. Helps to smooth out the sharp edges wonderfully, excellent when making brown smoky eyes. Has no reddish hues, which is an asset.
4. yellowish gold, pretty similar to no.1, but lighter
5. sort of mauve pink with shimmer, the same as no.9 in the Original palette
6. shimmery reddish, mauvey brown with cool undertones
BOTTOM ROW, left to right
7. shimmery brown with warm undertones
8. dark silver, a dupe of Bad Girl shade no.4 (just a tiny bit darker)
9. dark, blackened green with shimmer, quite similar to MAC Dark Indulgence, though more creamy and opaque
10. dark blue with purple/indigo hues, I love this shade, it's quite uncommon
11. matte brown with no reddish undertones, I actually quite like it. You can make a nice smoky eye with it.
12. matte black, the same as in two other palettes.
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| Sleek palette in Storm - swatches |
BOTTOM LINE
PROS:
- these 3 palettes provide an enormous variety of different shades, hardly any of the shadows being dupes of each other, which leaves you with something like 30 different eyeshadows
- amazing pigmentation
- creamy like no other shadows
- good quality packaging
- long lasting
CONS:
- impossible to blend, you may layer up the shadows for very nice colouristic effects, but they simply don't blend. Too creamy and opaque for that
- these palettes are not foolproof, it takes time to learn how to use them
- use a good primer, otherwise the shadows'll run. Panda eyes guaranteed
- Storm and Bad Girl palettes are not diversified enough, colours dupe one another within one palette
- too many shimmery shades
- some shades are really bad quality which makes them impossibie to use
Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.
