Kat Von D Interstellar eyeshadow palette review & swatches

Kat Von D products are hard to get in Poland. To get my contour palette I had to order from e-bay and pay unreasonable money for the product itself and shipping. When I saw her Interstellar palette on one of Polish websites that offer to import American goods to Poland, I jumped at the opportunity to try this product out. 

The palette is made of sturdy cardboard with magnetic closure. The print on the top brings to mind a cover some 19th century esotheric book or perhaps a circus poster from the turn of the century. The packaging is beautiful, but it's a bit unreliable as it may open at any time when travelling and cause terrible mess. There's a full size mirror which will not replace your dressing table mirror when travelling as it needs to be held to remain open ( see picture below), but it's practical nonetheless.

The palette contains 12 eyeshadows, arranged in 3 well-curated quads. The idea is not novel, the first palette like this was probably the Too Faced The Return of Sexy, which was later copied by various brands. Kat Von D's Shade and Light eyeshadow palette also pursues this concept.

This palette made me gasp when I first saw it. This is the one and only palette where every single shade tickles my fancy. It contains an array of cool-toned neutrals, classic smokey shades and sultry purples. All shadows are satin, shimmery or matte. None of them contains glitter, which is perfect for me.

Unfortunately my excitement subsided as soon as I started swatching. While all of the shades are amazingly pigmented, soft and buttery smooth, they are so soft that they crumble upon every touch. Fingers or brushes tend to pick up too much product and there's a fallout city when these are applied. I always do my eyes first, so I don't bother this much, but it needs to be said that this is the most fallouty palette I've ever seen.

Luckily this nature of the product doesn't have much influence on its performance as the eyeshadows last pretty much all day (over a primer).  

Since this palette is not a bloggers' favourite and the reviews and swatches are relatively rare, I'll go on to describe each shade quad after quad:

Left quad: 

the top shade is called Gravitron and it's a duochrome, which is a very pale, pastel pink with purple sheen to it.

the left one - Night Crawler - is a beautiful taupe with purple undertone and satin finish

the middle one - Dios -is a lovely gray shade with satin finish

and the left one - Lunacy - is a gorgeous plum purple, but it has a somewhat crumbly texture and tends to overblend into something muddy. This one is a shimmer.

Middle quad: 

Top: Vast is another taupe shade, more neutral than Night Crawler and more shimmery.

left: Astrological is a pastel lavender with shimmer, creates beautiful, sultry aura on the lid.

middle: Darkstar is the most beautiful and the most fallouty shade of the whole bunch. It's a charcoal shade with purple undertones and a lot of shimmer. It's best applied with a flat brush with firm synthetic bristles or patted on with a finger. 

right: Orion is a cool-toned brown matte 

Right quad:

top: Lycan is the only brow highlight shade in the palette. It's a pale yellow shade with matte to satin finish.

left: 3am is a very shimmery taupe which causes the same issues as Darkstar. 

middle: Moonshine is a frosty silver

right: Killing Moon is a matte black with beautiful texture and pigmentation.

1. Self sufficiency: The palette definitely is self-sufficient, containing both light and dark shades, matte crease shades.
5/5
 2. Variety of shades: There's a nice selection of neutrals and purples for a pop of colour. I would be fully satisfied if one of the quads contained some kind of blue. 

4/5

3. Variety of finishes: Shimmers, mattes and satins.

5/5

4. Variety of looks is rather wide. This is a palette that will offer you both basic, office-friendly looks and playful purple ones. 

5/5

5. Pigmentation is great, all products are highly pigmented.

5/5

6. Uniqueness: This palette is unique in terms of  the colour selection. There are many purples everywhere, but such pretty and wearable sultry plums are rare.

5/5

7. Performance is the weakest chain here.There's a ton of fallout and the eyeshadows have the tendency to overblend, but they lack nothing in the pigmentation department.  

2/5

8. Packaging has both advantages and disadvantages. It's lightweight, the design is pretty and there's a full-length mirror, but on the other hand it's may open easily in the bag while travelling. 

5/5 

9. Availability: online, with rip-off prices. 

1/5

10. Value for money: This palette isn't cheap by any means, but it's a great value for money, considering what you get.

3/5

Total: 

4/5