beauty, beauty & style
Tarte Swamp Queen Palette
Tarte Swamp Queen palette in all it’s swampy glory! 🙂
Let me preface this post by saying that it’s been forever since I’ve done a beauty related post, I am far from a makeup artist but I do love playing around with makeup (who doesn’t?). I always stumble upon review posts but hardly any bloggers actually show you photos of them wearing it…so I figured I’d give it a go and show you what a makeup novice can do with this palette, lol! Oh and I did buy this with my own money…I waited a long 50 minutes when Tarte released it the second time and their site kept crashing…but I understand, a ton of people wanted it. 😉
Anyway…let’s get to the palette:
This is a new palette released by Tarte in collaboration with Youtube guru Bunny/Grav3yardgirl. I’ll admit that I don’t follow her…I’ve seen a couple of her videos and she seems like a nice person…but I had seen a preview of this palette in a Facebook group that I belong two and loved the colors. That’s why I bought it…the colors. I’m a fan of natural and muted colors so I figured it would be a good buy.
The palette itself retails for $45 and you get a bronzer, blush, highlighter, and 9 eye shadows. Not a bad price point if you’re used to buying palettes at Sephora, Ulta or any other big department store.
And a bit of a heads up…almost every shade in this palette has a variety of sparkle. If sparkle/shimmer aren’t your thing..then this palette probably isn’t for you.
I’m going to start off with the 3 biggest products:
I’m pale…like ridiculously pale so I apologize that some of the swatches (highlighter +eye shadows that you’ll see in a minute) disappear into my skin.
Sweet Tea – this bronzer went on nicely and at first glance was a bit too orange for my skin tone. When applying to my face, it looked pretty nice (applied very sparingly though or I would have turned into an Oompa Loompa) with hint of sparkle.
Does This Thing Really Work – a rosy blush with a lot of shimmer. Goes on easily with a high color payoff. I think it’s a pretty flattering color and will work on a bunch of skin tones.
Gator Wings – can I say sparkle? This highlighter was a bit much at first. I applied it with a light hand and definitely had to blend it in…but that’s personal preference. When I wear highlighter, I like it to be subtle…so this color looks really nice but if you don’t want it to be super noticeable, know that a little goes a lonnnng way!
Moving on to the shadows:
Honestly, I’m not a huge sparkle fan…so I was a tad worried when I opened this palette for the first time (it didn’t look this sparkly on the Tarte website) but all of the shades actually swatched beautifully. The two most sparkly colors have to be Dogman and Sippy Sippy. They did have some fallout but nothing extreme. The rest of the shade are pearly shades with the exception of Big Baby and Natural Peaches which are creamy mattes that blended easily for me.
I also was worried that some of the colors might be a tad warm on me, but once again, I was pleasantly surprised.
I’m going out on a limb here so be nice, lol…
I wanted to hold the palette to give you a better look of the colors in comparison to my skin tone/hair color. Kinda awkward but whatever, lol. It’s works well for pale gals…and you ladies with darker complexions, the color will compliment you amazingly well. 😉
Overall thoughts:
It’s a great palette, hands down. The colors all work well with one another and leave you with multiple options for day and night looks. Because I lean towards natural colors it was right up my ally. Like I said earlier, the sparkles scared me a bit but they don’t leave you looking like a glitter obsessed middle schooler. The sparkles actually laid nicely, weren’t overpowering, and were just overall a nice touch to a natural look.
Tarte has another winner with Swamp Queen! 😉