REVIEW: Klara Cosmetics Desert Rose Palette

by - June 15, 2017


Most regular readers of this blog know that I'm someone who loves to check out the makeup section at Winners and Marshalls and see if there's any hidden gems there. Recently, I've noticed a lot of products from Australian brand Klara Cosmetics popping up on the shelves. I was curious, but I wanted to know more about the brand before investing. Of course, that is until I saw the Limited Edition Klara Cosmetics Desert Rose Palette on the shelf, because it was coming home with me no matter what. One look at the shades and I was sold.

Wanna see why I was instantly handing over my money? Keep reading!


I mean, first of all... Can we just take a minute and talk about the outer packaging? HOLY. If they had actually printed that image on the palette itself, I would have pretty much fainted. Unfortunately, the palette itself is a plain black matte cardboard packaging that's fine... a little cheap over all and doesn't have anywhere near the impact of the outer packaging.


The Desert Rose palette is one of three limited edition palettes from Klara, with the other two being the Coachella Palette and the Burning Man Palette. They did have the Burning Man palette at my Winners, but the blue shades didn't really call out to me. If I do see the Coachella palette, however, that'll be coming home with me as well.

Ultimately, there were two things that sold me on this palette. The first was obviously the shade selection, which is firmly in that bold warm colour palette that everyone is obsessed with (and which, I have discovered after a little bit of Googling, strongly resembles a certain palette from a certain lippie reality TV star whose brand I'm not interested in supporting.) The second was really the size of the pans. These pans are hefty.


When it comes to the shade selection, I'm mostly really happy with this palette overall. With 5 matte shades and four shimmers, you can really build an eye look with this palette. My only wish is that there was a lighter matte shade, like a cream, which I think would make this palette a little bit more versatile for me personally. I like the depths of the matte shades, with tones that allow you to build a nice gradient look, and the shimmer shades are all really beautiful and different. Like I said above, I do think this may be trying to be a dupe of that other palette, but I do think the shade range is well done either way.


Now, because I couldn't swatch this in the store - I'm sorry, guys, but if you're the person who swatches an untouched product in Winners... just stop! - I didn't know how the quality was going to be on the shadows themselves, but almost across the board these powders are beautiful. All 5 of the matte shades are absolutely packed with solid pigment, but also blend really beautifully on the eyes. In my opinion, the camel and wine shades are a little bit drier than the other three, but they still apply and blend really beautifully. The bright orange, rosy mauve, and deep brown shades are all really soft and creamy to the touch. When using any of these mattes, I recommend building them slowly, because the amount of pigment in them is so high that it could be easy to go overboard.


The 3 darker shimmer shades are absolutely gorgeous as well, with really creamy textures and a ton of pigment. I would say, though, that the best way to apply them is with a sponge tip (I love a sponge tip for packing on the lid!) or with your finger, because a brush just doesn't apply them as smoothly. The only shade in this palette that I don't like is the shimmery white shade. I think the tone of it is a little too icy for the colour story here and I also think the formula isn't anywhere near as smooth and pigmented as the other shimmer shades. I think that's the shade in this palette that I would have happily seen replaced with a creamy matte shade - or with more of a warm or peachy champagne shimmer. 



For this look, I started with the matte camel shade buffed into the crease as a transition. Next I packed the metallic gold shade over the inner 2/3 of the lid using a sponge tip application. I deepened out the outer corner and into the crease using the deep brown matte shade, building slowly with a blending brush to my desired depth. Finally, I used the bright orange matte shade to blend around the edges of the look for a hit of warmth and to define the lower lash line. I love love loved this look and it wore really well all day!


For the second look I did with this palette, I wanted to do something completely different. I started with the matte mauve shade from the bottom row as a transition shade. Next, I went in with the shimmery white shade and packed it into the lid with a sponge tip applicator. Because I found it too bright, I went back in with my blending brush and the mauve shade to pink up the white a little bit and take down some of the starkness. Next, I added a little bit of the reddish shimmer shade to the inner third of the to really give a good gradiation. Finally I slowly built up the matte wine shade from the center of the palette in the outer corner and crease until I reached my desired depth. I wasn't sure what to do with the lower lashline, but I ultimately went with the matte mauve shade on a flat definer brush and I think it rounded out the look quite nicely.


Overall, I really have to say that I'm happy with this palette. The shade selection is great and I'm finding that when I take a minute to think about it, I can really create some versatile looks with this palette. Obviously there are quite a few palettes that live in this sort of colour story at the moment, but I think this one holds up fairly well to those palettes with generally really good quality shadows. And if you do manage to pick this up here in Canada at Winners, it's a pretty great deal at $14.99! I'm definitely going to be keeping my eye out for that Coachella palette - because I really want it!

Have you tried anything from Klara Cosmetics? I'd be interested to hear about the products in the comments if you have!

Thanks for reading!

You May Also Like

0 comments