I feel like every year during the holiday season, there's one palette that just grabs me and I NEED TO HAVE IT. This year, it was definitely the MAKE UP FOR EVER Lustrous Shadow Palette, which is filled with the kind of shades that I can reach for all the time and boasts a new shadow formula. Though this palette is no longer available, I wanted to review it for you guys because of the new shadow formula. I actually own one of MUFE's palettes with the old formula... and I have to admit, I wasn't completely in love with the formula - more on that later - so I was curious about how this palette was going to stack up.

To find out how it worked out for me, keep reading!

The MAKE UP FOR EVER Lustrous Shadow Palette contains 12 shades in neutral and berry tones and comes packaged in a metal tin with a removeable lid. The eyeshadow pans themselves are nestled into a foam insert that sits in the bottom of the tin. Packaging wise, I have to say I absolutely love the look of this with the molten looking lips on the cover, but I find it impractical and kind of annoying to have to take off the lid rather than just flipping it open. Also, the lid is kind of sticky... which is not my favorite thing ever.

First, I want to clarify why I wasn't in love with the old formula of the MAKE UP FOR EVER eyeshadows. The palette that I own is the Artist Palette 2, which looks absolutely stunning in photos and even looks really beautiful in swatches. I was really excited to pick it up because I felt like the shades in the palette were a good mix of bold, out-of-my-comfort zone shades and easy to wear neutrals. Unfortunately, they were all shimmer and I just wasn't in love with the density, for lack of a better word, of the shadows. They were quick thick to the point of chunky, difficult to pick up on a brush, and just didn't do what I was looking for them to do on my eyes. 

One of the things that sold me most on this particular palette was how matte heavy it was. I'd heard absolutely amazing things about the MUFE matte eyeshadow formula and I really wanted to try it for myself. I was also optimistic that the reformulation would fix some of the things that I found problematic about the shimmery/metallic shades. 

So how do I like the formula. First off... the mattes in this palette are absolutely stunning. They're a soft texture, but they're also quite thin, so I find them really easy to work with and build on my eyes without having to worry about going too heavy straight out of the gate. They also blend really well without getting muddy, which is always important to me. In the past year or so, I feel like I've really gotten picky with matte eyeshadows (thanks to a certain AMAZING palette that basically blends itself) and it can be a little bit harder to impress me now, but these mattes definitely lived up to what I was hoping for and I've been reaching for the a fair bit recently. 

Unfortunately, the metallic shades just don't really do it for me. Again, they're quite thick and dense, so I find that when I pack them on - which I feel like I have to do to really get full intensity - they end up looking a little bit heavy and weirdly textured. I have been able to incorporate the copper and purple shades into looks if I sort of blend them from the middle of my lid out into the mattes in my crease, but when I do that I tend to reach for another shimmer shade in a formula that's more my taste to bring some intensity to the inner part of the lid.

The shade selection in this palette is absolutely gorgeous - and I feel like it's something a little bit different from a lot of what we're seeing going on in palettes at the moment. Where there's a saturation of really warm palettes out now, this is a distinctly cool toned palette overall. At a glance, it might seem like it has a selection of cool, neutral and warm shades, but in practice I've really found that for the most part looks created from this palette are going to be quite cool toned in general. Personally, I kind of love that because I'm finding myself a little bit over warm eye looks and having a new palette on hand with taupes and purples in it is really helping me vary my looks. 

I feel like you can see even in the swatches that the shimmer shades have a texture to them when they're packed on and any who has used these types of thick shimmer shades will know exactly what I'm talking about when I say that they're not the most flattering look on the eyes. Conversely, the matte shades in this palette have an absolutely stunning formula that applies really smoothly, builds up without getting patchy or heavy, and almost buffs into the skin for a seamless look. 

Like I said above, this palette is no longer available, but all of the shades in it are available in the MAKE UP FOR EVER single shadows line. Personally, my recommendation goes 100% for the matte shades. That said, if you like a thicker, more dense metallic formula then these might be to your taste even though they aren't really to mine. I definitely think I'll be keeping my eye out for some unique matte shades that I don't already have in my collection, which is somewhere that I think MUFE really shines with their shadow range, and pick them up in the future.

MAKE UP FOR EVER Artist Color Eye Shadows are available at Sephora and retail for $22CAD/ pan, with discounts the more you buy up to 6 pans.

I'd love to hear in the comments about what your favorite eyeshadow formulas are, so let me know!