Review: Violet Voss Holy Grail Palette
Hello everyone!
I have been MIA for most of the year because I felt really uninspired to blog. But since I got a new lighting setup for product shots, I've decided to get back in the game and do more of what I love: talk about makeup! Today, I'll be sharing my thoughts on the Violet Voss Holy Grail Palette. This was supposedly a limited edition release that has been restocked several times, so I assume it's become part of their permanent line.
The palette retails for $45 (roughly Php 2,280), but I purchased mine for Php 2,900 (about $57) from a seller on The Make Up Revolution PH Facebook Page - one of my favorite places to shop for makeup. That's a pretty big price difference, but with the inclusion of US, international and local shipping, plus other customs and handling fees, I don't really mind shelling out more money. But is it worth it? Let's find out!
The first thing I noticed about the palette was the size. It's big enough to cover most of my face and also pretty thick at about a thumb's width, so storage can be a bit tricky because I have limited space. Packaging-wise, I find this to be a pretty palette. The exterior is made of a hard cardboard material wrapped in gradient black and maroon paper with "rainbow reflect lamination", while the border and text are done with rose gold foil - a huge improvement from the lackluster matte black that encased this palette when it first launched. I sometimes find myself literally playing with this palette and shifting it around to see the rainbow effect. It can be quite hypnotizing. Haha!
Upon opening the palette, there's a lovely scallop-bordered full-size mirror and a plush black interior with the same rainbow reflect surrounding the shadow pans. I say "plush" because it feels very slightly squishy; it's not soft but there is some give when I apply pressure to it. Not only is the interior pretty, secured and well-padded, but I also appreciate the rounded edges of the square pans (Fancy!) and how each shadow is clearly labeled. I don't really care for the names, but at least they were nice enough to include that feature because this can be helpful when following along with tutorials. Strangely, though, there aren't a lot of those on YouTube. Not enough PR efforts, perhaps?
And now the best part - the eyeshadows! Each pan contains 1.8g of product, for a total of 36g for the entire palette - that's $1.25 (Php 63) per gram for the US price or $1.58 (Php 80) per gram for the price I paid. I'm not really the type of person who cares for these breakdowns, but I included that information here if anyone's interested. There are twenty eyeshadows in four distinct finishes:
♥ Matte: Thanks A Latte, Transition, Hashtag, Bestie, R U Kitten Me, Brownie Points, Teddy Bear, Wine N Dine
♥ Metallic: Toffee, Bat My Eyes, Cool Beans, On Fleek, Cranberry Splash
♥ Shimmer: Crystal, Ploof, Awesome Sauce, Chill, How U Doin, Glamping
♥ Duochrome: So Jelly
The shades have a predominantly warm tone, which are a mix of golden, brown and red colors, with a bit of pink thrown in like Ploof and So Jelly. For the swatches below, I swirled my index, middle or ring fingers four times in the pan and swiped three times on my arm. These were done on dry skin without any primer, and in between swatches, I cleaned off my fingers on a damp baby wipe and dried them off on a clean sheet of tissue.
These eyeshadows feel so smooth and buttery to the touch, with the exception of Wine N Dine which felt rather gritty and dry. I've heard a lot of beauty YouTube-rs mention that red is a difficult color to formulate and I believe them, so I don't really mind the texture difference.
While the shimmer and metallic shades look poppin' in these swatches (some of them look poppin' on the eyes too!), I cannot say the same for the mattes. They do blend nicely, but they apply very thinly, so I find I really need to work and build up them up in my crease if I want to achieve my desired color pay-off. R U Kitten Me has the best pigmentation and texture, while the rest are very "meh" and require several layers to show up evenly on my eyes. This is a real bummer for me because I love layering matte shades in my crease and outer lid, so these are no bueno.
I decided to breakdown my opinions on this palette per shadow because... I just wanted to. All shadows marked with O are shades I like or don't mind, / are shades I don't really care for, and X are shades I don't like and these are what I'll be talking (mostly complaining) about:
♥ Crystal is a straight-up white shimmer. But really, who is this for? Unless you're pale as snow, this will not be flattering on a lot of skintones.
♥ Thanks A Latte has enough depth and color to it, but I find the undertone a bit ashy on me. Plus it's not that pigmented so I need to layer this quite a bit.
♥ Bestie is a cooler, rosier version of Transition. I actually like this shade, but I just don't think it needs to be in this palette.
♥ There are three gold shades in this palette. WHY? WHO NEEDS THREE VERSIONS OF GOLD? Obviously, I would prefer Toffee because metallic shades show up more reflective and intense on the eyes, so I don't really need less reflective Awesome Sauce and Chill to be here as well.
The rest of the shades are okay with me, with my favorites being Wine N Dine, Toffee, Bat My Eyes, Cool Beans and So Jelly - duochromes are such interesting shades for me!
Being called the Holy Grail palette, you'd think this would be the "end all, be all" of eyeshadow palettes. Spoiler alert: it's not. At least not for me. And if it was, Violet Voss wouldn't be able to make and sell other palettes. If I could redesign this into my own HG palette, I'd make the following changes:
♥ Since Crystal is a little too stark white for my liking, I would replace it with a light champagne shimmer shade which should flatter more skintones as a highlight and lid color.
♥ I'd warm up with Thanks A Latte to a matte cream shade and pump up the pigmentation - I'd do that to all the mattes.
♥ Rose gold is such a beautiful universally-flattering and well-loved color, especially a metallic one, so I would replace one of the existing gold shades with it.
♥ In my opinion, a true warm palette wouldn't be complete without a matte warm brown with a red or orange tinge. This is a color I look for in every warm palette I own because it's so effective in adding warmth and depth in the crease.
♥ Lastly, a holy grail palette must have a matte black. No palette would be complete without a this. And while I like Brownie Points and Teddy Bear, they aren't deep enough for my preference.
Now isn't that better? I don't know about you, but if I had these colors in this palette, I probably wouldn't reach for other palettes as much as I do because I'd have everything I'd want and need in this one.
Overall, the Violet Voss Holy Grail is a decent palette, but I don't think it gets HG status from me. For the price point, I think I'm paying more for the quantity rather than the quality of these shadows, which isn't bad at all, and I think I would've loved this palette more if it offered more color selections. While the colors are pretty and the shadows are workable, knowing what I do now, I probably wouldn't have bought it. However, I would gladly recommend the ABH Modern Renaissance which has similar shades but smaller quantity and better quality.
And that's it for this post! Have you tried this palette? Are you interested in it or have you changed your mind? What eyeshadow palette has reached "holy grail" status for you? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you so much for finding time to read my blog. I hope you enjoyed and you drop by again soon. Take care!
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All opinions and photos on this blog are my own, and all products reviewed have been purchased with my own personal funds, unless stated otherwise.
