Essence My Only 1 eyeshadow palette

I gave you the review for the new 16 pan Catrice palette last Saturday and today it’s time for a review on the new 22 pan Essence palette. Where the Catrice version was all about the neutrals, Essence has decided to throw in some brights. And since one of my goals for 2018 is to wear more colorful shadows, I figured I’d give it a go. 

Essence My Only 1 eyeshadow palette 01 22 eye-catching looks

The retail price on this is the same as the Catrice palette: €9.89. For that price you get 6 extra shades that go from very neutral to rainbow colored. In total this palette contains nearly 30 grams of product. Still for an Essence product that is quite expensive and since my experiences with Essence eyeshadow have not been the best, I am hoping that this will be good.

The Packaging

The packaging of this palette isn’t the best. It is cheap and the plastic doesn’t feel very sturdy. I wouldn’t recommend traveling with this as it feels like it might break quite quickly. Not a great start….

The Shadows

The 22 shades are nicely divided between the brights and the neutrals. There are 11 of each. One thing I noticed immediately is that apart from one or two shades, nearly all of these have shimmer. Even the ones that seem matte, have more of a satin finish. Another thing I noticed straight away is that this is a very cool toned palettes. Only 5 shades are warm toned, everything else runs cool. There are a lot of blues and greys, taupes, purples and mauves.

The Swatches

As I feared, the shadows in this palette feel quite thin and powdery. Overall the texture is quite chalky and the pigmentation isn’t the best. While you get quite a bit of color payoff, there are also a few shades that barely show up. Looking at the swatches some of the shades also look nearly identical. The colors also don’t really show up very vibrant or distinct. The black looks more like a charcoal grey and the darkest shade in the palette aren’t that dark.

The Application

Since there are no names in this palette, it will be difficult to tell you what I used, but I will do my best. For this first look I used the matte teal in the middle of the bottom row. I used the light blue in the second row all over the lid and applied and the silvery grey on the lower lash line. I used the matte cream on my brow bone and inner corner.

As you can see the matte teal doesn’t look like a matte teal on the lid. It’s more of a blue. Besides that it is incredibly patchy and difficult to blend. The shimmer lacks some serious luster and barely packs a punch when applied to the lid. I felt terribly unhappy with this eyelook the day I wore this.

For look two, I wanted to go with some greens, but sadly they all pulled quite grey. I know I used the green in the bottom line. I put the purple on the right on the lower lash line. The middle grey shade from row 2 is all over the lid.

The second look was a lot more successful. The greens didn’t look very green, but at least I had less trouble blending these out. Sadly this did fade quite badly throughout the day and didn’t look this nicely after a few hours.

This last look is all about the grey tones. I used the darker grey shades to create this smokey look and it was the most successful by far. The black is on the upper lash line as a bit of liner.

This was my favorite look by far. It is nice and smokey, but I feel it was the only great look I got out of this palette and that is using the darkest shades in the palette. Blendability still wasn’t great, but it certainly beat the first look.

My main problem with this palette is how the palette feels. This is quite expensive for Essence, but it feels cheap. If I would find something like this at Claire’s or in the children’s makeup aisle in a toystore, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

The Conclusion

If you see the Essence My Only 1 palette stay far away from it. It is expensive for what it is and the quality just isn’t there. This is a fun palette to play around with if you’re looking for a few fun colors to try out, but no more than that. The pigmentation isn’t great and while the shades can be build up and the looks work out okay, it just isn’t what I look for in a palette.

What do you look for in an eyeshadow palette?