Today’s eyeshadow palette review is for the stunning and very colorful Certifeye Tropical Wonders palette. This palette is a full on rainbow palette featuring 18 matte shades of colorful goodness. Many people have been raving about this as being the best rainbow palette currently on the market. Do I agree?
Review: Certifeye Tropical Wonders eyeshadow palette
Let’s talk price point and availability first. Certifeye is a UK indie brand that is available mainly through their official website. For a few months now, maybe even close to a year, the brand has been available on Beauty Bay as well which might make it easier to buy this palette if you are not located in Europe. The palette retails for €32 but that is without any shipping fees added on to the price. I believe I bought this palette during a sale palette, which essentially made the shipping free. If you are not located in Europe, you may want to bear in mind that you will probably have to pay for customs on top of the retail price and shipping costs.
What does this palette have to offer?
As I mentioned in the intro: this is an all matte rainbow palette. For me it was one of the reasons I bought this as I didn’t own many colorful palettes yet. I feel that this palette is right for that: if you want to inject color into your eyeshadow collection, but don’t want to spend a whole lot and still get great quality and a wide variety of shades. What I am not a fan of with this palette is the amount of mattes. Most eyeshadow palettes on the market appear to be mainly mattes, but I am someone who prefers a roughly equal division of mattes and shimmers. I would wish the brand would come out with an all shimmer palette to match this one to foresee in my colorful shimmer needs.
What is the color story like?
The color story of the palette is a rainbow and it is a full rainbow with a few shades also existing in different ranges of shades. Because it is a rainbow palette this is a bright, colorful palette, but as you will see below, you can still pull some more neutral looks out of this palette as well. There are a matte white, a grey, a black as well as two warm toned neutrals.
The only thing missing for me? A true orange. The closest we get to an orange in this palette is the shade Toucan. Stunning and one of my favorite shades in the palette, but I had preferred it if the palette had a more true orange. To me, this shade leans more towards a sunflower yellow.
What does this palette look like in a swatch?
In finger swatches I feel this palette doesn’t look as good as it does on the eyes. The formula is quite powdery and thin rather than rich and creamy. However, how well a shadow works isn’t determined by a finger swatch of course. It is determined by how well it blends and packs onto the lid with a brush. As you will see in the pictures below I had no issues with applying these shades to my eyelids. These blend well and application is a breeze. That is why I love this palette so much: colorful palettes can be a bit scary but because these shades can be build up in pigment and saturation you have a lot of control over your final look.
3 Looks, 1 Palette
For the first look i knew I wanted to play with the purple, greens and blues. My favorite color story! And these shades are an absolute hit. They play very nicely together and with a bit of black liner to ground the look, I feel this looks very pretty on. That’s a tip for wearing colorful eyeshadow by the way: if you feel colorful shadow makes you look a bit strange, try applying a pencil liner in a black or dark brown and do a good tight line. Changes are your look will instantly be elevated to one that is far more accessible.
If we do a cool toned look, we also need to do a warm toned look. The reds and oranges in this palette play together very very nicely and I like the contrast with the purple and pink on the lower lash line. It is like a different take on a sunset eye kind of look. As you can see here especially these mattes are super easy to use to create a true gradient from the top lash line going up towards to the crease.
Who knew you could do a neutral look with a rainbow palette?! Well with this one you can. I used Toucan all over the lid and here you can see that is pulls much more mustard brown than orange once applied to the face. I used the two warm browns in the top of the palette to round off the look. For this one, as I just felt it needed a bit of something I used my highlighter to give myself an inner corner highlight.
My final thoughts
The Certifeye Tropical Wonders eyeshadow palette is certainly deserving of all the hype. It is most certainly one of the best rainbow palette on the market today. It has all the shades you need for a full rainbow and then some. I appreciate how it gives you some neutrals to ground a look. This is the kind of palette that is great if you like to play around and want to get a bit more creative with your shadows, but still want your look to stay a bit more muted as well as having all the bright options you could possible need.
Would I recommend the Certifeye Tropical Wonders palette?
YES! This is a great rainbow palette. I would have liked shimmers. I would have like a truer orange. But in the end the quality and versatility this palette gives you is very hard to beat. Of course you have to want to wear color if you are looking into buying this palette. If you are curious and are looking for a good rainbow palette that is not too expensive and gives you all the options you need to create bright rainbow looks, then this is definitely worth checking out.