An affordable makeup brand that does some great products is LA Girl. I used to swear by their Pro Conceal concealer and I was also quite taking with one of their highlighters a while ago. Last fall, I heard lots of people raving about their new eyeshadow palettes. Having never tried LA Girl eyeshadows before, I waited patiently for these shades to make it across the pond and I picked up the palette for Black Friday. Is this as good as everyone is making it out to be?
Review: LA Girl Haute Haute Heat Aloha Vibes eyeshadow palette
I am currently having difficulty finding this at European retailers, but when I purchased mine I remember paying around €17 for this massive palette. This thing is the size of my head. In case you are familiar with the size of the larger Juvia’s Place palettes: this is about that size. It feels heavy, comes with a full size mirror and inside are 16 different shades that range from neutrals to colors.
What does this palette have to offer?
This is a straightforward neutral with a pop of color kind of palette at first glance, but I found out by using this that this palette is a bit more unique than that. The neutrals range from both warm to cooler/ neutral tones and the colorful shades are stunning jewel tones. This palette ever features a duochrome! How is that for texture?! And that at such an affordable price point! It is a palette that favors shimmers over mattes, so that has to be your cup of tea, but you know that I love that.
What is the color story like?
There are only 5 mattes in this 16-pan palette. But they are the right sort of mattes: a crease, transition, blend shade and then two shades to deepen things up. So that is all the mattes you need in my book. The warm tones are mainly in the top left hand corner. Everything else is quite cool toned or neutral leaning. That shimmering brown in the left bottom corner may seem a bit warm at first glance, but it has a silver touch to it making it much more cool toned than you might expect. The colorful shades are made up of jewel tones ranging from a stunning aqua and turqoises to purples and tealy greens. The silvery shimmer shade next to the black is in fact a duochrome silvery white with a purply/ pink shift.
What do these shades swatch like?
As you can see here these shadows swatch beautifully. For the money you definitely get a lot of bang for your buck. The shimmers, while intense are a bit stiff and almost perform like a cream to powder formula. It can therefore be a bit difficult to pick up with a brush and I found that using denser brushes, sponge tip applicators and my fingers made for much better use with this palette. The swatches also surprised me, for instance that duochrome doesn’t show up until you swatch it and also one of the purples appeared to have a more pink to blue shift to it. Due to the creaminess of these shades it is recommended to make sure you prime your lids before wearing this palette as these are prone to creasing.
3 looks, 1 palette
So of course I had to a blue/ green look, I had to use those purples by themselves and then I just sort of did a neutral look with whatever was left. These are the three looks I created making sure to use every single shade in the palette.
My eye was instantly drawn to the bright turquoise in this palette. It would go greatly with the purples too but I wanted to play it safe added the greens/teals instead. I also used the light silvery duochrome in the inner corner and I think you can see here that is pulls a bit pinky/ purple in certain lighting. This has got to be my favorite look I did with this palette.
Since this palette has quite a few neutrals I wanted to make sure I ventured into the warmth of this palette too. We all know I am not a huge fan of super yellow toned golds, but I found that this was still wearable as it has a tarnished quality to it that I like. However, this was not my favorite look by any means as I feel this is not the reason why you are getting this palette. Plus these shades are featured many times over in other palettes. Are they good shades, yes, but these are not the deal breakers.
For the final look I played with the purples and those were a bit lackluster. These took some more building up and more work, but I did like the look that came out. I used the dark brown shimmer on the lower lashing line and I think it goes well with the cool tones of the purples. I just wished that purple on the lid was as vibrant and intense as the aqua shade. This is still good quality, don’t get me wrong, but purples can be hard to get right.
My final thoughts
The LA Girl Haute Haute Heat Aloha Vibes eyeshadow palette is a stunner of a palette at a super affordable price point. It features blues, greens and purples and therefore it holds a special place in my heart. However, I feel this palette may be one that can go forgotten in my makeup collection. Why? The size of the palette combined with the fact that these shades feel very dense and can therefore be a bit hard to work with. It’s just a bit too big for my liking.
Would I recommend the LA Girl Haute Haute Heat eyeshadow palette?
Yes I would if you want to try this color story and don’t want to spend too much money. It has some fun pops of color and it does give you great foiled quality. I would stay away from this if you don’t think it would get much use. The reason being that this is a large palette that comes with a ton of product. In total you get 35 grams of product in this palette which makes for a lot of eyshadow. You would have to use this exclusively for the next 10 years to even begin hitting pan on it, which I would definitely take into consideration before buying this.
6 responses to “LA Girl Haute Haute Heat eyeshadow palette review”
Ooh I love these colors 💕the bright blues
I know right?!
Pretty palette.
Hear hear!
I like the yellow look the best! It’s probably more yellow than it appears online, it looks a tad mustard-yellow. I don’t think I’d use this palette, but it does sound like a good deal for the price.
It is a great deal, but a bit too big perhaps for my liking.