Today’s review is for the Strobe Cosmetics Creepy Cute eyeshadow palette. The brand has since this palette as come out been rebranded to Shroud Cosmetics. For clarity’s sake, I will refer to the brand as Strobe as that is also the name on the packaging, but know that these two brands are the same! The Creepy Cute palette is one that I bought after lots of doubt as pastels can be really hard to do. However, now that I have tried it, I can safely claim that this is one of the best pastel eyeshadow palettes on the market. I tried some more in recent times and sadly, none of them compare to this one. Here’s why!
Review: Strobe Cosmetics Creepy Cute eyeshadow palette
Before we get into the palette itself, I have to tell you more about the availability of the palette. At the time of writing this post, this palette is currently unavailable as the shop has been closed due to high demand of a fall release that the owner is still working on shipping to her customers. Strobe Cosmetics is a small indie brand from the US and it is a one woman show. So while the quality of this palette is amazing, it can take a while before you will get your order due to a rather high processing time. This is often the case with indie brands, but for this one I would say it is certainly worth the wait. The palette retails for $35 from the official Shroud Cosmetics website. International shipping is costly at $20, but for each of the palettes I have to far bought and received from the brand, I was not hit with an additional customs fee.
What does this palette have to offer?
The Creepy Cute does exactly what you might expect from the name: it has a couple of dark grungy shades and a couple of cutesy pastels. The two dark, grungy shades are not exactly great with the soft pastels I find, but I was able to make them work with the rest of the shades in the two looks I provided. In total the palette contains 8 shades and all of them are matte. These mattes are saturated and where most pastels are super powdery as they have such a strong white base these do not: these blend like a dream and have full intensity in one go.
What is the color story like?
The palette is split into 6 matte pastel shades that range from a lilac and powder blue to some fresh greens shades and a soft peach and pink. The 2 darker shades are a true grey and one of the most intense blacks on the market. The only shade missing in my opinion? A yellow. I would have loved this palette even more if the black had been a yellow, or maybe the brighter grassy green. That said however, these shades are still great to work with. For the looks below I simply stuck with the shades that you get in each row.
How do these shades swatch?
As you can see the saturation of especially the pastels in a finger swatch is nicely on point. Also with a brush these are easy to apply and where some pastels will just blend away into nothing, these one actually can be build up to full intensity with just a few passes. The black is super intense, but there is something about this formula that still makes it easy to handle when applying this to the lid. That goes for all of these shades by the way. These pastels do not need a white base to pop. The only shade that doesn’t stand out as much is the baby pink, but that is mainly because it is so close to my skin tone.
2 looks, 1 palette
Customary on this blog is enough looks to allow me to try every. single. shade. I don’t see the point of reviewing a palette if you haven’t at least used all the shades, but I also like to ‘sit on’ my reviews for a while before I fully make up my mind. I have by now used this palette more than just for these two looks, so I am basing my review on that.
I knew that the purple, blue and minty green would be my three favorite shades in the palette and those I wanted to try first. To create this look, I put the grey shade in the crease: of the two grungy shades I think it goes best with the pastels, but it is still not perfect. There is something weird and stark about this shade against my skin tone in combination with the lighter pastels. It might be that I am just a bit too fair to make the grey work, but as you can see I had no issues getting the lilac, blue and mint green to show up as vibrant as they do in the pan.
For the second look I used the shades in the bottom row. Turns out tat peachy shade makes for a great crease/ transition but I don’t feel it has much else going for it. The pink is cute but I think it would work better together with the purple or the blue as it has quite a cool undertone. The bright grassy green was the surprise of the palette for me. I didn’t think I’d like it much as it looked different to me in the pan. Once on the eye, I felt it gave me the vibrancy I wanted and I think this will pair nicely with the blue in the palette too.
My final thoughts
In terms of what this palette does and can do I think this is a good one. Does the Creepy Cute by Strobe cosmetics palette have its limits? Yes it does. I wish this came with a pastel yellow to truly round it out in terms of pastels and the grey and the black are just a bit stark against the undertones of the other shades. For me, this is therefore not a stand alone palette, but it is a good one if you are looking for a palette that has good pastels to pull into other looks. How stunning would these shades be with an otherwise neutral eye? I therefore think that this palette has lots to offer if you bear in mind that it isn’t perfect as a standalone palette.
Would I recommend the Strobe Cosmetics Creepy Cute palette?
So far this is the best quality pastel palette I have ever tried. So from that perspective yes. However, there may be better pastels on the market. I bought some Inglot singles years ago and those are still some of the best pastels I ever bought, but Inglot can get expensive and from what I can tell none of those shades are still available. What I would still like to try to compare it to this is the Menagerie Cosmetics Pastel Pup, but that I don’t own yet. So from where I stand now, this palette is the best pastel palette on the market and if you want to try a good range of pastels than this would definitely be my pick.
5 responses to “Strobe Cosmetics Creepy Cute eyeshadow palette review”
I bought Zoeva Sweet Glamour, but haven’t worn it yet! It’s the first pastel palette I’ve bought.
I never tried that one!
Need thispalette! Love your blog, glad I came across it. Ive just popped you a follow, can’t wait to see more amazing content from you!
Thanks for stopping by. It’s a stunning palette that’s for sure!
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