As you know I like trying lots of eyeshadow palettes and when a palette gets raved about by one of your favorite Youtubers, you just have to try it. That was the case for the Sigma Enchanted palette: raved about by Kelly Gooch and so I finally caved and bought it to try it out. I had never tried Sigma makeup before. Now their brushes, I love. I own quite a few and I have reviews up for some of them here and here. But their blushes or eyeshadow palettes I hadn’t yet tried. I thought the color story of the Enchanted palette was appealing, so I gave it a whirl. These are my thoughts.
Review: Sigma Enchanted eyeshadow palette
Before we get to the palette itself, it is good to point out that if you live in Europe it is good to shop around to get an more affordable price point. I bought mine from Boozyshop where this palette retails for €44.95. When I bought this, Beauty Bay stocked this at €53.95 (it’s now at €46.95) and Douglas now stocks this for €66. So it really depends on where you buy this, what you end up paying for it. Don’t just go with your go to retailer as you can see: I saved over €20 just from getting it from a web only makeup store.
What does this palette have to offer?
In total this palette comes with 14 shades and a brush. This is a neutral eyeshadow palette with some pops of green and purple. It features 7 shimmers and 7 mattes. The mattes go quite deep and I feel there is also a lot going on in the very light department. There isn’t much to bridge the gap. That said, after hearing Kelly rave about it for some time, I became more and more intrigued. Especially the shimmer shades drew my eye as they seem to have a very ethereal, iridescent quality to them. Hence the palette name: enchanted.
What is the color story like?
This palette was not the instant hit I thought it would be. There are some stunning shades in this palette, but I felt that not all of it really went together very well, nor did all the shades perform as I wanted them to. For me, this is not one cohesive color story, but rather three. There is a purply-rosy look on the left side of te palette. Then there are some browns and the palette is rounded out by some greens and golds. I don’t really see these shade families mix: there is a mix here of warm and cool that I find difficult to blend together. The browns are too warm to go with the purples and pinks, while the undertones in the green shades don’t lend themselves very well to blend into those families either. However, this palette features a few stand out shades that I know I will be using this palette for in the future.
How do these shades swatch?
I mentioned above that the quality of this palette didn’t wow me. And here’s why: the shimmers are mostly sheer and feel more like topper shades rather than saturated shimmers that can be used all over the lid. But that is how I love to use shimmers! So for me the palette was a touch lackluster as also some of the mattes were a bit stiff and difficulty to blend. I managed to pull stunning looks out of this palette for sure, but for the price point, I would have expected more. This retails for at least as much as a Too Faced or Anastasia palette, but I feel the quality is more like Zoeva which retails at nearly half the price of those. The swatches looks stunning and the longevity of the looks was fine: I just had to put in more effort than I had expected to make these shadows pop.
3 Looks, 1 Palette
If we have three color families going on, then of course we ca do three looks as well. As per usual, between these three looks I have used every single shade in the palette. I find that in this way I always get a good feel for how the shades in the palette combine into different looks and I of course test out the quality of every single shade.
For starters, I kept things easy with a soft neutral look that put one of the standout shades of the palette center stage. I used Metamorphosis all over the lid, which is a green/ blue/ brown shade that is not unique to the this palette but that is one of the best shimmers in the palette. I did have to layer it quite a bit to stand it out this much though. I used some of the more basic and not too dark mattes as well as the black as a bit of liner to round out the look. Nothing offensive and just a pretty neutral look with a twist, which is one of my favorite things to do.
For look no. 2, I knew I wanted to go in with the greens. Sadly, Evergreen is a matte that skips a bit and therefore only worked on the lower lash line, but with some patience I was able to make it work. Dark green mattes are harder to make and this is now one of the very few deep forest green mattes I own that works well enough. I used the warm matte brown in the upper right hand corner and found it just didn’t really go with the greens that well. Cosmos is a great forest green shimmer that works well with Evergreen. This would be a go to combo from this palette for me. Lastly the strong yellow toned gold is another great shade in this palette, but I never really reach for shades like this and so it is a bit wasted on me. I also don’t really see it go with anything else the palette has going on apart from the greens, so to me, it would have been better if this had been a lighter matte that worked better with the greens.
Last but not least, I created a look with the purply-pinks. These are very pretty shades and that purple shimmer all over the lid is bomb. This is a look I could go back to more often and that I feel also offers something more unique. I could easily play off off different renditions for this look. I think topping Metamorphosis over the purple might me nice and I think the purple shimmer would make for a good contrast with the greens. But that’s as far as it goes.
My final thoughts
I went in thinking the Sigma Enchanted would be my new favorite eyeshadow palette. It didn’t reach that status as it just ended up not really coming together for me. There are a few matte shades missing for me that could really round out some looks and some of the shimmers that look spectacular in the pan just sheer out into almost nothing on the lid and need a lot of building up. This palette just didn’t perform as expected. Is this a bad quality palette? By no means, but I think I had this hyped up a bit too much for myself to really know what to expect. If I had known the shimmers were a touch sheer, I would not have minded it as much, but then I am not sure if I would have bought it in the first place.
Would I recommend the Sigma Enchanted eyeshadow palette?
If you are the person for this kind of palette then I think this can be a good palette. If you don’t own many neutral palettes and you want something that can work for everyday but has a bit of a twist than this is very pretty. I just feel that the standout shades in this palette are not unique to my collection and therefore the fact that I buy and try (and therefore own) a lot of eyeshadow kind of works against this palette for me. However, if you have a more curated collection and are looking for something to round out your collection while still getting many shades that you can dip in and out of as need be, then this palette can make for a stunning addition.