Coastal Scents 28 Color Neutral Palette | An ACTUAL Review

Ok, where do I start actually? Yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to review the Coastal Scents 28 Neutral Palette so I sat down with some tea and my notebook and started swatching and carrying on. This morning I went and read a few other reviews and some of them made me quite sad. There seems to be two trains of thought, people who think these are Mac dupes and people who don’t. I couldn’t really find an accurate review where people weren’t either trying to prove that these shadows were Mac dupes or lambasting people for trying to prove these to be Mac dupes.

Lets get this out the way quickly. These are not Mac dupes. Here is what they are; they are a nice little collection of colours that, if nothing else, will help you to learn what sort of shades go well together on your eyes before you take the plunge and make your own palette with a higher end make up brand.

They do not last as long as the more luxury eye shadows out there, when I swatched them on my arm (I was doing 8 at a time because I don’t have orangutan arms) I could easily wipe the shadow off with just my hand. I do have to layer and blend extensively when I use them on my eyes but for the most part I am happy with the finish. They do work better with a primer and setting spray, they are unlikely to last from 7am through to the end of whatever after work engagements you may have but I have worn them for a full (8 hour-ish) day before.

Some of the shades are better than others but happily I have reviewed each one separately. I started getting bored of naming the colours because it occurred to me I was trying to describe different shades of beige and brown. Anyway. Here we go.

Coastal Scents 28 Color Neutral Palette

1)   Very light, almost white satin shade. Good inner corner highlight, probably too white to take through the brow bone.

2)   Light cool-toned beige, a bit glittery but not bad.

3)   Sadly, this is a dud with very little payoff

4)   Warm toned matte light pink, good for all over the lid.

5)   Cool toned pale lilac, payoff not great, a bit chalky

6)   Matte light beige, also a bit chalky

7)   Satin beige, this is a winner. Goes on smoothly and blends easily.

8)   Looks almost identical to the previous shade but sadly comes off a bit ashy. I wore it yesterday and it looked like I had died.

9)   Cool toned very light brown, payoff is good, I use this in my crease mostly (I tend to only use this palette in the day)

10) Matte tan, not a great payoff but I use this on a 217 to contour my nose and it works quite well for that.

11) Cool toned light pink, comes off a little chalky unless you use it with a primer – and then it is actually quite nice.

12) Matte light brown, the payoff is fine. I use it to contour my eyes when I am doing a ‘no make up’ sort of look.

13) Matte light plum sort of colour, it comes off much darker than what it looks like in the pan. I do enjoy using this colour, it does leave a bit of fallout though.

14) Another dud

15) Medium brown – shimmery. This colour is ok I suppose. You do have to use quite a few layers and more often than not it makes my make up look a bit untidy. It will work if you a patient. I am not. If I want a shimmery brown I usually go for Stila Gilded Gold.

16) Another dud and somehow mine is broken. Weird. I haven’t dropped this palette, also I haven’t found a mysterious pile of eyeshadow anywhere.

17) Cool toned medium brown – medium. Good payoff, good for crease.

18) Lovely bronze shimmer shade. Excellent payoff. I used this for a night out and it stayed put. This is definitely one of the top 3 shades in this palette and one I would possibly stick my neck out and say is a dupe for something. I will look.

19) Deeper tan, good payoff

20) Warm dusty pink – matte, I often use this with shade #4 and a nice black eyeliner.

21) Nice medium pinky brown, good payoff.

22)  Satin finish light tan, ok payoff. Not my favourite.

23) Ooooh! Lovely reddish brown, it is a matte shade, excelled payoff. Beware of fallout. Definitely a setting spray candidate. Also Top 3

24) Cool toned matte brown, pretty meh. You need to build it for any sort of effect

25) Black, pretty disappointing to be honest, as some weird red glitter thing going on, very sheer and I find that sheer black colours look messy. Unless you are very good and patient. Which I am not. Obviously.

26) Deep brown. Its ok but I would rather use one of my other brown shades because, again, this is a bit sheer.

27) Here is the final Top 3 shade, it is a lovely deeper cool toned purple shade. Good payoff, the finish tends to be more satin once you build it a bit. I like it.

28) Ugh, this is easily the worst shade. It looks like you have gone outside and picked dirt clod and rubbed it over your eyes. Also weird red glitter. I really don’t like it. I thought I would love it, it looks so beautiful and aubergine in the pan. Sad. Just sad.

So, should you buy this palette? I am going to go with yes, $13 for the shades that are actually good in the palette is really not bad. I’m not going to lie, I would have paid $13 for my top 3 shades in the palette. Have a go, have some fun.