Make Up For Ever Eyeshadow Palettes - Sepia Blue, Midnight Glow, Arty Blossom Review

Starting off 2014's first beauty post with a review of 3 eyeshadow palettes from one of my favourite brands - and with swatches!

If you guys don't already know, about 90% of my makeup for photoshoots is made up of MUFE (Make Up For Ever) products. Not just because they sponsor me, but their products are really good and I really love them!

Above are 3 of the MUFE palettes they sent to me over in 2013 (Arty Blossom was received on 31st Dec, set to launch in early Jan) and 2 have been my staples - and I'm pretty sure the 3rd one will find it's way into my makeup bag real soon.

I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but I wasn't someone who'd use eyeshadows much because my eyes are uneven and I have quite little lid space... but these palettes are way too pretty for me to not want to play with, and in the course of doing so, I have picked up a lil somethin' somethin' about applying my eyeshadows.

Moving on to the actual reviews now!

Sepia Blue

The Sepia Blue was the first palette I got from MUFE this year, and like the name suggests, it's accent is actually the Petrol Blue shade. While the irony being that I am not a fan of the blue - either the shade doesn't suit me or I'm just horrible at wearing cool colours on my lids, which I am quite bummed about because it's such a gorgeous mermaid colour - I am however loving all the other colours of the palette.
Excluding the blue, this is my favourite and go-to neutral palette nowadays. The 4 shades on the right are my staples for photoshoots because of the great colour payoff, how easy they blend, and the shadows are soft, smooth, and creamy to work with. The colours onto the left of the blue shade has a much warmer undertone as compared to the ones on its right which are more neutral, and I think they will look really natural on ladies with warmer undertones.
The palette is a mixture of mattes (28, 98, 04, 17), satins (128, 127) and shimers (152, petrol blue) which gives good variety for both contouring and highlighting on the eyelid.
They can be applied easily with fingers, sponges, or the 3 brushes (2 brushes, 1 is dual-ended) they come with. I'm not such a big fan of the brushes on either of the palettes as they are quite small.. but the quality is great and it does come in handy for touch ups.

Some examples of me wearing shades from the palette

Midnight Glow

MUFE's Palette that was sent to me around the Christmas period! The moment I opened this palette the colour I fell in love with was Gold Pink. Can't explain how much love I have for this colour and palette.
While I've never been fond of eyeshadows that are too glittery, these shades are too pretty not to love - just wait till you see the swatches. 04 and 127 are the same shades from the Sepia Blue palette, to help with contouring as all the other shades are simmer/glitter shades - which makes it perfect for the holiday season as well as any other special occasion.
Like mentioned, my favourite is Gold Pink and it's my staple colour for highlighting for photoshoots as well as for daily wear. For special occasions, I like pairing it with midnight purple and the combination is magic. Midnight purple also makes a good under-outer-eye colour for some added darkness into the look.
I have not worn the other cooler colours on the left half of the palette too, but after swatching them I'm so sure I would!
The texture of the shadows are not as soft and buttery as the Sepia Blue palette, but they also blend really easily. Since it's glitter, there are a little bit of fallouts from this one as well. My favourite way of using these are with clean fingertips with a patting motion!
This palette comes with 2 brushes as well, but neither is double ended like the one from Sepia Blue.

Arty Blossom

For Spring 2014, MUFE will be lauching their latest eyeshadow palette - Arty Blossom! Inspired by watercolours, this palette is slightly different in the sense that the colours are supposed to be soft and sheer - as though you have a painting on your eyelids. I've tried a few shades from when I got this palette already and I got to say I really love the 5 shades (first 5 from the left) that I've tried. Again, this palette is a good mixture of different textures.
My favourite shade would hands down be Gold Plum, a deep plum shade with beautiful gold specs (I've always loved purple x gold combinations) as well as Gold Beige which gives your eyelid the old hollywood glam look when paired with red lips and a touch of eyeliner. Gold Green might be a little tricky for me, but I'm sure I can try to play around with it.
The shadows are soft and smooth again, and very fine as well (likewise of all 3 palettes). I'm not too sure about this, but you can try to use the white as a base for the other colours to show up truer to the pan as they are really quite sheer, but buildable. Likewise the other 2 palettes, this also comes with 2 brushes - both single sided.

Swatches