Now that the elections are over, and I am, for the moment, not receiving any annoying emails begging me for donations–thank goodness!  I can focus on the stuff I love.  Makeup. Food. Clothes. Travel.  And, naturally, pro-aging!

Ye Ye!  Guess where I’m gonna be shopping next week?

Tonight, I’m going to focus on something that’s been bothering me since I received a beauty set of a double-ended eye brush and an eyeshadow palette from QVC.  Through no fault of “The Q”, I purchased what could, quite possibly be, the worst eye shadow palette ever made!

Be prepared for what you are about to read in connection with this palette!  

Always in love with the iT Cosmetics brand’s brushes, I’ve started a decent collection.  I’ve written about the brands brushes in the past and they are nothing short of great.

Three of my newest brushes from iT cosmetics.  I have many more but these were the only ones that are clean!

It’s a different story when it comes to their makeup products.  I’ve a few iT cosmetics that I love—the Je Ne Sais Quoi Lip and Cheek colors are wonderful—it’s part of the brand’s lip vitality line.

The Je Ne Sais Quoi products look colorless in the tube but turn into such a gorgeous shade of pink.  I’m a fan!

Their skincare line is awful for me.  The products dry my already-dehydrated skin out more than it is.  And this, I find surprising since the brand touts itself as anti aging.

This is the brand’s Celebration foundation.  I tried it and it was DE-hydrating.  And with that anti-aging term, they certainly ain’t celebrating the aging process.

And  the brand insists on using the vulgar and mature woman insulting term anti-aging! Yet, despite this, the brushes are so absolutely amazing that I can’t stop using them.

Any who…. I was perusing through QVC two weeks ago catching up on some online stress shopping –because I have my lady-parts exam and my skin check coming up and I’m also stress-eating and the husband isn’t too happy with my bad habits.

I’ve been stress eating up a storm.  My pants are tight.  My tummy is expanding and I’m beyond the pregnancy years.  This photo is from my office potluck luncheon last week and I swept through this like a Hoover vacuum cleaner!

And during this time, I saw an eyeshadow brush with eyeshadow palette by iT cosmetics and I clicked to purchase.

Yeah–this was the palette and brush set.  Take a good look because it appears to be an excellent buy!

The palette seemed like a good one.  The shadows neutral with two highlighters—it could be a decent palette to use if I want a soft look or if I’m just out and about.  A good weekend eye look, if you will.

And when the mail was delivered, and my husband gave me the Larry David suspicious face because another package arrived, I gleefully ran upstairs to open the goods.

This is how Bonaparte looked at me when I told him I had no more makeup arriving in the mail!

The brush was all I expected.  Here’s a look:

This is the brush.  A four-in-one.  The top end of the brush has an element that you can pull down or up to change the shape of the shadow brush–making it a great travel tool!

The brush was well-worth the money!

Here’s a better look.  I love the pragmatic use of the larger brush.

Overall, the brush gets an A from me!

Now to the eyeshadow palette.

First of all, I have a thing about packaging and I have a “thing” about eyeshadow palette cases.  I like plastic or a similar hard composition.  I’m not a fan of the cardboard case.  Exception to the rule is the Anastasia Subculture Palette I wrote about last week—My Subculture Review.

The Superhero By Day Palette is encased in the cheapest, flimsiest cardboard ever.  Chippy got hold of it for two seconds and ate clear through the corner.

Chippy got hold of this and snacked on the edges.  But look at all the scratches and marks on this cheap cardboard case!

So, what does the low quality of the cardboard case tell me?  It says this is a disaster waiting to happen.  This is so flimsy that if you have it in your purse and it starts banging around—you’re gonna have a huge mess.

Chippy was basically telling me “I told you so….”

The other thing about the case is that it won’t stay open.  It’s so poorly constructed that I needed to use my cushion foundation as a palette weight.

My Korean Cushion Foundation is now multitasking as a cosmetic paperweight on this cheap palette that won’t stay opened!

On to the actual product. The shadows.  They are absolutely awful.

In the palette the colors look beautiful. Slightly shimmery.  Slightly satin.  They are, in fact, in appearance, the perfect neutrals with that pop of the University of Texas Burnt Orange shade.  There are also two highlighters.

Close up, the shadows really are nice looking and with the exception of the burnt-orange Empower, it’s a cool-toned palette-just what I was looking for!

I also had very high hopes for Brilliance and Visionary–the highlighters/base shadows.

Look at how they swatched on my fingers.  Can you find the color?  Where’s the pigment?

Although Empower has the most pigmentation, it was incredibly patchy.  The rest of the shadows–where’ the color?

The highlighters have more pigment but wait—they are ashy as all get out.

While these swatched with pigment on the fingers, they were ashy and on the lid just disappeared!

When I did apply the shadow on my lids, I saw that the shadows went on very chalky—and this is the irony of the “anti-aging” that iT cosmetics pontificates.  The chalkiness of the shadows actually aged the look of my eyes.

Sorry the chalky consistency didn’t show up in this photo but I DO have the shadows from this palette on my eye.  You just can’t see them because there’s no pigmentation!

I also put a dent in one of the shadows from pressing too hard to try to get some lift-off of color.

Follow the yellow arrow to see where I dented the shadow!  I tried to get more color but it didn’t work!

All was not lost after I took out my trusty Tartlette in Bloom palette.  A better neutral collection of shadows.  Tartelette in Bloom came to my rescue with the pigmentation and satiny finish I was hoping to achieve with Superhero by Day.

Tartelette in Bloom to the rescue!  I ended up going over the entire iT eye with shadows from this palette. I used Charmer, top left as a wash,  Funny Girl on my lid and in the crease a light application of both Smokeshow and Activist.  

Thanks to Tartelette in Bloom, I was able to get a nice neutral eye look!

As a consumer, I don’t want to be had. The only reason I didn’t return the palette was because Chippy snacked on it.  But how can a company that makes stellar brushes be so inconsistent with their makeup?  The brand makes products that I love–their concealer. And I use the bronzer almost every day as a contour! I just don’t get it!

But this eyeshadow palette is atrocious and iT Cosmetics should be ashamed by selling this garbage. I’ve purchased better in Dollar Tree and Five Below.

Cheaply constructed, won’t even stay opened and horrible shadows.  It’s a complete fail!

Overall how would I rate this?  An F.  Honest to God, I’ve never given such a bad review on a product and I’ve never had an F-rated product.  There’s always another way to use a product.  I’ve used bronzers as contours and contours as shadows.  I’ve used concealers that were too yellow as eye shadow bases and too-dark lip colors as blush.   But this palette—there’s no hope.

iT Superhero by Day on the left and Tartelette in Bloom in the right.  Which do YOU prefer?  I thought so!

And the other thing is, when you wear eyeglasses you NEED a shadow that’s well-pigmented!  I’m glad a have many darker shadows in my possession! Another Tartelette look!

Look—this may be a harsh review but you know I don’t lie.  If I love a product—you know it.  If I’m on the fence—you know it.  If I don’t care for something—you know it.

I just don’t like iT!!

And I love you too much to allow you to make the same mistake I did.  I’m telling you, do not buy this palette.  You will waste over $30 and for that kind of money, you can go to MAC cosmetics and create your own palette with four high-quality shadows! Or buy the Tartelette in Bloom palette for a few dollars more!

I created all three of these palettes at MAC–and the middle palette, I already hit pan on all four shadows!

So that’s it.  If you want to see more of my thoughts on this palette—here’s my YouTube review! And I’ll have more reviews coming up (one really good one too)!