It’s the start of a series of eyeshadow palette reviews on the blog! What can I say, I love palettes, and I picked up 10 million new ones. So you’re going to hear about all of them!

Now don’t worry, there will be nail polish again on this blog too. I’m on the hunt for the new Sinful Colors Kandee Johnson polishes, and the Valentine’s Day polishes as well, so those will be coming soon. But for now, we have palettes!

Let’s get started with City Color Cosmetics.

City Color Cosmetics is an affordable brand that you can find at Five Below. Otherwise you can shop their website at citycolorcosmetics.com. I have another one of their eyeshadow palettes and I absolutely love it, so when I saw this I had to pick it up, hoping for the same formula.

I picked up the ‘Figtastic’ eyeshadow palette at Five Below for $3.99! It sells for $6.99 normally on their website.

It’s cardboard packaging, with a plastic film window that lets you see the colors when it’s closed.

It comes with 14 square eyeshadows that are a mix of satin and shimmer. It also comes with 2 of the plastic eyeshadow applicators. The shadow are mainly set up with the lighter shade on the top row, with a corresponding darker shade underneath it (mostly).

Let’s get into the actual shadows!

Here is the top row. The 2nd shade, a orangey peach color, and the 2nd to last shade, a medium brown are pretty much matte shades. The last shade, that deep auburn chocolately brown is a satin, and the rest are shimmers. That 1st and 3rd shade are very light, even on my pale skin, so that’s something to note.

Here’s the 2nd row! The 2nd shade, a dark orange shade, and the 2nd to last shade, an olive green-brown shade are the 2 matte shades. The 5th shade, the berry purple is a satin, and the last shade is a full on metallic. The rest again are shimmers.

Alright, now for the formulas. The matte and satin shades, I do really like. They are pigmented and blend out nicely. They build up on themselves to give good transition shades and to smooth out a look.

Now the shimmers. Hmm. These honestly disappointed me a little. They look so beautiful in the pan and they perform, well, eh. As you can see they’re almost crumbly, and pressed really hard into the pan. In order to build them up on the lid, I used my finger and just patted them on. And even then, they’re not as in your face as they are in the pan. Even that last shade in the bottom row, that stunning gold, is the same way. It’s not that beautiful on the lid, and I so wish it was. I would use these over a creamy base, like a Maybelline color tattoo to really make these pop.

I also found these fade like no other during the day. I don’t really have a problem with oily lids, but some of these shades crease on me, and they all fade after 4-5 hours. I don’t have this problem with other affordable shadows.

So overall, this palette is just eh. I do really like the matte and satin shades in here, but over half of the palette, the shimmers, just falls flat.

I would say pass on this palette and pick up one of City Color’s other palettes, which are much better quality. – For example, their ‘Barely Exposed’ palette. Same price on the website, and it’s just so much better.

I think this palette is just a little bit of a miss for City Color. But I still love them as a brand, so it’s just one miss.

Stay tuned for the next ones! A review on Covergirl’s ‘TrueNaked Jewels’ is next!