Tarte Clay Play Palette Review and Swatches

To contour, or not to contour, that’s the real question, amiright??! When I heard about this release, I was excited but not excited enough to buy it sight unseen….So today, I popped over to Ulta on my lunch break to see this firecracker in person. I am not a contour connoisseur by any means so I was nervous to buy this…but I’ve been looking for a palette with both contour colors and some blacks for my eyeliners and shading so it seemed like a good match. This palette retails for $46 bucks, but I had a 20% off coupon and some money off with my Ulta points bringing my grand total for this palette to $33USD, so I couldn’t say no!! A little about this palette from Tarte’s website:

Like shapewear for your face—these 12 essential Amazonian clay matte eyeshadows multitask as universal eye, nose & brow shapers, plus contour colors so you can #slaywithclay.

Shades:

• journey (rosy buff)
• stone (rosy brown)
• solstice (ivory)
• terracotta (warm taupe)
• dunes (slate brown)
• smoke (coffee)
• sand (cream)
• desert (cool taupe)
• ember (amber brown)
• onyx (black)
• instinct (buff)
• timber (chestnut)

I’ll tell you, I was torn between this and the UD shapeshifter palette, but because of the black, I went with this one. At first touch I thought these were cream, but nope, they are powder…that’s just how damn buttery soft they are!! I was immediately impressed by the texture. There are 9 eyeshadow/brow/hilighting shades and 3 contour shades that are in larger pans. I think there is a good mix of colors for everyone.

This palette is really someone who is looking for neutrals, wear every day type colors. If you re into bold colors, this is not the palette for you. Per Tarte standard, it actually smells really great too…Kind of like the chocolate bar palette.

Terracotta, Desert and Timber are the darker larger contour shades. The medium sized pans are the hilighting shades and they are solstice, Sand and Instinct. The darkest brow and eyeshadow shades are; Journey, Stone, Dunes, Smoke, Ember and Onyx. I like them all really and find it will be extremely versatile for me and my every day looks I go for. There are lots of shades that are similar but I don’t happen to own any so I’m happy to have this. The compact is large and not very travel friendly, but that’s ok with me. It’s kind of a plasticy metal with a cardboard outer in a beautiful natural print. The shades swatch well on my arm, but they also go great on my face and blend extremely well. I haven’t noticed any creasing issues mostly due to the clay aspect of the shadows. It does a really good job of balancing oil, particularly on the eyelids. I think this is a definite must if you don’t have these colors already.

My only real complaint is that this didn’t come with a brush of any sort. So if you’re new to the contouring game, you might want to pick one or several up. For just $33 this was an excellent value. I highly recommend you pick it up from Ulta and don’t forget your %20 off coupon code. It said it wouldn’t apply on the website, but it did in person, no questions asked. I rate this palette a solid A.

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