I’ve made a mid-year resolution to myself to start exploring lesser known budget beauty brands. There are so many awesome products that you can’t find on shelves that deliver amazing quality without breaking the bank. Recently, the brand Alter Ego introduced themselves to me and sent over their Goddess Eyeshadow Collection: a 15 shade palette that made me have googly eyes.
The warm browns, gold duo chromes and pops of teal make this an awesome palette to wear during summer, serving beachy sunset vibes. What did I notice right away? Of course, the balance of finishes. There’s definitely a lot of shimmer in this palette, but you get staple mattes for the outer corner, crease and transition area to create a dimensional look.
When I first dipped into this palette, I was a little bit hung up on the shimmer shades. They felt rich and soft to the touch, but when applying with a brush I got a lot of glitter but not a lot of pigment. That was, until I realized I needed to be applying them wet. Every non-matte shade in this palette performs exponentially better when applied wet (with the exception of Artemis which looks great wet or dry). When applied with a damp brush, you can get an opaque layer of reflective color. Otherwise, they work well as glitter toppers.
The matte shades are soft and silky, and blend out very easily. Packing on the pigment really helps you get the most out of the color, then blend out at the edges in small circular motions to diffuse. I was particularly impressed with the shade Gaia— a deep teal. I never have good luck with teal shadows, as they tend to blend out to a muddy gray. This one actually retained the blue hue as I blended it out and in with other shades.
Other shades that stand out are Cassandra, a duochrome that shifts from a limey yellow to peach, as well as Valkyrie which catches the light as gold or green depending on the angle.
Because the texture of the shadows are quite soft across the board, your palette will get messy. Both the metallics and mattes kick up a lot of product in the pan, and produce a good amount of fallout on the face. I suggest doing your eyes first when using this palette, or using shadow shields. As fallout isn’t a huge turn-off for me, I still enjoy the quality and working with these shadows. The quality exceeds the price point.
I love the versatility of this palette, as you can go for a subtle look using the neutrals or really create something eye catching with the shifting shades and sultry teals. In the look above, I used Athena and Juno as a transition, Gaia in my outer corner, Artemis on the lid and Cassandra in the inner corner.
The Alter Ego Goddess Eyeshadow Palette is only $16 and available on the brand’s website.
See anything else you’d want me to review from Alter Ego? Leave it in the comments!
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