The palettes consist of three powder eyeshadows, one cream shadow, one cream eyeliner, and one blush. There are two palettes, whimsically named the Planet Cat Palette and the Planet Rainbow Palette.
Normally I'd split this into a few posts, because no one likes reading long blog entries, but I figure since the collection's been out for awhile I'll just do it all at one go.
Swatches of the two palettes are below. The first one here is the Planet Cat Palette:
L - R: Powder shadows: black with glitter (glitter), metallic silver grey (shimmer), warm gold (shimmer) blush: pinky peach with gold shimmer (shimmer), Cream shadow: off-white with gold shimmer (shimmer), Cream eyeliner: soft black with gold glitter (glitter).
Quality-wise, it's not too bad, I suppose. The eyeshadows are pretty good, and they're nice and soft and pigmented, and have the usual Shu softness to them. The blush is rather sheer, and despite my attempts to build up the swatches, it doesn't show up very much. The cream shadows and liners are soft, but have I think too much slip, making them a tad hard to buid up, although they are buildable. But it kind of feels like digging around in a jar of partially melted butter or something - the shadows and liners are just very 'slippery'. It makes me wonder how good the lasting power will be, especially on oily lids. And another thing annoys me. This palette is seriously glitter heavy. I know it isn't a problem for some, but for those out there who are like me, the black powder shadow, and the cream white shadow, seriously have huge glitter bits. The blush is shimmery, but not by a lot - it's a do-able shimmer that I quite like. The non-glitter shadows, such as the silver metallic grey and the yellow gold shadow, have a nice shimmery, metallic finish that I think is very festive for the season.
I don't really like this palette, colour-wise. I don't imagine anyone's going to use all three colours together - I mean, how do you pair a cool-toned metallic silver with a warm gold? - but I guess using various individual components you could create a variety of eye looks. And to be fair the off-white cream eye shadow is very nice, and would make a good highlighter or base for most of the looks. But the palette isn't partiularly imaginative or creative, or even interesting. Come on, Shu, you can do better than that. And the blush - pinky peach with gold shimmer....Hmmm, now where have I seen that before? NARS Orgasm? Milani Luminuous? Quo? Mark? Wet n' Wild? It does look similar to NARS Orgasm and its many dupes, and as I'm sure any girl with a large enough makeup stash will know, that's a colour that's been done before, many times. Meh.
So that's it for the Planet Cat Palette.
Now, here is the Planet Ribbon Palette:
L - R: Powder eyeshadows: Light pastel baby pink with metallic shimmer (shimmer), Metallic gold (shimmer), Off white with a vaguely purple hue (matte), Blush: Light coral pink, Cream shadow: yellow vanilla beige cream (shimmer), Cream liner: dark aubergine purple (matte)
I liked this palette marginally better than the Planet Cat one - but that's not saying much. Quality-wise, this was identical to the Planet Cat palette too. Planet ribbon also features, soft, buildable pigmented eyeshadows with the characteristic Shu feel, a very sheer blush that really needs building up, and slippery, soft, almost-too-slippery cream eyeshadow and liner.
Colour-wise, however, I think this is a bit better. Hey, at least there aren't two blacks in this palette. And I quite like the corally salmon pink blush. I think it's cute, although by no means OMG-WOW. But it's a pretty colour. The eyeshadows also contain a gold, which looks to me to be identical to be the gold in the Planet Cat Palette, so I guess unless you're hardcore collector there's really no need for both palettes. Once again, I presume that this palette is meant not to be used all at once, although I guess you COULD potentially use the pale pink and gold together for some sort of look. I like the highlighting cream colour, it kind of reminds me of MAC's Vanilla pigment in cream form, without the pink flash. But unfortunately the powder highlighter colour just looks white on me - and I'm by no means super dark so as to render all light colours ashy...I'm NC20, so I was kind of sad to see this pale lilac purple go so white on me. Meh. Also, I felt the cream eyeliner was a tad disappointing. In the pan it was dark purple gorgeousness, but once swatched on skin, it just looked kind of dull, flat, and almost-black.
I guess the palettes were just okay for me, although I can imagine lots of people would like them.
Now here is the highlighting powder, the Duo Highlighter in Stardust.
L - R: Individual areas: Pink beige (shimmer), pale yellow (shimmer). Together: Neutral beige (shimmer)
This highlighter was one of the nicer items in this collection, but that's just my personal opinion. One side was a light pinky beige, and the other was a pale yellow gold, both with shimmer, and together when combined give a neutral beige that would be pretty wearable for most ladies. I think this is quite nice, actually - the shimmer in it is there, definitely, but it is by no means huge bits of glitter. Its comprised of smaller shimmer that is pretty, and glowy without being too glowy. It's also on the sheer side, so you're going to get shimmer more than colour. I think the quality of the shimmer is just alright - it's not coarse and huge like drugstore can be, but it's not on par with Becca or Smashbox either. But then again it's hard to top Smashbox, and especially hard to top Becca when it comes to doing sophisticated shimmer that doesn't make you look like you overdid it. This is somewhere in between. It's alright, and it's not bad.
Here now, we have the lipsticks, or as Shu Uemura likes to call them the Unlimited Rouges, with planatery-themed names:
L - R: Venus Pink, Moon Peach, Jupiter Brown
Ahhh, such inspiring names, such dull colours. People who love sheer lipsticks will LOVE all of these - they're sheer, and have to be layered on. But if you prefer your lip products more pigmented like me, then you'll just want to give whoever did this a slap - I mean, out of three lippies, all of them have to be sheer?!
Anyway, Venus Pink is a bright, cool-toned pink, Moon Peach isn't so much peach as it is pink - I guess there is some peach in there, but it looks more pink swatched for some reason. Jupiter Brown isn't really brown-brown, but more of pinky-peachy-beigey-brown, and very wearable. It's my favourite of the bunch.
The lipsticks are all very sheer, and very work appropriate - no odd shimmer, glitter, duochrome or anything that would look distracting at work.
Lastly, we have the glosses,aka the Gloss Unlimited, and these make me REALLY want to slap someone:
L - R: Venus Peach (sheer pinky-peach), Moon Gold (glittery gold bits in a clear base), Scorpion Red (sheer rosy red)
AGAIN?! Three glosses, and all of them are sheer?! Someone better get fired right now....Anyway, these glosses are deceiving. They look bright and pigmented and fun in the tube, but when swatched, only Scorpion Red appeals to my little heart. Venus Pink is a virtually clear pinky-peach, and kind of reminds me of MAC's Love Nectar, only much less interesting, and Moon Gold is a huge-glitter-bits nightmare - it's essentially transparent gloss with a HUGE amount of gold glitter bits that aren't exactly very small. They don't show up in the photo, but trust me, THEY'RE THERE. SO THERE. Anyway, out of the bunch, I like Scorpion Red, which to me is the other highlight of the collection. I like it a lot - it's a wearable rosy red gloss, which is perfect for people who want to try a red lip, but don't want to go full on in the opacity department. The glossiness of Scorpion Red will also help to soften some of the "I'm wearing red!" impact of the colour.
So how do I feel about this collection? My answer would - as I'm sure you know by now - be meh, meh, and meh. I'm kind of disappointed I didn't like anything, because if you know what a huge makeup ho I am, you'll know I want to like EVERTYTHING, but these are just such a terrible disappointment. Nothing appealed to me at all, and I'd pass on the entire collection unless you put a gun to my head, and if you did, I'd probably just buy the Gloss Unlimited Lipgloss Trio, and give away Venus Peach and Moon Gold, and just save Scorpion Red. And if you put another gun to the other side of my head, I'd get the Duo Stardust Highlighter, ooh and aah over its cute packaging, and never use it. There. Now you've heard it. I didn't like this, and I'm disappointed I didn't. But maybe someone else might, and they'll love both the inside, and the outside, too.
