This just in: Stila In the Garden Palette! Swatches, first impressions and ok, maybe this is a review, sale alerts and much blabbering..

I was thinking about it yesterday, over coffee and croissant, that if by some reason I get a chance to endorse a cosmetic brand, it’d be Stila. I’ve always been in love with the brand. I know we all get giddy when acquiring new makeup, but there’s a special kind of giddiness I feel when acquiring new Stila products.  There’s something about the ‘feel’ of the brand, the ‘soul’ of it–does that make me sound creepy?

I honestly find it weird that I got Stila’s In the Garden palette only now. I’ve been eyeing the palette for some time now. I originally was interested in the In The Know palette, an all-matte one, with fuss free shades, I would say. This palette looks like it does not have time for nonsense, if you know what I mean. It looks….corporate.

The no-nonsense palette. Photo from Stila Cosmetics.

But I am all about the nonsense! The good kind of nonsense, I believe. I mean, sometimes I like frilly things and enchantment and all that. The In The Light palette is beautiful, dreamy but earthy.

I went to Rustan’s Beauty Source to find out they had a sale! (Sale alert! Sale alert! Don’t tell me I didn’t tell you!) Another lovely palette was on sale, Stila’s In the Moment palette, which had good browns and purples for Php1,050. I was very tempted to get this instead, but my heart was really set on the In the Garden palette. I’m more of a green person than I am a purple one anyway. So if you’re into purples more than me, check this baby out! It’s lovely! Another alert, they had foundations, single eyeshadows, lip glosses on sale, too! The sale goes on until stocks run out.

So anyway, I managed to get over that ‘hurdle’ and got the In the Garden palette, yay me! Let’s finally get to it.

As with most Stila products, packaging was out of recycled and recyclable paper. The actual palette is housed in cardboard. It includes, other than the 10 shades, a full-sized smudged stick waterproof eyeliner and a booklet with suggested looks that can be derived from this particular palette.

From Stila’s website: “The new In the Garden Eye Shadow Palette is a stunning collection of Stila’s award-winning eye shadows in wearable, botanical-inspired shades for every skin tone.”  They got me at ‘wearable’ and ‘botanical-inspired’. These shadows can be worn either wet or dry.

The 10 shades included in the palette are (from Stila’s site):

• Chinois – matte creamy white
• Breeze – shimmery beige
• Bark – shimmery taupe
• Freesia – shimmery violet blue
• Rosette – metallic pink violet
• Nectar – matte creamy beige
• Honey – metallic bronze gold
• Sage – shimmery translucent green
• Moss – dark olive green with shimmer
• Juniper – deep shimmery forest green

Swatches:

L-R: Freesia, Bark, Breeze, Chinois

L-R: Sage, Honey, Nectar, Rosette

L-R: Juniper, Moss

The formulation is not as creamy and velvety like, say, The Balm’s eyeshadows (the formulation of which are my favorite by far!) but it still is so damn good. I just put the quality of The Balm eyeshadows out there because they are in the best end of the eyeshadow spectrum, I believe. (Come to think of it, I don’t have a palette from them too.)  I don’t know if you can tell from the finger swatches, but they are a little bit powdery, but this is, again, all in comparison to the Balm. Despite being a little bit powdery, these shades do not fallout. They are highly pigmented and easily blendable. Most importantly, they are long-lasting! I foresee so many combinations of looks I can do out of this palette! I am very excited, I hope you can tell.

The waterproof eyeliner is a shade called ‘Starfish‘ (a name I love btw), which is described in their site as  ‘black with gold and green pearl’ but honestly it looks like a glamorous camouflage green.  When swatched, you definitely can see hints of gold shimmer on it. I tried it on my waterline and got nothing! However, on the upper and lower lid you can expect some color after a couple of glides. It isn’t as ‘easy’ as I wish, but the pigmentation is really good once you get the hang of it. More importantly, it does not budge! I have washed my hands and have tried to wipe the swatch off yet there is remains.

The little lookbook it comes with looks like this:

In conclusion, I love the palette. So in love with it actually. I just realized that I got this palette over any palette from The Balm, even though The Balm is suuuuper awesome, is because I get more value for my money. The palette is Php1,750 (while palettes from the Balm range from Php2000 up)  and I get 10 shades (all lovely and highly pigmented and blendable and long-wearing) plus a waterproof eyeliner (that lasts practically forever)! The shades are wearable, perfect for daily use but gives room to amp things up a little.  The little booklet that comes with is should be especially helpful for those new with makeup. I cannot recommend this palette enough. Get this, or the other variations of this palette, or the purple one, which is on sale! 🙂

I hope you found this helpful!