Review: Sleek Cosmetics, Ultra Matte Palettes

Disclaimer: These palettes were not sent to me. I purchased them myself with my own money. I am just a fan of Sleek wanting to review their schtuff!

Matte eyeshadows. Dontcha just love ‘em? I do. As someone who is… sigh… getting older and… siiiiigh… already developing wrinkles and hooded eyes (I have deep-set eyes anyway), mattes really are the go-to eyeshadows for me because I can create great definition without highlighting the fact that my skin isn’t as firm and lush as it used to be.

So you can imagine my joy when I discovered Sleek came out with a couple of ultra matte eyeshadow palettes!

Sleek, if you are living under a rock like I used to be until recently, is a UK-based cosmetic brand that is generally great value.  Their eyeshadow palettes range in price from $10-$13USD and the rest of their products are similarly priced, making them extremely affordable!

I bought the new palettes immediately though I will say that I bought them through another online avenue as they’d sold out on their website at the time when I wanted them.

There are two ultra matte collections, the Brights (V1) and the Darks (V2). The Brights are what you’d expect; gorgeous neon KAPOW sorts of colours which rival that of Sugarpill. The Darks are a collection of heavenly muted shades of green, red, brown, blue and purple which would make for some pretty awesome smoky effects.

However…

These shadows aren’t that great.

I had come to expect a lot from Sleek as their original palettes are the bomb. Most of the colours have beautiful payoff without the need for any primer whatsoever and the texture of the produce itself is so smooth and velvety you would think they are cremes.

Not so with the new mattes. The texture is chalky and damned near dry. The payoff… well, you’ll see…

Top row (Left-Right): Chill, Pout, Sugarlite, Dragon Fly, Pucker and Bamm!
Bottom row: Cricket, Bolt, Strike, Floss, Crete, Pow!

They look fantastic in the pans but this is what they looked like on my skin:

As the colours are matte is twas hard to take pictures of them as there was nothing really for the camera to focus on but you get the general idea.  The colour pay-off for these is extremely lackluster. These swatches were done on my arm with no primer.  Pout is probably the best of them from the top row with the most colour payoff.  Bamm! isn’t too bad either but it took a couple of swipes with the makeup sponge to get a decent shade from the rest. All of them were rather crumbly so application was not smooth at all.

What the hell happened here?!  You cannot even see Floss, Crete or Pow! on my skin unless you squint really, really hard.  I did attempt another go at these colours with primer but it made little difference.  Cricket was extremely chalky though Bolt went on the nicest.  I was hoping Strike would be a good replacement for Sugarpill’s Flamepoint but I can already see I need to buy up some Sugarpill palettes to sate my need for COLOURCOLOURCOLOUR!… ahem.

I’d say these colours would be best applied with a white or light creme base to make the best of the pigment in them and to make them go on a bit better but considering the tests I’d done with other Sleek stuff without the need for primer or a base, I’m a little bummed.

The dark palette was moderately better, though the same chalky consistency was still a problem.

Top row (Left-Right): Orbit, Ink, Highness, Noir, Dune, Pillow Talk
Bottom row: Thunder, Maple, Flesh, Paper Bag, Villan, Fern

And here’s what they looked like on my arm… Please note, there was some residual primer left on my arm.

 

I had moderately more luck with the lighter colours in this palette than the brights one.  Pillow Talk actually looks lovely but Dune is so close to my own skin colour that you almost can’t see it. Those two would be great blending and highlight colours. While Highness looks quite purple in the pan, it takes on a ruddy red tinge on the skin.  Sigh. Bugger.  Noir goes on dark enough but it’s not a very solid black. Orbit is a fantastic teal colour but again, the colour payoff just isn’t there.

The bottom row in the darks palette was probably my favourite and had the best colour pay off out of all of the shadows.  I really like Maple, Paper Bag and Villan as they matched the coolness of my skin tone. Still chalky though.

On the whole, I do still like these palettes as I am sure with primer and a base they will lay down with some great colour and you can build up the intensity but I wouldn’t bother if you’re thinking about applying straight from the pans.

You can get your Sleek stuff on their website – they do ship internationally and have good shipping rates too.  Alternatively, you can find some of the sold out stuff on ebay for around the same price.