Oh essence, why must you continuously disappoint me with your sub-par quality? When I first saw the new Crystal Iced and Spiritual Gangster Palettes, I was SO excited. They were unique to my collection, just $10.00 apiece and filled with interesting shades. I had tried out the Spice Up Your Life Palette, that is in this same layout, last year and enjoyed it so I assumed I would like these… I was wrong. I do like one of them more than the other but I’ll get into that below. I’m going to create two separate sections for my reviews so if you’re only interested in one, you don’t have to read about both. Let’s get started!

Crystal Iced

I like Crystal Iced the most out of the two palettes. It contains ten true mattes, three satin/mattes and three metallics. These eyeshadows do have names but no shade descriptions so I’ll describe them to the best of my ability. After that, I’ll let you know the pros and cons and then show you the three looks I created.

Shade Descriptions:

• Black Ice– charcoal black with very fine micro shimmer; on the eye this looks matte.
• Creamsicle– matte chocolate brown
• Iced Tea– metallic bronze
• Iced Coffee– matte mid-tone brown
• Frose– matte muted red
• Sor-bae– matte muted rosy red
• Frap-bae– matte tan
• Lemon Ice– satin lemony yellow
• Slushie– metallic mid-tone blue
• Cool-lada– satin baby blue
• Snow Cone– matte mid-tone teal
• Glacier– matte light sage green
• Ice Queen– matte navy blue
• Frost-tea– matte turquoise
• Blizzard– matte green
• Iceberg– metallic pale sea foam green

Pros:

• There is a unique mixture of cool and warm toned shadows.
• The palette has sturdy cardboard packaging with a magnetic closure.
• The metallic shadows are METALLIC. They’re my favorites but they do need to be used wet.
• You can create a decent amount of looks just using this palette.
• Most of the mattes were very blendable.
• There was very little fallout or kick up in the pans.
• This is a cohesive palettes with shades that range from light to moderately deep.

Cons:

• The mattes are blendable, too blendable. They have a tendency to blend away to nothing. This was especially a problem with the blues and greens.
• The shade Ice Queen was a hassle to blend.
• The shade Lemon Ice is basically worthless. It really doesn’t show up at all.

Eyeshadow Looks

I primarily just used this palette to create these looks but for the first look I used two shadows from another palette and for each look I had to use a cream colored shadow to set my primer. When explaining the looks, I will go in the order of the swatches on my hand; left to right and top to bottom. You can click on the pictures to see them better. Since these eyeshadows do have names, I won’t be describing where they are in the palette or what they look like.

For this look, I pulled in a golden shimmer (lid) and deeper black (lower lash line) from the Profusion Royals Palette. I did apply Lemon Ice in my inner corner but it was trash so I topped it with a highlighter.

1. I blended Sor-bae above my natural crease.
2. I blended Frose into the crease and onto the outermost part of my lid.
3. I then applied my golden shimmer onto the rest of the lid.
4. I applied Lemon Ice in my inner corner but topped it with a highlighter.
5. I lined my lower lash line with a black.

This look was very disappointing to me. The mattes either blended away or wouldn’t blend at all. I was going for a look like I did in my video game review for Dark Parables: The Final Cinderella but these shadows just would not cooperate.

1. I took Glacier and blended it from about mid-way on my brow down to the innermost part of my eye, creating a slight rainbow-esque arch.
2. Working my way out, I then took Cool-lada and placed it under Glacier.
3. Next came Frost-tea under Cool-lada.
4. Then came Snow Cone under Frost-tea.
5. I then took Ice Queen to fully deepen that outer area and placed it on the outermost part of my lid.
6. I applied Slushie in the middle of my lid.
7. I applied Iceberg on the innermost part of my lid and inner corner.
8. I lined my lower lash line with Ice Queen.
9. I smudged Blizzard underneath Ice Queen and brought it up to meet the blue on my upper eye.

This was my favorite look that I created with the palette. I used a highlighter in my inner corner.

1. I blended Frap-bae above my natural crease.
2. I blended Iced Coffee underneath Frap-bae and into my crease.
3. I fully deepened my crease with Creamsicle.
4. I applied Iced Tea all over the lid.
5. I lined my lower lash line with Black Ice.
6. I smudged Creamsicle under Black Ice.

Crystal Iced is a mediocre palette. It’s not extraordinary but it’s not awful either. I do see myself decluttering this palette once I find alternatives to the shades in it that I really like such as Blizzard, Glacier and Ice Berg. I really don’t recommend this palette because you can get much better quality for cheaper from Profusion. Now, let’s get into Spiritual Gangster!

Spiritual Gangster

This is the palette I was the MOST excited for but the most disappointed by. The majority of these shades are completely unique to my collection so I’m sad that they didn’t work out. I’m going to lay out this review the same way I did for Crystal Iced; shade descriptions, pros/cons and three looks. This palette contains eight mattes and eight satin/shimmers.

Shade Descriptions:

• Rockstar– matte muted rose
• Major Key– matte rosy brown
• Humble– matte light salmon
• It’s a Vibe: matte cream
• She Bad: satin/shimmer orange
• She Boujee: satin/shimmer gold with orange reflects
• Bodak: matte orange
• Lemonade: satin/shimmer pale lemon yellow
• Blessing: satin/shimmer plum with pink reflects
• Super Bass: satin peach
• Antidote: satin/shimmer violet
• No Limit: satin/shimmer pink
• Kiki: matte royal blue
• Do You Love Me: matte magenta
• Finesse: matte lavender
• Holy Grail: satin/shimmer with a charcoal base and silver reflects

Pros:

• This palette has a very unique color story. None of the shades are really warm toned, they tend to be more neutral or cool.
• All of the mattes blended easily.
• There was very little fallout or kick up. All of these shadows tend to be more creamy.
• The palette has sturdy cardboard packaging with a magnetic closure.

Cons:

• I did not like the shimmers in this palette at all. They’re all more on the satin side but some do have more shimmer than others. The shades She Boujee and No Limit wanted to crumble off my eyelid. I had the same issue with a few of the shadows in the Morphe 35H Palette. I think it’s just due to a REALLY cheap shimmer formula.
• The shade Lemonade is worthless. It’s almost identical to the shade Lemon Ice in the Crystal Iced Palette, neither show up.
• None of these shadows are very pigmented. This might be a pro for some people but it’s not for me personally. I had to spend a lot of time building up the mattes just so they would show up.

Eyeshadow Looks

I used primarily just this palette to create these looks, I did bring in a black for look two. When explaining the looks, I will go in the order of the swatches on my hand; left to right and top to bottom. You can click on the pictures to see them better. Since these eyeshadows do have names, I won’t be describing where they are in the palette or what they look like.

I attempted this basic look TWICE. These shadows just would not work for me. The shade She Boujee kept disappearing in patches and in the close up picture you can see how it’s just crumbling off my eye. The mattes were fine but were no where near as pigmented as I wanted.

1. I set my primer with It’s a Vibe.
2. I blended Humble above my natural crease.
3. I blended Rockstar into my crease.
4.  I applied She Boujee all over my lid.
5. I lined my lower lash line with Major Key and smudged Rockstar underneath it.
6. I used Lemonade in my inner corner.

I like the way this look turned out and all the shades worked well. I did use a black from another palette for my lower lash line.

1. I set my primer with It’s a Vibe.
2. I blended Bodak above my natural crease.
3. I blended Major Key into the crease.
4. I applied She Bad all over the lid.
5. I applied She Boujee in the inner corner.
6. I lined my lower lash line with a black.

This look would have been fine if the shade No Limit would have worked. It would not stick to the inner part of my eyelid, as you can see in the picture.

1. I set my primer with It’s a Vibe.
2. I blended Finesse above my natural crease.
3. I blended Do You Love Me into my crease.
4. I applied Blessing on the outermost part of my lid.
5. I applied Antidote in the center of my lid.
6. I applied No Limit on the innermost part of my lid.
7.  I mixed Super Bass and Holy Grail in my inner corner.
8. I lined my lower lash line with Kiki and then smudged Holy Grail underneath it.

*Brushes Used:

• Detail Crease Brush
• Tapered Blending Brush
• Flat Eyeshadow Brush
• Small Angled Brush
• Smudge Brush
• Eye Crease Brush
• Blending Brush, I used this brush to blend out the edges and set my primer.

Spiritual Gangster is just too muted and too lackluster for me. Like with Crystal Iced, I do see myself decluttering this in the very near future because it just wasn’t fun for me to use. I have plenty of other palettes that I don’t have to struggle to make work.

I don’t recommend either of these palettes. Brands are really stepping up their eyeshadow game and $10.00 can now get you a good palette, there’s no need to settle for mediocre. I’d love to know what you think about my review and these palettes! Thanks for reading and have a great day!