City Color Poolside Palette Review & Swatches

Press Sample

The City Color Poolside Palette ($16.99) is launching June 1 on CityColorCosmetics.com and I was so lucky to get one ahead of time to swatch and review for you guys! When I first posted sneak peeks of the new City Color Summer 2016 collection on Instagram last week, this was my most requested review...the beautiful bright sunny colors are so perfect for this time year, aren't they?

I love the packaging of this palette for a couple of reasons. First, the photo of the pool on the front just makes me think of summer...it's so cute! Second, you guys know I love cardboard palettes because they're so easy to travel with. This one is really thin and lightweight making it easy to take anywhere or to store. 

Inside, there are twelve shades ranging from neutrals to brights in both matte and shimmer finishes. The shade names are so cute and summery (Nemo! haha) and I love that the inside of the palette is white...it really makes the bright shades pop out at you. 

If you look at the shades in the palette from left to right, the top row seems to be a lighter, slightly more muted version of the bottom row. 

But you can also look at it in quads...

Group 1 is your nude shades of gold, bronze, taupe, and brown. 

Group 2 is your red family...orange, violet, and fuchsia. 

Group 3 contains turquoise, green, and blues. 

The eyeshadow formulas in the Poolside palette are what you would typically find in a lot of palettes, with the shimmer shades having a soft buttery feel with tons of pigmentation and the matte shades being a bit drier and more powdery. I had to build up the matte shades quite a bit in these swatches, namely Bikini, and Voyage in the top row and Topless and Coconuts  in the bottom row. I would definitely recommend using primer to help those drier matte shades pop and to grip your skin a bit better. 

In the top row, Moonlight, Suntan, and Poolside (shade #'s 1, 2, & 5) are the three shimmer shades and they go on beautifully! In my swatches, I only swiped them once and they're vivid, bright, and highly pigmented. They also didn't have a lot of fallout which you can sometimes get with shimmer shades, so that was a huge plus. Nemo (shade #3) is more of a satin finish so the formula feels a little different than both the matte shades and the shimmer shades. The pigmentation is in-between the shimmers and the mattes, so it's not a one-swipe kind of shade and needs to be built up a little bit. Bikini and Voyage (shade #'s 4 & 6) felt drier and more powdery. On bare skin, they went on very sheer and needed a lot of swipes to get them to show up....even then, they don't have the same vividness that they do in the pan. They fared a bit better over primer, so again I would definitely recommend using one to get the most out of these shades.

Left to Right: Moonlight, Suntan, Nemo, Bikini, Poolside, & Voyage

In the second row, we start off with two matte shades, Topless & Coconuts (shade #s 1 & 2). Topless is very sheer and even when built up, it didn't show up that well. Coconuts fared a bit better once I swiped it a few times. Shade #4, Flamingo and shade #6 Chillin' are more of a satin finish (like Nemo in the top row) so even though they take a little building up, you can get them to look just like they do in the pan. Finally, Reef & Seafoam (shade #'s 3 & 5) are that beautiful, buttery shimmer formula.

Left to Right: Topless, Coconuts, Reef, Flamingo, Seafoam, & Chillin'

Overall, despite a few duds, the Poolside Palette is a beautiful pick if you're looking for bold, bright, summery shades. Keep an eye out for it on June 1st at CityColorCosmetics.com.

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