Tarte Aqualillies for Tarte Amazonian Clay Waterproof Eye & Cheek Palette

I purchased this palette months ago, but I couldn't stand not reviewing it, it's that awesome! That being said, if you're lucky enough to happen upon it in the real world, BUY IT. It's sold out online at Sephora, Tarte, and Ulta, and I haven't seen it in stores in at least a few weeks.

The circular palette comes in this adorable packaging, honestly, I think at least 30% of the reason I bought the palette at all was the gorgeous packaging/design of the palette itself. 

It came along with these "look" ideas, to help you figure out how to do your makeup. Honestly, I don't find them useful. I prefer to wing it and figure out what works best on my own. 

The colors of the palette: the blush in the center is called captivating. It's a matte corally-pink color. The highlighter in the upper left is champagne.  The bronzer is called park ave princess. 

The beauty of this palette in the sunlight. The blue/orange/gold is just such a great combination.

I know that when I started looking into purchasing this palette, my sister and I went back and forth on the shape choice. Circular makes it a little bit more difficult to store, I guess, but I don't particularly have a problem with it. I store my palettes between two small sets of plastic drawers (they keep the palettes from falling over) and I anchor this one down (so it doesn't go rolling off my dresser) by putting my Naked Basics palette in front of it.

Silly me, I forgot to swatch the blush...

I like this highlighter (champagne) a lot more than pink-based ones. The bronzer, park ave princess, is very buttery and pigmented, but if you're careful, it ends up looking beautiful! 

The eyeshadows, from left to right: hammock, bikini, barefoot, parasol, sundeck, and poolside. Hammock and sundeck are matte, the others shimmery, with bikini and poolside having a sort of duo-chrome effect. Bikini is a green/pink duo-chrome and poolside is a blue/gold duo-chrome. I was really nervous to use poolside, that color of bright blue is flattering on very few, but poolside turned out to be absolutely amazing because it is a sort of duo-chrome and the blue color doesn't really come across that strongly. If you're looking for true-to-the-pan color payoff, though, poolside might disappoint.

I think overall the only color in the whole palette that has disappointed me is hammock. It applies sort of unevenly, and when blending with the other colors it tends to look sort of ashy/grey.

My dorm room, living it up in the background.

I promise that in real life, my nose doesn't look quite that looming.
Right now, though, it's scaring the living daylights out of me.