L.A. Colors 12-Pan Eyeshadow Review & Swatches

Hullo, there!  I'm back with a review of the brand new L.A. Colors 12 Color Eyeshadow Palettes!  I picked up two for $1.99 a piece at my local Rite Aid.  The palettes are available in six different colors, ranging from bright blues and pinks to neutral browns and grays.  I purchased the two neutral palettes Blushing Nudes and Smokey (I love my neutrals!):

Blushing Nudes (L) and Smokey (R)

I can't speak for the other four palettes, but these two contain 6 matte and 6 satin/shimmer eyeshadows each.  (At least I think so.  It was a little hard to tell which shades were truly matte in the Smokey palette).  A lot of palettes include far less mattes than shimmers, which I find disappointing, so props to L.A.C. for at least keeping things even!

I've never tried L.A.C.'s eyeshadows before, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but at $1.99 each I definitely had to find out!  As you can see, the packaging is pretty much on par with every other drugstore palette, so nothing to brag about there.  Although it's not much to look at, it feels sturdy enough that I imagine it will hold up just fine.

As far as pigmentation, it's hit and miss.  Much to my surprise, the shimmers seem to outshine the mattes in pigmentation (especially when used without a primer).  The mattes in the Nudes palette were the worst between the two, and although it helped to use a primer underneath, the payoff still wasn't great.

Mattes in Smokey weren't much better, especially with the lighter colors.  Overall, I did find the shadows in the Smokey palette to be slightly better in pigmentation.  I also love how they included browns and blues in with your typical smokey shades in this palette, which is something you don't see too often.  You can create tons of looks with the variety it offers, but unfortunately you'll have to look elsewhere for a decent highlighting shade.

Obviously I didn't swatch every single color, but I just wanted to give you a peek at how they performed.  The black in the top left was surprisingly good, but it does have coarse silver glitter throughout.  I know, it's a bummer, but the glitter is so sparse you may be able to work around it if you're not a fan of the glitter.  The dark matte browns in the middle were pretty bad, but as I said before, they do perform a little better when used over a primer.

In the Smokey palette, the blues were the most pigmented of the lot while everything else was just average.  Although the highlighter looks OK in the picture, it is quite powdery and you'd have to build it up a lot to get this kind of pigmentation.

I also noticed with the darker shades in both palettes that they are extremely hard to blend.  I tried blending with my finger, so I can't even imagine how hard it would be to blend with a brush!  So if you're wanting to use any of the darker shades, you would have to work pretty hard to make a smokey, blended out look.

Pros:
 - price
 - good mix of mattes and shimmers
 - variety of shades in Smokey palette
 - some were very pigmented
 - long lasting (when used with primer)
 - slim packaging

Cons:
 - pigmentation was hit and miss
 - darker shades are hard to blend or did not blend evenly

Overall, although there were some pretty awful shades, I will definitely be using the Smokey palette on a regular basis.  The blues are so beautiful and you can create a multitude of neutral looks just with the Smokey palette.  Though it's only $1.99, I would still say you can skip the Blushing Nudes palette.  There were maybe one or two decent shades, so I think you can get away with just the browns included in the Smokey palette.

I'm not a fan of green or purple shadows, but with the success of the two blues in the Smokey palette I will definitely be hunting down the all-blue palette in the collection.  Have you tried any of the colored 12-pan palettes from L.A.C.?  I'd love to know your thoughts!