I recently purchased the newest Makeup Collection from Wayne Goss featuring The Smoky Quartz Eyeshadow Palette and Granite Eye Kohl Pencil. I have been wanting to try Wayne Goss’s makeup products and I liked how how he described this eye palette as cool tones. I have used his makeup brushes for years and love them and have always wanted to try his eyeshadows.
I also picked up one of his Blush Palettes in Desert Blossom from one of his previous collections.
Smoky Quartz Eyeshadow Palette and Granite Eye Kohl Pencil
The Smoky Quartz Eyeshadow Palette has neutral to cool shades in matte, satin, and glitter formulas. It retails for $55.
The first look I did used the top three shades. The colors blend into an all most airbrushed effect and I really liked it. They wore all day without fading or creasing on me when I wore the top three shades. The colors are buildable but also pigmented enough you don’t have to dip into the pans too many times. They applied smoothly and looked great on skin texture.
When I wore the next look, I used the bottom shades and the top bone shade. The brown and purple turned into a more rusty orange with purple and got darker as time went on throughout the day. It definitely turned into a very warm eye look on me, that was not flattering on my cool, fair skin. The colors also didn’t appear on my eyes, how they did in the pan. The glitter shade is all glitter and does have fall out throughout the day, but not as much as many glitter shadows I’ve tried. The shadows did not crease at all and didn’t fade (they got darker instead. I’ve never had that happen before).
After wearing this look for most of the day my eyelids were red and irritated and burned after removing the eye makeup. I do sometimes have reactions to red pigments in eyeshadows, and while this wasn’t the worse reaction I’ve ever had, my skin did react badly to these shades and I won’t be able to wear them. The orange reddish brown actually irritated my skin more than the purple, which surprises me. The day after wearing these shades, my eyelids felt tight and burned, and were too irritated to wear any makeup.
Wayne Goss described this as a cool toned smoky palette, but I have to disagree on that because on me, this more of a neutral palette with the top shades and pretty warm tones using the bottom shades. This also doesn’t feel like a smoky eye palette to me either, although the sides can be pretty dark. I feel like the darkest shade is cool, but the browns pull more warm orange-red on my skin tone. Maybe these shades appear cool toned on warm skin tones, but on my fair, cool complexion (MAC NW 10-13), they were not.
The Granite Essential Eye Kohl Pencil is a beautiful smoky shade of cool toned gray brownish with some black. It retails for $14. It’s a great alternative to black liner than can look harsh on fair skin. I feel like this goes on pretty stiff and a little dry like the old school Maybelline eyeliner pencils used to. I like that you can get a very thin line and it does stay out all day even in my water line. It also didn’t smudge or run with my watery eyes. I do feel like this is a pretty cool tones liner.
Desert Blossom Blush Palette
The Desert Blossom Weightless Veil Blush Palette has a peachy pinkish nude matte blush and a pinky champagne highlighter. It retails for $45. The blush shade is a little light on my fair skin, but looks very natural and sheer. It is a little powdery in the pan and slightly on the dry side. It applies very sheer and needs to be built up. I think it is meant to go on a little sheer, but this is probably the most sheer blush I own.
I feel like this blush palette is best for fair to light skin and possibly won’t be pigmented enough for medium to deep skin tones. I had to really layer this on to get the blush to show up on my cheeks. It did look very effortlessly blended and natural on my cheeks but is so natural, it barely looks like I have any blush on. This sort of blush will be very pretty with a dark smoky eye look, when I don’t want a lot of color to compete with the eyes.
The highlighter formula does emphasize my pores and texture a little bit, but nothing that looked bad. I just keep to a light layer to avoid this. This blush and highlight both fade a little bit on me by the end of the day. This is common with most blushes for me, though, as most blushes fade on me except for Chanel and some MAC blushes (off the top of my head).
Final Thoughts
I am a little disappointed in the eyeshadow palette causing the reaction and irritation and three shades not being described accurately for everyone. I will probably return this since I am unable to use half the colors but I really did love the top three shades and how nice they looked on my eyes. I feel like these eyeshadows reminded me of MAC shadows when I was applying them, in terms of how they applied and blended together..
I do like the Granite eye kohl and will definitely use it, but I feel like it is also overpriced. I feel like MAC and drugstore eyeliners are a better value and comparable to this hard wooden pencil style eyeliner.
As for the blush palette, I feel like the pigmentation is a little bit lacking and I am someone who loves a sheer blush. The shades are really pretty together, but for the price, I like my MAC and Chanel blushes a lot better than this formula. I probably won’t purchase anymore of these.
Overall, I am a little let down by the performance for the price of the Wayne Goss makeup I tried so far. I am sure I would feel a little better if I hadn’t had the reaction to the eyeshadows, but that is the reality for me and I wanted to give my completely honest and real experience, like I always do. I actually haven’t seen any reviews of these products from anyone that didn’t receive the products for free in PR.
I’m sure a lot of people don’t have this issue with some eye shadow pigments causing a reaction like I do, but if you do, I would avoid this palette or try with caution.
The Wayne Goss Makeup Collection is currently available at Beautylish.