Warm toned eyeshadow palettes are my weakness and I especially love when they have a mixture of matte and shimmer shades. This palette has those qualities so I purchased it. My first impressions of this palette were great but after actually trying and wearing some of the shades, I’m not in a happy place.
The Kat Von D Monarch palette comes with 3 “base” shades and 9 additional colors. I found that most of the shades were super soft to the touch and the color picked up immediately, but they were a bit too soft. I mean they were so soft they were crumbly and messy and had fallout which is not good.
Entomology, Telepathy, Tiny Death
Entomology is a matte cream shade
Telepathy is a silver/gold hybrid with shimmer (it is gorgeous)
Tiny Death is similar to Entomology but with some sparkle
Wrath is a dark orange
Papilio is dark brown with hints of gold shimmer
Summerfly is gold with glitter
Killing Jar is a pearlized light pink
Delaney is a silver with a sheen
Vanish is a matte taupe
Disintegration is brown with a hint of gray and it has a slight sheen
Shadow Box is matte dark brown
Deadhead is matte black
Kat Von D
Monarch Eyeshadow Palette
Price: $46
Available at Sephora
Final Thoughts: This palette is highly disappointing so far. I’m not sure why the reviews on Sephora are so high. Maybe it’s because the colors themselves are really gorgeous. That is true, they are. But as stated previously, these eyeshadows have major issues. The matte shades are hard to blend. I found both Shadow Box and Deadhead extremely hard to blend out when using them in my crease. The shades did initially apply easily and were really pigmented, but they are so messy.
I also found that these shades aren’t as long-wearing as I expected and they creased even when I used a paint pot. I haven’t given all the shades a try on my eyes but I tried out 5 of the 12 shades and I was disappointed. I tested the rest of the shades on my arm and found that they faded after a few hours. I will continue to try the kit out, but so far it’s a no for me and if I didn’t have a beauty blog, this would already be returned to Sephora. However, since I do run a blog, I’m going to give it another chance and I will update this post if my opinion changes.