Lime Crime Venus XL II Eyeshadow Palette

The latest offering from Lime Crime, the Venus XL II palette, is a beauty! The colors are all very muted and "grungy" and I am just all about it!

It has a decent sized mirror inside - doesn't take up the whole inside of the cover, but it is a decent one.

There are 18 new shades in here. I was originally really excited for the chunky looking glitter ones, but quickly found out that those leave a lot to be desired. I was hoping they would be like the ones in the Huda New Nudes palette, but these are not super pigmented and I have a hard time picking them up on a brush. Let's get into the swatches and I will talk about the colors some more.

In Bloom - matte rosy pink

Crown - sparkly champagne

Sage - matte pale olive

Thorn - metallic light brown with blue sparkles

Ripe - matte camel brown

Forbidden - metallic copper

Stella - satin champagne

Myth - pale gray with gold shift

Eve - sparkly rose

Laurel - metallic pale gold

Radiant - iridescent pale pink

Ivy - metallic pale olive with pink shimmers

West - metallic warm brown with pink sparkles

Obscure - pale iridescent green

Mystic - pale rose with green sparkles

Phoenix - vibrant metallic rusty orange

Locust - light brown with green shift

Classical - matte deep brown

As you can see from the swatches, Crown, Thorn and Eve are those chunky sparkle shades that I was hoping would be amazing, but they definitely fall short. HOWEVER, the rest of the palette is amazing. The mattes blend great, the shimmers are pretty unique (that ivy shade is BEAUTIFUL), and everything other than those chunkies is very pigmented. This palette has already gotten a lot of use from me, because I really love the lighter shades lately. I think it's going to be a perfect winter-into-spring transition palette!