A couple of weeks ago I reviewed the Smashbox Double Exposure palette. I ended up returning that palette to Sephora and exchanging it for this one, the Tarte Tartelette In Bloom palette. In short, this palette is incredible. It's small and compact, in fact it's the smallest palette that I own, but the shadows don't feel small or as if you got cheated. In my opinion, this palette is almost perfectly sized in a way, because it contains all of the colors that I reach for in a cute little pink and purple package. The palette itself is metal, and feels smooth and heavy. It really does feel expensive and luxurious. Upon opening the palette, I noticed a light vanilla scent. I was surprised by this, since Tarte doesn't advertise the In Bloom palette as having any sort of scent. Usually, I'm the type of gal who hates artificial, overly sugary vanilla scents in lipsticks (they make me gag) but this particular scent is livable and actually pleasant rather than smelling like a grocery store cupcake.
The palette is mostly matte with a couple of metallic shimmers. This is honestly perfect for me since I prefer to use matte shades to almost contour my eyes in a way, and then pop a bit of shimmer on the lid to add dimension. The bronze/taupe shimmer shade "firecracker" in particular is super beautiful. It's a darker color that is actually wearable in the daytime without making you look super goth. "Charmer," the matte white/cream shade in the palette, is actually the perfect almost-invisible transition color for my super pale skin. On anyone else, it would highlight beautifully, but for me it works as something that just helps all the other colors blend out perfectly. Lately, I've been starting by fluffing "charmer" all over the lid and up to the brow, then I fade in "flower child" from the crease up, followed by "smarty pants" up just a tad shorter, "sweetheart" up even shorter than that, then "rebel" and "leader" to define the crease with "firecracker" topping the lids. My only complaint is that "activist" and "smokeshow" end up swatching so similar to one another that they might as well be the exact same color.
The formulation of the shadows themselves is definitely something to write home about. They're super smooth and soft, and very finely milled, which helps get that flawless blended look. I also haven't noticed much fallout at all with this palette. The color selection is comparable to the Urban Decay Naked 3 palette, which I also own, but I reach for this one a lot more because of its variety of mattes. I also found that the colors in the Naked 3 palette tend to kind of blend together into one color, whereas these ones blend but stay separated, i.e., you can look at them and know that they were separate colors to begin with. I also find that the colors aren't too warm or too cool. If you're someone who wants to try out warmer shadows but isn't sure about committing to oranges or reds yet, this is a good first step. This is also a great palette for anyone wanting to learn how to blend shadows like a beauty guru, because it takes almost no effort at all with this palette for your makeup to look good.
Overall, this palette gets a 10/10 from me. It retails for $45 with 12 shadows, which evens out to $3.75 per shadow if you want to think of it that way. It's a great everyday palette for beginners and experts alike, and I can already tell that it will be a holy grail palette for me and many others.
