REVIEWSDAY: Makeup Revolution Girls On Film Palette

Makeup Revolution are having a bit of a moment. I’ve used a few of their products and so far been pretty impressed, but in the run-up to Halloween I was seeing a lot of hype about the Give Them Nightmares palette and so wandered off to have a look. That one, while super gorgeous, is made up mainly of blues and purples, which aren’t colours I’d normally go for, so I fulfilled my ever-constant desire for nude eyeshadows and went for Girls On Film instead. It's named after a Duran Duran song!

It’s an 18-shade palette for the frankly startling price of £6, with 12 shimmer shades and 6 matte. It’s part of their five-palette Salvation range (which includes Give Them Nightmares), which all claim to be highly pigmented. For me, this was true for some shades more than others.

I started playing with the matte shades first, because I find those are the hardest to get right. The six shades, from left to right, are Give Me Shudders, Shooting Star, One In A Million, So Bright, She’s Falling and Girls On Film. I had the lowest expectations of the paler shades (Shooting Star and Girls On Film), and they did turn out very chalky and dry. For me, the colour payoff was really not enough for them to be useful as a base eyeshadow colour. Girls On Film especially is barely visible in the swatch, but it does make quite a nice highlighter under the eyes or around the browbone. They didn’t blend very well, either, but because of the slightly lacking pigmentation they did sit quite nicely under other colours for brightening, so they’re not totally wasting space in the palette.

The darker matte shades were much more pigmented and lovely, lovely colours – I particularly like Give Me Shudders, which is a lovely russet maroon sort of colour (a bit warmer in person than it looks in the swatch. There’s still a slight issue with dryness for me, but I think I have been spoilt for other eyeshadow by my everlasting favourite Urban Decay – it’s a contrast problem rather than a huge issue for Makeup Revolution individually. The darker shades also blended a little more easily (I used my own brushes rather than the sponge-tipped one that came with the palette, as I think those are awful).

The shimmer shades as a whole were a bit more impressive than the matte ones. There is a great range of colours, including a gorgeous warm purple (Smile Wider) that I adore. Other favourite shades include Frenzy All Down Your Spine, Take Your Picture and Polaroid Heaven (and how cute are the names? You can sing along with the palette).  Again, the paler shades were the most disappointing in terms of colour payoff – you can see in the swatches that Walking Hand In Hand (on the far left), Bridge At Midnight and Lights Flashing are barely visible. This was improved a little bit with a damp brush, but still turned out less than I would have hoped for from a product claiming high pigmentation.

The darker shades were much brighter, and the shimmer is nice and subtle so they’re very wearable even in the daytime. The blending isn’t spectacular but it’s also not a total nightmare, and there’s no sign at all of the smudgy muddiness that you sometimes get with cheaper shadows. Smudgy muddiness, also, is fun to say out loud, and I invite you all to try it.

The thing with this palette is that every time I think of a complaint, I remember how much it cost and all worries seem a bit ridiculous. They’re all quite minor problems, too; there’s nothing that would stop me using this palette again, or buying another from Makeup Revolution if I liked the shades. Even if I completely write off the paler shades that I had problems with, it still works out at under 50p a shade (maths with Noll!) and you really can’t argue with that kind of value.  

Particularly if you’re just getting into makeup, or if you’re on a serious budget but still want a palette to play around with, I think this is an excellent buy. Actually, if you like the shades, you should probably just buy it anyway. I’ve spent more on lattes in one day than I spent on this palette. Plus, Duran Duran!