review: too faced joy to the girls palette

Ahh, it's that time of year again. Yes, the snow is falling outside...and the shops are full of holiday makeup palettes! If you're a makeup fanatic like I am, then there truly is nothing better than the holiday season. This is the perfect time to get some seriously amazing deals on some gorgeous limited edition sets. Plus, you can find some fabulous gifts for some of your fellow makeup lovers!

Each year, I like to splurge and buy one holiday makeup set. This year, I picked up the Too Faced Eyeshadow Palette: Joy To The Girls. I don't have a ton of stuff from Too Faced in my makeup collection, but what I have, I absolutely love. When I came across this eyeshadow palette in Sephora, I instantly fell in love with it. The colours were totally up my alley! Even better? The packaging was super cute and festive.

Ready to take a closer look? Here is the inside of the palette. It comes with fifteen eyeshadow shades, one full-sized mascara, and three makeup tutorials along the side.

 

As you can see from the picture above, there is a real range of eyeshadow shades. Most of them have some shimmer to them, but there are a few matte shades as well that are just perfect for blending. Since there are so many eyeshadow shades in this palette, I thought that I would do a little review....row by row! 

The top row features Cookie Dough, Cheers! and Prancer. (Don't you just love the Christmas themed names for the shadows? It is one of my favourite things about it!) Cookie Dough is a beautiful matte brown shade. It's a nice mid-tone that is ideal for blending out a smokey eyeshadow look. Cheers! on the other hand, is a shimmery champagne kind of colour that looks beautiful all over the lid or applied on the inner corner. Prancer is actually one of the reasons I picked up this palette - it is an ultra glittery gold shade. Stunning!

The second row has Sugar Plum, a shimmery deep purple shade that is perfect as a crease colour, Mulberry, a purplish brown colour - and one of my all-time favourites, and Snow Angel, a basic white shadow. Truthfully, there is nothing overwhelmingly special about Snow Angel...but there are a lot of other wonderful shades that more than make up for it! 

The third row starts with Powdered Sugar, which is a fairly blah cream shade. Next to it is Too-Too, which is a pretty sparkly pink, and after that is one of my favourites from this palette - Yule Log. This eyeshadow colour is a dark brown with a hint of glitter. It definitely makes an impact! I love how dramatic this shade is....just perfect for a sexy, smokey eye look. 

The fourth row features Chestnut, a medium brown shade, Twinkle, a phenomenal greenish gold with tons of sparkle (love, love, love this colour!) and Joy, an icy blue to give you that perfect Christmasy makeup look! 

And lastly, the fifth row of this Too Faced palette has Spike The Punch, Chimney, and Coal. Now, I wasn't overly impressed with Spike The Punch, to be quite honest. It was far too similar to Too-Too...except that it didn't have nearly as much of an impact. That one was a letdown. However, Chimney is a great medium grey colour and Coal is a great simple black shade.

This palette also came with the Too Faced Lashgasm Mascara. (Pictured below) I was excited to try this one out, since I have never tried a Too Faced mascara before! So, what was the verdict? Well, I am on the fence about it. I absolutely love the mascara itself. It stays put, doesn't transfer, and gives my lashes an insane amount of length. (So much length, I can't even get over it!) 

Unfortunately, the packaging itself is a total miss. I'm not all that fond of the wand itself. The bristles are quite short and small. The biggest issue though, is with the stopper. I don't know if it was just this mascara or if they're all like this, but the stopper didn't do a very good job. The result was an absolute ton of mascara getting onto the wand. Since no girl wants a gob of mascara loaded onto the wand, I have to be very careful to wipe it off the side before I use it. Such a shame!

Overall, I am a major fan of this holiday palette. It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close! I am addicted to so many of these gorgeous eyeshadow shades. It is no wonder I keep reaching for it day after day!

Have you tried this Too Faced Eyeshadow Palette? What did you think of it?

xo Shannon