Lorac Pro Eye Shadow Palette

I have just started to play around with one of the most hyped palettes in the beauty industry, the Lorac Pro Eye Shadow Palette came out in the summer of 2012 and became an instant hit.  I have never tried anything from Lorac before and skipped over this palette for quite a long time.  I have been seeing this palette used in all kinds of eye looks on YouTube and I went back and forth on ordering it for a weeks now.  I decided to order it when I received an early Christmas gift in the form of an Ulta gift card.  The palette just came in the mail yesterday morning so this post will contain the descriptions and photos that Lorac has provided on their website and an overall first impression of the palette.

I will be following this post up with a full review and then provide some examples of eye looks that I have created already with this palette.  I feel that I will need about a week in order to try enough shades for a full review and I believe that I will continue to follow this type of review pattern when I pick up new eye shadow palettes.  Does anyone have any type of feedback or requests on what they would like to see in the upcoming follow up posts on the Lorac Pro palette?

We will start with what expectations Lorac has set up for this palette.  "Go PRO with the LORAC PRO Palette! Created by celebrity makeup artist Carol Shaw, this PRO artistry palette is packed with 8 Shimmer and 8 Matte Eye Shadows in all the shades you need to create the hottest looks straight from the Red Carpet. LORAC’S velvety-smooth shadows are infused with soothing botanicals and are ultra-pigmented to perform wet or dry so you can shade, shadow, line and define your eyes, just like a PRO.", states the Lorac website.

One thing that I find very unique about this palette is that the shades are labeled only by the actual color name, Lorac breaks from the trend of creating cute names to name shades in palettes and I think that I might prefer this type of naming system.

The shades contained in the Lorac Pro Eye Shadow Palette...

- White (Matte),
- Cream (Matte)
- Taupe (Matte)
- Lt. Pink (Matte)
- Mauve (Matte)
- Sable (Matte)
- Espresso (Matte)
- Black (Matte)
- Nude (Shimmer)
- Champagne (Sparkle)
- Gold (Shimmer)
- Lt. Bronze (Shimmer)
- Pewter (Shimmer)
- Garnet (Shimmer)
- Deep Purple (Shimmer)
- Slate (Shimmer)

I originally skipped over this palette because the shades look very basic, I still feel that there is nothing unique about these shades and the overall color scheme of this palette.  Lorac Pro is a very good palette for someone that is just getting into makeup but there are few shades in this palette that I do not own already.  I bought this palette only because I kept watching and reading reviews of this very unique eye shadow formula, this formula is rumored to be very soft and very easy to blend.  I have only swatched this palette so far but I am impressed with how soft these shades are and how easy they blended when I took a brush to the swatches.

I find the shimmers to be the prettiest shades in this palette but I am the most interested in the matte shades.  Matte formulas tend to be drier and harder to blend and these mattes seem soft and very easy to work with.  I would not have bought this palette if I had not seen so many raves about the matte shades and I have far fewer mattes than I do shimmers.  We will see how these shades apply and work together in the coming days and I will be following up in about a week as to what I find when I really begin to work with this palette.

photo courtesy of Lorac