Too Faced Christmas Star Palette Review and Swatches

I’ve loved Too Faced for nearly as long as I’ve loved makeup, and they were one of the first mid to highend brands I ever tried. The Too Faced Christmas collection is always highly anticipated, as they always pull out all the stops for the cutest range of gifts possible. I like that Too Faced always include smaller, more affordable gift sets within their festive range as well as larger more luxurious gifts, and my top pick from their whole Christmas range has to be the Too Faced Christmas Star Palette.

 

The Too Faced Christmas Star Palette is £36 and is a limited edition gift set with some of the cutest packaging Too Faced have ever done. The set is priced at $44 in the US, and the contents of the gift set is said to be worth $213 (£165) which is absolutely incredible value for money. 

Inside the adorable box, there’s the beautiful Star Palette as well as two deluxe miniature sized products. Firstly you get a deluxe miniature sized sample of the bestselling Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara which is 4.8g in size and worth £13.20 on its own. You also get a deluxe miniature sized sample of the Too Faced High Shine Sparkling Lip Gloss in the shade Ginger Snap which is 6ml in size which is worth £16.28. That means that the two extra makeup products are worth £29.48 without even considering the value of the eye and cheek palette. 

The Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara is one of the best mascaras, and is one I always have in my collection. It gives such great volume and curl to the lashes, with a thick natural bristled wand that catches every single lash. It does crumble a little on my lashes, but they do a waterproof version now too which is good if you’ve struggled with the original formula. This might be a miniature size, but it’s still a generous size and would give you at least a month’s worth of use for the amount you get. 

The Too Faced High Shine Sparkling Lip Gloss in the shade Ginger Snap is seriously stunning. I’ve tried lots of the Too Faced lipgloss formulas over the years, but I’m yet to try the High Shine Sparkling Lip Gloss so I’m delighted there’s one included within the Too Faced Christmas Star Palette gift set. Firstly the packaging is amazing, and matches the packaging on the palette too with a pale pink lid with dripping ‘icing’ covered in gold foil stars, and hundreds and thousands. 

Ginger Snap isn’t a shade you can buy individually which is a massive shame as it’s a gorgeous shade, and I’ll be gutted when I’ve used it up. It’s hard to describe but it’s a medium pink gloss which contains lots of pink, purple and blue sparkle. The gloss doesn’t impart very much colour on the lips as it’s my natural lip colour in a lip gloss form, but the sparkle is mesmerising.

It’s the ultimate Christmas gloss and you can clearly see the different colours of the sparkle once on the lips. It has a lovely, slightly thicker formula which doesn’t feel at all sticky or gloopy, and lasts well on the lips. Once the shine has faded, the sparkle still lingers on the lips so it’d be a great gloss for festive parties. Plus it has the most delicious spicy vanilla scent too.

The Too Faced Christmas Star Palette has the prettiest packaging, and has a pentagon shape. The palette is gold with an icing design on the top with glittery accents, and there’s an adorable little gingerbread girl in the middle. Too Faced get a lot of stick for how big their Christmas sets can be, but there’s no wasted space with this palette, and it takes up very little room in my palette drawer. 

On the back of the gingerbread girl there’s a magnet which secures the palette shut. The palette opens from the middle by lifting the gingerbread girl, with the top of the palette being split into five triangles which you open individually to get into the palette. I absolutely love the design of this palette as the five triangles house five face powders, and the centre of the palette has twenty powder eyeshadows. 

Too Faced know how to make beautifully scented products, and this palette has the most amazing gingerbread scent. I know some find the whole scented thing to be a gimmick, but I like the scents Too Faced use for their products. The powders smell delicious and the gingerbread is so perfect for a festive palette.

Inside the Too Faced Christmas Star Palette there are two powder blushes; Up to Snow Good and Nice List, one powder bronzer; Chestnuts Roasting, and two powder highlighters; Let it Glow and Lit Up. The blushes are 3 grams, the bronzer is 3.3 grams and the highlighters are 3.5 grams. They’re pretty big pans with a generous amount of product, and they all look so different with no overlap at all.

Onto the eyeshadows. There are twenty eyeshadows which are each 0.5 grams, so they’re not the biggest of eyeshadows but for £36 it’s still exceptional value with the two miniature products alone. The range of shades within the palette is fantastic with matte, shimmer, metallic, satin and sparkle shadows which are all laid out in five separate quads. You can obviously use whichever shadows you want, but the shadows have been put into quads which work well together which is genius. Each of the five quads have at least one matte shade, and one metallic or sparkle shade. 

Just look at how pigmented, and beautiful every single eyeshadow shade is?! Some brands skimp on quality when it comes to holiday offerings and they never compare to their main line products. However that is not the case for this palette at all. The shadows are so smooth and pigmented, and the mattes are incredible. There’s no disappointing shades which is rare for an eyeshadow palette with this many shades. It’s so hard to choose which shades I want to use as they are so pretty, but I just love that they’re set out in quads as it inspires me which shades to try together. 

If you’re looking for a Christmas palette or makeup gift set, I cannot recommend this one enough. It’s such great value but the formula is amazing too. It’s such a stunner of a palette, and the fact you get the gloss and mascara too is even better. You can purchase the Too Faced Christmas range from Debenhams. 

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