Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette Review / Swatches

When a brand like Revolution launches a new eyeshadow palette, I’d always recommend scanning your collection of existing Revolution palettes as they do like to replicate colour schemes repeatedly. When I saw the Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette, I knew I had to have it as it looked so unlike anything else in their collection, and the colour story was so pretty.

Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette

The Revolution Reloaded Palettes are all £5, and contain fifteen powder eyeshadows in a rectangular plastic compact with a clear lid. I’ve got four or five of the Reloaded Palettes, and the quality is pretty consistent across the range. 

I have ordered all of my Reloaded Eyeshadow Palettes via Superdrug’s website, and two of them have arrived with a cracked lid – which you can see in the above two photos. The plastic is very thin, and due to Superdrug’s haphazard packaging of orders, they crack very easily.

It hasn’t effected the quality or texture of the shadows, but it’s something to consider, as you’re essentially exposing the shadows to air which could eventually dry the shadows out, but I haven’t had anything like that happen to mine – yet.

I think it’d be good if the price was raised by perhaps £1, and they were then made with slightly more robust packaging to prevent this cracking. I have so many Revolution palettes, but it’s only the Reloaded palettes that have had cracked packaging issues. 

“Looking for the perfect earthy-toned palette, look no further than Reloaded in Empire. This palette features a selection of greens, neutrals and golds in a mix of matte and shimmers. Highly pigmented, and long lasting.” – Revolution

How incredible are these swatches? I can’t believe these swatches are from a £5 palette. If only Revolution utilised this formula for all of their palettes, as it really is great, easy to apply, pigmented, smooth and long lasting.

However, fourteen of the fifteen shades in the Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette are amazing but one is extremely disappointing and that’s the first shade on the second row (shade 6) – Revolution don’t name the shades in these Reloaded Palettes. It applies, looks and feels like compost in an eyeshadow pan.

The shadow doesn’t have enough binder within its formula so it’s dry, gritty and soil-like. It’s honestly unusable as the gritty lumps fall in the eyes, and damp brushes or eyeshadow primer doesn’t make any difference unfortunately.

I would say though, it is my least favourite colour in the whole palette, so I’m glad this didn’t happen to one of the prettier shades, like the greens. Ignoring the gritty mess that is shade 6, it is an amazing palette and is so, so worth £5. I’d even go as far to say that the Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette is one of my top three Revolution palettes I’ve tried, and I have a tried a lot…

You can find the Revolution Reloaded Empire Eyeshadow Palette right here.

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