It’s safe to say that 2019 has mainly been the year of colourful eyeshadows for me, I’ve definitely rediscovered my love of colour in the past twelve month. Yet when I saw the Colourpop California Love palette in summer the warm loving neutral girl who had gotten buried deep inside of me wanted it. I used it a little over summer, but as soon as the clock struck autumn it’s been on my eyes almost every time I’ve worn makeup.
The Colourpop California Love palette is one of their 12 pan palettes and comes in cardboard packaging rather than the plastic packaging the 9 pans come in – reminiscent of their first palette Yes Please. It’s lightweight and travel friendly and despite it having 12 colours it tucks into most makeup bags easily. The California Love palette has a definite mix of textures and contains mattes, shimmers, supershock shadows and a pressed glitter. The palette is very warm toned leaning heavily towards orange and bronze tones. The one thing that will be missing for some is the addition of a mirror, persoannly – whilst I know loads of people will always say in reviews about palettes with or without mirrors – I never, ever use them.
I’ll jump straight in and say that this is one of the best Colourpop eyeshadow palettes I’ve tried. Whilst I don’t think I’ve tried a dud palette from them, there’s often a shade that’s more difficult to work with than the rest or more sheer than you would expect and every single one of these are A+ for me. There’s no shades that I think cross over between others and step on each others toes, they’re all great and there’s a lot of variety for being able to create different warm toned looks.
My favourite shades are Diego – the top left metallic, Laguna that peach matte on the second row and the most used is Cruisin’ – I’ve been wearing this a lot on it’s own when I’ve just wanted something quick and easy, so much so I think I’m not too far from hitting pan on it if I continue at the same rate.
Colourpop California Love Swatches
Diego – Supershock Shadow formula, applies best with finger. Creamy dark champagne gold, metallic foil finish.
Gnarly – Matte beige, quite netural toned and isn’t as warm as other shades in the palette. I use this a lot in the crease.
Sequoia – Matte mustard orange. looks nice particularly on the bottom lashes
Gold Rush – Warm matte terracotta brown
HWY 1 – Chocolate brown matte with golden microglitter flecks. Flecks are more visible in swatches than they are on the eye
Laguna – Peachy medium brown matte.
El Capitan – Pressed microglitter with bronze, gold and copper. Different tones are more visible once on the eye. Needs glitter glue underneath otherwise it starts getting loose and falling out
Surfride – Metallic bronze with gold glitter
Cahuenga – Creamy metallic with bronze tones
Mission – Deep dark chocolate matte. Slight gold fleck, but not really visible once swatched
Cruisin’ – Soft metallic in champagne gold, this has the slightest hint of a soft duochrome effect
The Bay – Matte latte brown
California Love Eye Looks
Look 1 : Everyday Gold Glam
Shades Used : Gnarly, Laguna, HWY 1 & Cruisin’
Method : I put Gnarly all through the crease and then blended Laguna through the outer crease half on both eyes. I then put the shade Cruisin’ across most of the lid space and then blended HWY 1 on the outer corner. I then picked back up the shade Cruisin’ and blended it over the HWY 1 shade to create a blended gold into brown. On the bottom lashes I smudged HWY 1 in, sometimes I also bring Cruisin’ down to meet it in the middle below but didn’t want something as dramatic this time.
Simple quick makeup look that only takes a couple of minutes!
Look 2 : Add Some Glitter
Shades Used : Gnarly, Cruisin, El Capitan, Gold Rush, Cahuenga
Method : Gnarly through the crease, Gold Rush on the outer corner to warm up the outer crease without intensifying too much. I then placed Cruisin’ through the inner half of the lid, and then Cahuenga on the outer corner of the lid. I then got some glitter glue and patted it in the middle of my lid and placed a little of El Capitan on top using my ring finger.
This is quite a similar look to the first look with the added glitter, some of the tones I chose were just a little more muted. You could easily amp this up using the darker colours for something more dramatic or use the glitter more heavily.
Look 3 : Fallen Crispy Leaves
Shades Used: Gnarly, Cahuenga, Diego, Mission
Method: Gnarly through the crease, Mission blended in the outer corner and underneath the bottom lash. Then I used Cahuenga all over the lid blended into Mission, and bought it through the inner corner and bottom lashes on the inner half. I then popped a little of Diego on my finger and patted it on the centre of the lid. I didn’t want it to be too golden and just to add a subtle hue to the bronze, you could add it on more heavily or with a glitter glue if you wanted to get it more intense.
If you had been on the fence about this palette over the summer, I couldn’t recommend it more now it’s autumn. I think with California in the name, you automatically think this is a summery palette, but the rich warm bronzes are perfect for year round, but particularly autumn for me. I also think this would make a lovely inexpensive makeup gift for someone too, maybe someone who has been intrigued about Colourpop but has yet to try it – it’s a very user friendly formula.
What has been your favourite palette so far this season?
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This palette is so stunning! I need to hold off ordering from Colourpop for a while though. A lot of people get annoyed with the pressed glitters being included in palettes, do you get any irritation or find them hard to work with? The last bronze look is my favourite!
Author
I’m very careful with the chunkier ones such as the one in the Uh huh honey palette, that has huge piece of glitter so I make sure I use a glitter primer to make sure it sticks and that it’s a really thin layer so it’s less likely to flake. This one was fine though, it’s very fine and small pieces. I feel like I’ve burnt myself out on Colourpop, I still have 3 palettes left to review from them, the only newer release that’s interested me is the lilac palette, but it does feel like they are going around in circles a lot now!
Do the glitters apply better with a finger? If they weren’t so quick to release palettes close together they could space them out 😂
Author
For the most part yes, some of them a little creamy so they pick up okay on a brush, but the drier ones are definitely candidate for fingers. I tend to use a finger most of the time anyway so I don’t have glitter stuck in brushes!
Looks like that El Capitan is literally falling off while you’re taking the photo. *LOL* Rachel, your “eye makeup close up” are getting better and better~~~ so stunning.
Author
thank you, my new 17mm lens has helped be able to take the shots a lot easier!
This is a pretty summer to fall transition palette. I own only 3 palettes from CP and my favorite has to be their discontinued Good Sport palette 😊
Author
I ordered Good Sport and they sent me the wrong palette once and I never got around to reordering it before it went out of stock, it was such a gorgeous looking palette though!