Review: Kat Von D True Romance Eyeshadow Palette – Ladybird
Affiliate Links I Bought This July 11, 2013 | Makeup, Reviews
When I’m shopping for clothes and I find a dress or a top that fits me well, I have a tendency to go bananas and buy that same dress or top in multiple colors. I kind of did the same thing with the Kat Von D Eyeshadow palettes – I loved the Ludwig palette so much that I went back to Sephora and picked up Saint and the palette I’ll be reviewing today, Ladybird. The True Romance Eyeshadow Ladybird Palette is a gorgeous all matte palette that I wanted to get my hands on for a long time.
Based on my experience with my other Kat Von D Eyeshadow palettes, I didn’t think I could go wrong with this one. At first it was smooth sailing for Ladybird and me – the packaging is gorgeous and elaborate, a trademark of Kat Von D’s cosmetic packaging. The colors were varied and beautiful, and looked very rich sitting in the palette. The colors in this palette are:
• Für Elise – A deep, eggplant purple
• Vespertine – A peachy beige highlight
• Renholdër – A warm taupe
• Siouxsie-sioux – A deep, gray charcoal
• Unrequited – A warm, medium beige
• Harlow – A warm, medium brown,
• Wölf – A deep, red-toned brown
• Cleopatra – A deep, rusty red-brown
In addition to the eight eyeshadow colors, this palette also comes with a Mini Pencil Autograph Eyeliner in Immortal Love, which is a deep brown. I didn’t use the eyeliner at all, but the swatch was lovely.
My problem with this palette began when I swatched the colors. They are by no means the worst eyeshadows in terms of texture, but I found them to be on the dry side and a little patchy in application compared to the matte shadows I own from other brands. Still, I thought they might wear better than they swatch.
I went over each of these twice to try and compensate for patchiness. As you can see, they still aren’t the smoothest.
The colors in this palette are very pigmented, but unfortunately, they just don’t go on very smooth, even with an eye primer (I tried them with eye primers by Urban Decay, Lorac, and TooFaced). The matte shadows in the Lorac Pro Palette, in particular, really put these mattes to shame. The Lorac palette shadows are so rich, pigmented, and buttery that I don’t even realistically expect any other shadow to live up to them, but the difference in quality between these Ladybird mattes and the Lorac mattes was just large enough to dishearten me. I stopped reaching for Ladybird after only 4 attempts, and eventually, I took it back to Sephora and exchanged it for some Kat Von D lipsticks (which I love).
These shadows aren’t unwearable by any means, and they are still better than many of my drug store eyeshadows. However, I didn’t feel the quality of Ladybird matched the $36 price tag.
Pros:
+ Beautiful colors
+ Decent color payoff
+ Long-wearing (No significant fading after 8 hours of wear)
+ Minimal fallout
Cons:
– Texture is dry
– Some colors were difficult to blend
– Colors apply a bit patchy
Skin & Tonics Rating:
Performance: 3/5 –Long wearing, no fallout, but can be hard to blend and slightly fussy to work with
Quality: 3/5 – Great packaging, pretty colors, but application was patchy and formula is a bit dry
Value: 3/5 – You get a lot of colors as well as an eyeliner for $36, but you can get much smoother matte shadows for a few bucks more with the Lorac Pro Palette
Overall: 3/5
Where to Buy
The Kat Von D True Romance Ladybird Eyeshadow Palette is a Sephora Exclusive, where it sells for $36. It has rave reviews on the Sephora website, so who knows? Maybe I just got a defective palette!
That’s too bad…I had this happen with theBalm Jovi Palette. Was pumped to try it and it was kind of a dud.
Ugh, that sucks. It’s so disappointing when a palette doesn’t work out! Have you tried any theBalm eyeshadow palettes that you do like? I was considering trying their Meet Matte palette, but read mixed reviews.
What a shame. It can be heard to get beautiful matte shades. 🙁 The policy with returns over there is weird to me. Once you’ve used something, you can’t return it here unless it’s defective. That’d be awesome. Haha.
Aw man! That’s a bummer! Yeah, the Sephora here is pretty good about returns. In general, I find that returning makeup in the US is pretty painless, even if you’ve used the item a couple of times. It definitely allows me to take more risks with my makeup purchases!
Great review. I was eyeing this in the store, I find that now that I am in the down slide of my Mid 30’s I am going more natural then when I was daring and in my 20’s. And matte eye palettes are becoming like a Unicorn for me. I can’t seem to find one I like even after chasing rumors of its existence. I am a HUGE KvD fan and her setting spray is a must for me. This sounds like the “Love and Fury” palette I bought a few years back. It was mostly creams and unwearable. Thx for the updates, now I am off to try and find the LORAC palette.
I hear you on the matte palettes being unicorns! I’m still on the hunt for the perfect all matte palette, and am beginning to think it doesn’t exist. The Lorac mattes are great – my only complaint is that I wish they would release a palette that’s a matte-only collection. Not that the shimmers aren’t lovely, though. 🙂
Thanks for the tip on the setting spray. I will give it a try!
How disappointing! The packaging is lovely and a matte palette is so useful but if the shadows are patchy what’s the point?
My thoughts exactly! It’s strange though – a lot of people seem to love this palette. Maybe my eyelids are weird!
This is a similar experience to my Kat Von D eyeshadow experience I spoke of… the colors were patchy. Especially that red.
that was in my set… lol. i posted and realized I made little to no sense.
I know this is a little late, but I was just looking at Ladybird reviews because I just bought it….what is that lip color?!
Hey Kara! The lipstick is “Goes and Goes” by MAC. Sadly, I think it was recently discontinued. I found this one at my local MAC counter about 2 months ago. Yours might also still have one or two in stock! 🙂
Hi Kerry, I’ve tried theBalm’s Balm Jovi and Meet Matt(e) Nude palettes. The Matt palette was disappointing, but mostly because the colors were a lot more subdued than they seemed in the online pics (most of them seemed to have an amber base, something that would only work for people with soft/warm coloring). The Balm Jovi palette has beautiful colors, but only some of them work properly (Alice Copper is my fave shade but it’s dry so I generally just use it under the eye). PS I LOVE your site…it is what finally allowed me to go full blown OCD on my Korean skin product/makeup obsession. 😀
That’s disappointing to hear – I’ll probably skip them then. :/ I figure someone will come out with an all matte palette I actually like eventually. Or I could bite the bullet and make my own Inglot matte palette!
And thank you for the kind words about my blog. I’m honored to have helped enable you to go balls out with your Korean cosmetics obsession!
LOL…meant to also add a huge thanks for the Kat Von D reviews…I’m looking at several palettes and trying to decide which to take the jump with.
Which one did you finally decide on?