Swatch Saturday: Crown Brush 180 Palette—Part 1 of 6

Oooh...pretty colors!

Crown Brush Palette Yellow Green Purple Square

Sometime in January I saw that Hautelook was having a sale on Crown Brush products, and they had this palette with a ridiculous amount of colors—180, for $38 (half off, or so).

Now, if you've read this blog before, you know how I love color—gorgeous eye-popping saturated color. So I bought it.

But since then I've really been blogging a lot, shopping a lot, went to The Makeup Show LA and saw the Inglot display there (gasp! ooh! aah!) So I was wondering, how good was this initial purchase, this Crown Brush palette.

You and me, we're going to find out, because I'm swatching every single shade in there, and you'll see the results.

And it will also be a catalog of how these colors look on my skin, so I can use it as reference later. Once I'm done, I'll do a roundup of all 6 squares that are in this palette.

While I'm thinking of it, here's a list of YouTube Beauty Gurus I find particularly great at bright color eye looks.  I'm linking you to a favorite color-focused tutorial video—one for each Bright Beauty:

• Pixiwoos. They don't do anything badly, these gorgeous Brits, and those pretty eyes of theirs with all that lovely eyelid space are great canvasses for color.
• Nikkietutorials. Nikkie is just so funny and adorable. Never miss her vids. And she's an amazingly creative and skilled makeup artist. Can't get enough.
• Vintageortacky. She's got looks for every Disney Princess. Love that! Her Inglot haul got me all excited about snagging me some of that! She's adorable, and so great at bright colors, pin-up looks, retro. Check out her MadMen looks, too! Milani's been giving her a lot of love, and she's been working all that product to show the rest of us how to maximize those drugstore finds. Yay, Cora!!!
• Lisa Eldridge. This lady is the Harrods of makeup artists. First class all the way. She just plain knows what she is doing in a big way. Kate Winslet red carpet look? No, she didn't recreate it for a video. She worked on Kate herself. I've linked you to a particularly pretty soft pastel candy-colored vid she posted recently.
• Smashinbeauty. What a face this girl has! And she knows how to play up her eyes with brilliant color. Red eye shadow? She does it and rocks it!
• Phyrra. Gotta mention her, because not only is she bold in makeup and hair, and she specializes in swatching really cool indie cosmetics, but her blog has some of the most useful posts I've found. Check out her How to Care for Colored Hair post. Awesomeballs!

Back to the Crown Blush palette: I swatched all of these over the Urban Decay Primer Potion, original formula.

Here are some photos, and I coded the colors on my hand and in the palette below, so it's easier to talk about all this.

The top left 4 colors, particularly the topmost leftmost one don't have a lot of ooph, aka pigmentation.
The yellow third row, second column is crazy shiny and pigmented, though. It's in the middle of this picture.

I think the speckled colors on the bottom are a bit of a cheat, because the speckles don't go too deep,
and once they wear off, you just have a color that is identical to another in the palette.
Except for the Y11 at the bottom. The basic shade stands on its own.

Numbered for Reference

Yellows and Greens featured here.

The Yellows and Greens:

• Y1, Y4, Y8 and Y10 are not so very very pigmented, and melt into my skin, but are still pretty.
• Y7 is wonderfully bright! 
• Y11 is a lovely goldenrod shade.
• G1 - Spring Green.
• G2 and G4 - Nice pale bright greens. St. Patty's Day all the way!
• G3 - Nice pigmentation! Forest Green.
• G5 - not as strong, but that could be because the gold tones tend to melt into my skin tone.
• G6 - Really Kelly Green and strong.  Fun!
• Love G7! Mermaid-ish beauty!
• G8 - Goldy Green. Sweet!
• G9 - the blue shimmer in this one could stand out more.

Featuring Blues and Purples. Some of Yellows on left.

The Purples and Blues:

• B1 and B2 don't look so very different from one another.
• B3 makes me think of flying Pan Am when I was a kid on my way to Bermuda, so that one is winning!
• B4 - love that hint of purple in the periwinkle
• B5 is really cool, with that magenta tone within the sky blue. I don't think the magenta will last more than a few swipes, though.
• P1 - really interesting shimmery pale vapor blue silver
• P2 - Very nice pale lavender blue
• P3, P4, P5 don't look so different on my skin as they do in the palette, and the glitter in P3 and P4 isn't fine milled or plentiful enough to have much of an impact. But that could work for some subtle violet eye looks, I guess.

The palette looks like this closed.

Even after two makeup removing wipes and a night of sleep—it's now Sunday—these colors are still on my hand. Hmmm.... The pigments aren't super strong but they stain.  Harrumph!

Still stained with the colors

So far so good. Seems like these shades are nice and usable. Just need some space on my bathroom counter for this gigundo palette.

What do you think? Do you own this one? Do you have the BH ones? How does this one stack up for you so far?

Thanks for reading, and I hope you found this post fun, useful, diverting, stimulating, and other good things.

Let me know what you think by commenting below. Cheers!

:)BeautyJones

@BeautyJonesToo
https://www.facebook.com/BeautyJonesToo