Sephora Hot Hues Palette in Vivid Mulberry Review and Swatches

Vivid Mulberry Hot Hues palette

Sephora had two sweet little baked eyeshadow palettes on sale for $7.00 recently.  I picked up the one called Vivid Mulberry, which features 4 purple shades and 2 pale pinks, for a total of 6 eye shadows in a solid little compact that includes a mirror and 2 small brush applicators.  I like baked eye shadows, as they can go from sheer to quite vivid depending on if you apply them dry or wet.  They are not without their shortcomings, however, as we shall see.

I've seen some good reviews on Sephora's Moonshadow baked shadow palettes (I'll be reviewing the "In the Heat" palette soon), and figured at $7 the risk wasn't that great.  The Hot Hues palettes are not the same as the Moonshadow palettes, however, as they have different manufacturers.  Hot Hues was made in Taiwan and the Moonshadow palettes in Italy, but honestly, they both performed similarly so I'm not sure it matters.  I have noticed that most baked products I've used were made in Italy though.  You will also notice that the Hot Hues palettes do not have names for the individual shadows.

Top row:  wet swatches, Bottom row:  dry swatches

The swatches below show show dry swatches on the left and wet on the right.  The first two swatches are the pale pinks followed by the purple shadows, starting with the top lightest lavender shade and working down.  All swatches are over Urban Decay's original eyeshadow primer. 

These do kick up some shadow dust when using them dry, less so when using a wet brush.  It was more problematic when I was using the light pink shades to highlight the inner eye area, as I had to clean up some of the sparkle from my face. I experienced some fading and slight creasing after about 6 hours of wear (click to enlarge photos).  It's quite hot and humid where I live and I have oily skin, so that is definitely an individual factor affecting wear time.  However, I can usually get a good solid 8 hours from many other shadows, so I do think the baked shadow formula is not quite as long wearing.

Fresh application

After about 6 hours of wear

Overall though, I really like this little palette, especially for $7 (it was originally $24, although I don't remember seeing it on Sephora's site other than in the sale section).  One thing I've noticed about Sephora's new site design that I do not care for is that it seems items that are no longer in stock will still be featured.  There seems to be a significant lag time in removing those items, which can be frustrating when you see something you want but once you click on it you get a "Not in stock" or "The product your were looking for was either not found or we no longer carry it" message.  So remove the picture and link!