Review + Tutorial: Gosh Plum Smokey Eye Palette & Catrice Prime and Fine Eyeshadow Base

Hey guys, I picked up two beauty products last week. As I've told you earlier, I've really been into day-appropriate smokey eyes lately, and I wanted to get a slightly better quality palette (preferably with a metallic, shimmery finish) to up my smokey eye game. Enter this Gosh smokey eye palette in Plum, and this Catrice Prime and Fine eyeshadow base. I reviewed them for you and did a neat little smokey eye tutorial as well which I hope you'll enjoy.

I've had very good experiences with Gosh cosmetics in the past and this particular palette had some purple-ish undertones, which brings out the green in my eyes, so that influenced my decision. I think I paid about 11-13€ for it, which I think is a very OK price for the quality and pigmentation. I also brought a pot of Catrice's Prime and Fine eyeshadow base, because I'd read some good reviews of it. Plus, my last tube of eyeshadow primer was dried out and really didn't do a good job even before it was dried out.

This is the plum palette. As you can see, it comes with a handy little stencil you can use to figure out where to put each shade. It doesn't come with an applicator, but who actually uses those awful sponge thingies anyway? I actually prefer using my finger to using the sponge applicator.

Shade no. 1 is a really pale, lilac leaning white. It probably has the least shimmers of all three shades, but it's a perfectly fine highlighter to use on the inner corner of your eye or on the brow bone. Shade no. 2 could be described as a subtle duochrome shadow, shifting from a mauve pink to a light gold depending on how the light hits it. Very shimmery, very lovely. Shade no. 3 is a cool toned champagne/truffle shade (sounds so luxe), and shade no. 4 is a very pigmented, plum leaning dark brown.

In general I can say that the powders are finely milled and creamy which allows for great blending and makes the colour stick to your eyelids rather than fall all over your under eye area. The pigmentation isn't amazing (except for the brown), but if you use a primer you can definitely get some very nice looks out of this palette.

The Catrice Prime and Fine eyeshadow base is a total winner. I paid about 4€ for it, and it does everything it should do. It's not super creamy or fluffy so I sort of swirl my finger around in the pot a bit to make the product soften up with body heat (so sexy), and then I apply it to my eyelids by tapping it all over. To illustrate its merits I applied it to my right eye (your left) in my smokey eye tutorial. Eyeshadow primers basically make your make up more pigmented, more blendable  and longer lasting.

Just to be clear: the eye on the LEFT has primer on it, serving as a clean canvas for my make up.

These are the brushes I used. The bigger one (from Hema) for the light colours and for blending, the smaller one (from the Body Shop) for the darkest brown.

First, I apply shade 2 over my eyelid. I think you can already see how the colour is much more evenly applied on the left eyelid, but it becomes even clearer during the next steps.

Second step: lightly apply shade no.1 from the brow bone down to the eyelid crease, and shade no.3 in the crease. The three shades I've used up until now are quite close together, so don't be surprised if the look still lacks punch now. Addition of the dark brown and mascara makes ALL the difference.

Third step: apply the dark brown shade no.4 in the outer corner of your eye, blending inward and through the crease. See how much better the left eye looks compared to the right? That's the primer doing its magic. I promise I didn't intentionally make the right eye messy!

I like to finish off my smokey eyes with a bit of kohl pencil smudged in my outer corners and by brushing on a shitload of mascara. I smudge out my kohl pencil with the small brush, and drag a bit of product along the outer corners of my bottom eyelids to make the look more intense.

Et voila!

A quick gif recap from start to finish:

And a side by side comparison pre and post eye make up that looks like I have an evil twin:

Pretty sexy yet office appropriate, right? Hope you enjoyed my tutorial! Do you ever rock a smokey eye?