Ethereal Eyes from Makeup by Mario

The newest eyeshadow palette release is from Makeup by Mario is his Ethereal Eyes palette. It’s a 12-pan palette that retails for $68 containing all neutral colors with various finishes ranging from glitter to matte. I purchased the palette during Sephora’s VIB sale which brought my price down to $57.80.

The palette has a plain white outer case with magnetic closure. The packaging is very nice quality and seems sturdy. There is a high quality mirror on the inside lid.

Some close up pictures of the pans and back of palette:

Swatches

The glitters in this palette make for some beautiful swatches! If you want to see even more angles and videos that show the shimmers in action, head over to my Instagram account which is @stefsedge.

Gallery of swatch images:

Compared to Other Similar Palettes

The first comparison I’m going to show you is a CLASSIC – Tartelette In Bloom by Tarte compared to Ethereal Eyes by Mario. These turned out to be much more similar than I had imagined. The main difference being that Ethereal Eyes gives you that glitter sparkle and In Bloom gives you more of a subdued shimmer/metallic. In Bloom also gives you a couple extra deep shades not present in Ethereal Eyes.

The next comparison is with Lorac Fairytale Forest. I did not swatch the four most colorful shades since there is no comparison for those in Ethereal Eyes. You can find my full post with lots of swatches of Fairytale Forest here.

Leave a comment or send me a message if you can think of other palettes you’d like to see a swatch comparison for.

Individual Shadow Comparisons

Let’s start with the Silver metallic because that’s the most stand-out shade to me. It’s metallic, but it also has some sparklies in it too which gives it an extra special touch. This shade (EE11) turned out to be pretty difficult to dupe within my collection. After playing with this palette a bit, this metallic shade has turned out to be my favorite shade of the whole palette.

I felt that the shade Metal Vision from Bobbi Brown’s palette Nude Drama II was the closest. The third row is actually two shades from the Nude Drama palette: Metal Vision (top) and Earth Metal (bottom), they both seemed worth showing.

Sadly, most of these beautiful shades are discontinued. Lithium, a Moondust shade from Urban Decay, is still available and totally worth checking out.

After I did the set of swatches above, I realized that I had forgotten to test my cream shadows and Sydney Grace shadows against shade EE 11, so I did a second set of swatches (below). None of these have the same sparkle as EE11, although the Sydney Grace shades have just a little bit I think.

Shades swatched above:

• Ethereal Eyes shade EE11, a “natural metallic”
• Mica shadow stick from Bobbi Brown
• Champagne Room shadow stick from Wet n Wild
• Champagne Crystal shadow stick from ELF
• Wondrous Knight single shadow from Sydney Grace
• The Last tear single shadow from Sydney Grace

Now let’s compare the “wet look glitters” to some other sparklies in my collection. EE6 is the Row 2 Column 2 shade in Ethereal Eyes. I found Space Cowboy (Moondust) from Urban Decay to be an exact dupe. I also felt that Opulence from Patrick Ta’s Major Dimension Palette and Icicle Shimmer Glaze Top Coat from Jaclyn Hill Cosmetics to be close enough that I think most people would consider them dupes. Space Cowboy is available to purchase as a single shadow, so that’s your best bet if you’re looking to purchase a stand alone dupe shade.

The next set of swatches if the two lightest sparkle shades in the Ethereal Eyes palette. These shades are extremely similar, so I swatched them together. The shades from Lorac Fairytale Forest have a similar sparkle effect but a bit more base pigment (which I generally prefer).

Shades swatched above: Shade EE2 and EE10 from Ethereal Eyes palette, Cosmic Moondust shadow from Urban Decay, Abundance from Patrick Ta Major Dimension palette, shades from Lorac Fairytale Forest palette.

Review and Conclusion

I’m having some mixed feelings about this palette. Especially coming from the point of view of somebody who has a lot of eyeshadow already. Some fall out when applying shimmers with dry brush – more than I’d like. I wasn’t really happy with this aspect.

The mattes impressed me more than the sparkly shades in this palette. They blended nicely, no patchiness. The palette includes a shade light enough to be brightening on my fair skin tone. A darker shade would be nice to have in the palette to use as liner or create smokier looks.

I hate to say it, but I really think you can probably skip this release. If you don’t have any other similar sparkly shimmers in your collection, then this might be a worthwhile purchase for you. Or maybe you should check out the Urban Decay Moondust shadows.

I thought the color story would be just perfect for me, and it really is a lovely neutral color palette that I tend to gravitate towards. But we all know these neutral shades are available in dozens of other palettes.

I also think this palette is more of a “Special Event” palette for most people since it’s SO sparkly. It might seem like it’s a great every day palette because it’s so neutral, but I really don’t think that’s the case unless you plan on wearing all-matte looks to the office (which some people do….but I like to have at least a little shimmer or shine on my lids, just not always SPARKLE and GLITTER). Depends on what kind of daily life you have I guess 🙂

This palette could make a nice gift for somebody who does not already have a lot of makeup and who has a light to medium skin tone and who has occasion to wear sparkly eyeshadow. I’m thinking a teen or college student maybe.

Have you tried this palette? What do you think?

Helpful Links

Urban Decay Moondust Shadows (Space Cowboy, Lithium, etc) are available at Sephora and Urban Decay

Ethereal Eyes palette can be purchased at Sephora and Makeup by Mario

Fairytale Forest Palette can be purchased from Ulta, retails for $39.

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