Yes! You’ve read that correctly… I have in fact spent £88 on one eyeshadow palette! Even reading that back now I’ve realised that I may seem a teeny tiny bit crazy.
I basically blame Stacey from ExpatMakeupAddict for this one as she has been raving about the Violet Voss Holy Grail palette ever since she bought it and what ever she likes, I like. I love my Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance palette and this one was similar with lots of warm tones, reds and pinks that I just love to pair with my blue eyes.
Once I get it in my head that I want something I have to have it, and have it quickly – I’m just a tad impatient. Now rather than bore you with the whole saga of buying this palette and how it came about let me just cut to the chase….. I ended up buying the Violet Voss Holy Grail palette from their US website that only ships to the US, which meant I had to use a shipping agent to get it to the UK. The upshot was that all in it cost me over £88. Below are the calculations of how that £88 is made up:
Cost of palette: $45
Delivery from Violet Voss Holy Grail to US address: $8
Shipping from US address to UK (using FedEx): £26.04
Customs fee from FedEx: £19.32
Total: £88.83
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| I’m sorry I’m so pale you can barely see some of the pale shades on my arm!! |
Before I go on to a rant about shipping costs lets just talk about the palette….
The Violet Voss Holy Grail palette is made up of 20 mainly warm toned shades including mattes, shimmers and metallics. With 20 colours included it’s one of my largest palettes I own. It’s casing is made of cardboard but feels sturdy enough, and it has a lovely holographic colour to it which hopefully I’ve managed to capture in some of these photos.
The selection of colours chosen for this palette all compliment each other so well. Matte shades are always my favourite (I know, strange, right?) and the matte shades in the Holy Grail palette are good but not the best I’ve tried. I compare all eyeshadow pigmentation to Anastasia Beverley Hills because I’ve not yet found a brand that exceeds or matches their pigmentation. The matte shades don’t live up to the pigmentation of ABH, however the metallic shades are insane!! If you are a fan of shimmer and metallics you are going to be in heaven – they are creamy and so so pigmented with barely any fall out. I think the swatches here speak for themselves. I must say that as the metallics/ shimmers are so ridiculously good in this palette it has made me use them more than I normally would.
So is the Violet Voss Holy Grail palette worth £88? In short….. No, but is it worth £37 (just the cost of the palette) then absolutely yes!
If you like the ABH Modern Renaissance palette, and/ or you like shimmers you will LOVE it!
So this is where I do my little rant about shipping costs and what shipping agent to use…. Like I say I was impatient, it was 12:30 am, I was tired and wanted to go to bed so I just went with pretty much the first company I found on Google – MyUs. I thought all the companies would pretty much all be similar in price give or take a few quid – I was WRONG! I paid MyUs £26.04 (NOT inc customs) to ship this ONE eyeshadow palette to the UK and that was their CHEAPEST option! Yes, their cheapest!! After asking Twitter how much they have paid before it seems I have been royally ripped off! It seems you can get it much cheaper by shopping around and the two shipping agents that people generally recommended on Twitter were MyMallBox and ShipItTo.
The only thing I will say about MyUS was that the shipping was quick (I think a few days), they had good communication and there were no hiccups, so I was pleased with their service, but I think the price is astronomical!
So word of warning people – do not just use MyUS as they are the first company to come up on Google – ask around and do your research first!
Going back to the Violet Voss Holy Grail palette…. If you’ve read this review and you’ve now decided you must have said palette but you don’t want to pay £88 like only an idiot would, then you are in luck as GlamSaidey are now stockist of the Violet Voss Holy Grail palette and you won’t have to pay to ship it from the US! Result! Although they are currently out of stock so will you need to stalk them until it comes back in stock…. Sorry!
Can you recommend any other Violet Voss products or any good shipping agents?
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