Pandora's Makeup Box is a new and colourful, professional makeup collection created for women with a passion for beauty, design, and the everyday convenience of affordable, on-the-go makeup. Developed by Canadian makeup artist and cosmetic studio owner Susan Kirsch, the brand offers high quality, skin-tone friendly palettes and product that look great and last on youthful or mature skin. Eco-chic, modern vintage-inspired refillable cases allow you to carry your favourites wherever you go, and provide a stackable, clutter-free system for storing at home.
Pandora's Makeup Box is my latest makeup discovery. Don't be fooled by the cutesy packaging, inside of it is some quality makeup. Check out the site, they have little how to videos up on how to apply their products & charts of different looks to create with them.
Keep Reading (
for the rest of the Review, Swatches, & Photo's! ($18) &;
4 Palette Quads ($48): Pandora's shadows are made up of mostly wearable neutral/beauty shades, which is cool with me since I'm on a neutral's kick lately. They come in both matte & satin/shimmer finishes & are a whopping 4gms in size. They're packaged in an eco-friendly "cardboard" type casing with easily removable magnetized pans. I depotted mine below and put them in to a palette (admittedly I just don't like the girlie girl packaging)
Top to Bottom L-R- French Vanilla, Blushed, Champagne, Au Cafe
Classic Pink, Blossom, Venus, Eye Base
Dawn, Perfect B, Cocoa, Smokey Brown
Slate Brown, Blueberry, Burnt, Nightingale, Matte Black
These shadows are lovely, especially the light/medium shades.The mattes go on smooth and blend nicely. The satins have just enough shimmer to to brighten the eyes with out looking over done . The only issues I had were with the darker matte shades like Blueberry & Nightingale. They almost seemed to erase themselves while blending no matter how much I packed on. The selection of neutral shades are great, very universally flattering and will work on many skin tones & ages. My favorites were French Vanilla, Blossom, Champagne,& Smokey Brown. I'd skip the darker shadows though.
Lipstick ($16) These lipstick's are incredibly moisturizing, long wearing, and natural looking. I was surprised at how pigmented they are. They're very strong in the color department, but apply & feel almost like a lip balm. I am in love with "Natural Girl", a mlbb medium pink, it's my go to natural look lipstick. "Sunshine" is a beautiful coral orange, and "Charmer" bright watermelon pink. "So Red" a warm coral red. The warm vanilla scent is almost identical to MAC's. I'll definitely be purchasing more of these.
Mascara ($19) I got this in Black. Honestly, this did nothing for my lashes. The brush is a bit wimpy, and the formula was watery & "goopy" for a lack of better words.
Eye Lid Primer ($20) I never expect much from most new lines eyeshadow primers. It's just difficult to match up to the holy grails like UDPP, Too Faced, MAC etc. so I give them credit for putting out one. The eye base is a creamy consistency, almost like a concealer that dries to a powder finish. It comes in one neural shade similar to MAC Painterly paint pot and reminds me a lot of Mally Beauty Eye Primer. I really loved the powdery finish of this, it makes blending matte shadows easy. While it didn't last as long or give the intensity of UDPP, it held up well through the day, but it did crease. The price is also on the high side for the amount of product you get in comparison to other primers and I'm wary this may dry out due to its packaging, but overall it's a nice primer for mattes.
Lipgloss ($16) Another winner. Super creamy, pigmented, non-sticky glosses. XOXO gave me the same nude pink glossy look that it takes 3 products from MAC to achieve. FAITH is a milky iridescent white pink that looks beautiful in the center of the lip. I chose it though to tone down 'too bright' lipstick's and it works just as intended. There's no need for multiple products with these, the coverage is fantastic. They taste yum too, like a peppermint milkshake.
Blush ($18) I'm totally vibing on these blushes. They're the same size as the shadow pans so you can pop them in to one of their quads too. They are beautifully soft, pigmented, & long lasting. Dolly Pink is the prettiest cool toned matte baby pink, and Pout a peachy pink. These are fantastic blushes, I was really surprised by the quality.
Face Powder ($26) This face powder comes in 5 different shades, and it's huge! The packaging is the same size as their 4 pan eyeshadow quads. #1 was the shade I chose. It's wearable, but a tad too dark & on the beige side. It's a light finish, but still looks a little powdery on. Overall, it's decent, but I prefer powders with more of an invisible set finish. It also didn't keep the oilies away very long.
Brushes ($12-$35) Pandora's Brushes really surprised me. They're compact in size, soft, and nicely made. I love the #20 eyeshadow brush for packing on color. The #30 is exactly what I was looking for to smoke out the under eye, as sometimes the MAC #219 can be too big. The #27 blending brush is great for crease work, and the liner brush is small and concise. I will be looking in to purchasing more of their brushes in the future, the quality is great.
In a nutshell....
I loved the light & medium shade eyeshadows, lip products, blushes, & brushes. They were all very good quality and all products I would buy myself.
As for dislikes...the packaging is just too girlie girl for me. I know many of you will love it for just that reason, but I think many of the products would be a real hit with makeup artists/enthusiasts if it wasn't so "young" looking. It just sort of screams "16 year old doing makeup on youtube" if you know what I mean. But this is all coming from a girl who owns one of everything in Black! I do love that Susan wanted to create a happy line that's also Earth friendly. So I can deal with pastels for that :)
As you can see in my photo's the shimmer shades were damaged in packaging. I told Susan about the problem and she was quick to look in to resolving it. Don't you love when companies listen to their customers? I do!
The above review contains a sample provided for review consideration by a PR firm or representative for the company.
Blush ($18) I'm totally vibing on these blushes. They're the same size as the shadow pans so you can pop them in to one of their quads too. They are beautifully soft, pigmented, & long lasting. Dolly Pink is the prettiest cool toned matte baby pink, and Pout a peachy pink. These are fantastic blushes, I was really surprised by the quality.
