Does anyone else get excited for Too Faced holiday palette each year? I just think they’re so adorable and they always smell sooo good. This one is no exception! The palette that caught my attention this year was the Too Faced Christmas Coffee palette ($27.00). I purchased this one at Nordstrom, but it can be found at Sephora, Too Faced, or Ulta, too!
A few things about this palette I loved: The neutrals. I’m a neutral fan!
The scent. It’s light and sweet and not overwhelming like some of their palettes have been in the past.
The formula. It’s really blendable and pigmented.
The fact that it’s a mini palette! I love mini palettes because they’re affordable and don’t overwhelm me with choices.
A few things I wasn’t too keen on: The neutrals. How many neutral palettes with a pop of green do we need? These really are everywhere.
A note to anyone sensitive to fragrance: Once you put this stuff on your eyelids, you can really smell it. And it lasts a long while too. I’d skip this is smelly things aren’t your jam.
Swatches
As you can see, not all the shades swatched nicely. While swatches don’t always give a great impression of how the eyeshadow will look on the eye, its still fun to see how they show up on skin.
Kool Whip (light warm cream matte)
This eyeshadow was ok. It’s matte and not a great one, so it can be a little bit chalky. Because they only included one highlight shade in this palette, I would have preferred a shimmer or at least a satin. It looked just ok on my eyes. It wasn’t anything to rave about, but did the job.
I will note that because my skin tone is so light, this didn’t swatch that great on my arm, but does show up on my lid just fine.
Warm Me Up (soft caramel brown matte)
This eyeshadow didn’t swatch terribly well, but it made an excellent transition color. I used this one in the crease to blend out all of the colors and it looked great. It was a really good shade for me as a transition and did the job well.
It has good pigmentation and blended out perfectly.
Cinnamon Chai (deep red-brown terracotta matte)
This was another shade that really stood out to me in this palette, performance-wise. I used this in my crease to deepen the look and again, it blended so well! The pigmentation was on point too and I overall enjoyed using it.
Holly Sh*t (sparkling forest green shimmer)
I was shocked when I used this eyeshadow for the first time. Every time I get a green shadow, I’m let down, so I totally expected it to be a matte black with a tiny bit of green shimmer in it.
But this one. This one actually looks green on the lid. I used it in the outer V and it really stood out beautifully. One thing to note though, this eyeshadow gives a lot of fall out. I’d recommend doing eyeshdow, then foundation/concealer for this one.
Brew-tiful Day (petal pink matte)
As you can see, this one swatched horribly. It looks chalky, patchy. Just yuck!
On the eyes, however, it does an ok job. Its terrible, but nothing to write home about. This does just what it should do. Provide a pretty, light matte blending shade. Nothing too impressive, but does the job.
Slow Roasted (rustic copper metallic)
This is another shade that was ok. I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. It looks great in the swatch, but because I’m sure all of us have 20 similar shades in our collections, I had really high expectations. I didn’t find it to be terribly pigmented, so I’d honestly probably swap it out with another, better-performing shade in my collection and see how it looks.
Its not something I’ll never use, it just wasn’t up to par withthe rest of the shadows in the palette.
Candy Cane Latte (metallic cranberry red metallic)
This is another shade that really impressed me. I put this one all over the lid and used Brew-tiful Day to blend it out and it looked great! It’s pigmented, and blends like a dream. One thing you’ll notice in the look I created with this shadow below is that it a bit on the powdery side, which can lead to fall out.
Christmas Coffee (rich deep brown matte)
Here’s another shade that doesn’t perform perfectly in swatches, but looks great on the eye. In the swatch, it doesn’t look “deep” and doesn’t look as pigmented as I’d like.
On the eye, it performed great! It has excellent pigmentation and also blended really nicely. I used this in my outer V to really deepen the look. Overall, I really enjoyed this shade and will honestly probably reach for it to use with other looks in the future.
Do you know how difficult it is to find a rich brown that is pigmented and blendable, but doesn’t just completely blend away? It’s hard. So I’m pretty stoked to have this one in my arsenal.
Pigmentation
I think these eyeshadows are really pigmented. Below in the “Looks I created” section, you can see that even the shade I was least impressed by, Slow Roasted, looks pretty good, even without primer.
None of the shades in the palette are lacking in pigmentation (even if they didn’t swatch great), so I gave this one a 5/5 hearts.
Packaging
The package on the Too Faced Christmas Coffee is as adorable as it is functional.
Too Faced is well-known for their adorable holiday releases, and this one is no different.
What really stands out to me about it, however, is just how sturdy it feels. Its made out of a tin material that looks pretty indestructible.
It has a magnetic closure and comes with a mirror. I’d call that a win!
It gets a 5/5 for packaging because it has all of my favorite aspects: Mirror. Indestructible. (I have kids, need I say more?) And it’s adorable!
Blendability
I am super impressed in how easy these were to blend. Because the shadows are a bit on the powdery side, they blend REALLY well.
This also means that you should create your eye looks before putting on foundation because this stuff is really going to get all over your face.
Wear Time
I tested these eyeshadows 2 ways: with primer and without. I used Lorac Behind the Scenes eye primer, if you’re wondering. View my post on The Best Eye Primers for Oily Lids to see my thoughts on eye primers.
With Primer: This eyeshadow lasted on me all day long. I didn’t experinece any creasing or fading throughout the day
Without Primer: I did notice creasing (normal because my lids are on the oily side), but I also noticed a bit of fading throughout the day. To be expected, but you can’t really count on these shadows without primer.
Because I needed primer to make this really last, I gave it 3.5/5 hearts for wear time.
Looks I Created with the Too Faced Christmas Coffee Palette
The left look was created with Warm Me Up as a transition shade. Then, I used Cinnamon Chai in the crease to deepen it up. I popped Holly Sh*t in the outer V, finishing up with Slow Roasted on the lid.
The right look was easily created using Brew-tiful Day as a transition/blending shade. Then I used Candy Cane Latte all over the lid and a bit into my crease. Easy holidy look complete!
Note: Both of these looks were created without any eye primer, so you could see the performance on their own.
Overall Thoughts
Overall, I think this is a really fun holiday release. Do you probably have shadows that look like this in your collection? Probably. But do they have the cute packaging this one does? Doubt it!
All jokes aside, the Too Faced Christmas Coffee Palette gets a 4/5 hearts because the colors performed well in terms of pigmentation, wear time, and blendability. I think this would be a great one to pick up for any makeup lovers or makeup collectors on your list this year.
Until next time!
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