Morphe. A notorious brand. I never once thought about buying from them because their products didn’t interest me. I decided to finally take the jump with the second Morphe x Jaclyn Hill collection.

I never really liked Morphe as a brand, especially not at the beginning of the hype. I feel like their brand is inevitably connected to the word ‘distrust’ due to the pushing of codes from influencers and a number of issues with the quality of their products. There’s something dodgy about the way they handle those situations. Much like the situation about the Vault Collection There’s an entire ‘scandal’ going on with the repressing of the eyeshadows. I also don’t like the way they started off as a company but that’s a story for another time. Morphe recently rebranded though and I took an interest in a recent collab. The Jaclyn Hill Vault Collection. I hope this palette can turn the distrust into trust.

The Vault Collection consists of four eyeshadow palettes: Bling Boss, Dark Magic, Ring The Alarm and Armed & Gorgeous. Armed & Gorgeous is the palette that I will be reviewing today. The four palettes all have a different colour scheme. From dark and smokey, to purple and pink, to warm tones and greens. The Vault retails for €55 and the palettes are also individually available, each retailing for €17. I bought Armed & Gorgeous because it reminded me of the Subculture palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills and I love green eyeshadows. I did use the discount code ‘EDGES’ to support the dear Jackie Aina. Morphe is available in the EU on their European website (Link here) and also in the UK (link here).

Packaging
The packaging is quite simplistic but beautiful. The external packaging is a white cardboard casing with a fun design. The design mainly consists of squares, dots and stars. The back of the external packaging has a picture of Jaclyn Hill, her signature and a little note. Another thing that I noticed on the back was the sticker with the ingredients. I found it weird that the ingredients list wasn’t a part of the palette but just a sticker on top of the palette. Curious as I am, I decided to take the sticker off and take a peek underneath it. I was surprised to see another ingredients list underneath the sticker. I don’t know what to think about this. What do you think happened?

The actual palette has a similar design to the external packaging. The outside of the palette has the same white and silver colour scheme. The only difference is the circle in the middle which is white instead of a shiny silver. The inside of the palette consists of ten shades and it also includes a mirror. The packaging feels nice and sturdy and easy for travelling!

Formula
I’m a bit torn when it comes to the formula of this palette. Let’s start with the shimmers. The shimmer shades aren’t exactly shimmers. They’re more like semi pressed glitters. They have good pigmentation but they do have glitter particles that go everywhere. The formula of the shimmer shades reminds me a lot of the Nabla Pressed Glitters. I do love the shimmers though, especially Classified and Coin. Next up, the mattes.

The matte shades in the Armed & Gorgeous palette are very dry to the touch and therefore a bit difficult to blend. The yellow and orange mattes work the best whilst the brown shades are really difficult to blend and to build up. The worst shade amongst the mattes was Top Secret which, unfortunately, is my favourite colour in Armed & Gorgeous. It’s really patchy and even harder to build up. It leaves an unblended line no matter how hard I try to blend it seamlessly. The formula definitely isn’t bad but it does have its flaws.

Swatches

Look with Armed & Gorgeous

Final verdict
I’m not too sure guys. I don’t know if I really like this palette. I love the colour scheme and the pigmentation is great, especially if you look at the swatches. It’s good for the price but it definitely has its flaws. The shimmers are definitely good and have great pay off but the mattes are very dry and make blending hard.  I personally think that matte shades are still the most important finish in a palette, so therefore I wouldn’t recommend this palette to you guys. I am planning on filming a ‘Three looks One palette’ video with this palette, so keep an eye out!

What do you think of the Vault Collection and/or of the surrounding drama?
Lots of love and see you next time!