What I'm Not Buying: Ciate London Chloe Morello Beauty Haul

For the makeup shopping holiday season, Ciate London has collaborated with YouTube personality Chloe Morello for the "Beauty Haul" collection, which includes a 15-pan eyeshadow palette, mini mascara, mini matte liquid lipstick, and a makeup bag. 

And I won't be buying. 

To start off, I should say that I really, really like Ciate London's eyeshadow formula. I don't ever hear people talking about them, but their Pretty Palette is my go-to travel palette and one of my all-time favorites. I loved that palette so much, in fact, that I tracked down their Smokey Suedes limited edition palette that was made in collaboration with Olivia Palermo. 

Pretty Palette

Smokey Suedes

The Pretty Palette is one of the few palettes in my collection that I would consider a "perfect palette." At least, it's perfect for me. There are three perfect shimmery lid shades for me that suit a variety of different looks for different occasions, a perfect inner corner highlight, my two favorite transition colors, a dark purple and charcoal to deepen things, and a perfect brow bone highlight (this shade doesn't look true to color in the above photo). 

I bought the Pretty Palette as an impulse buy in May, right after I finished my final class and assignment of my rigorous graduate program. While I certainly didn't need a makeup reward for finishing, it's a purchase that I've been really happy with. And it's one of the few palettes in my collection that shows some wear. 

The Smokey Suedes palette includes my two favorite shadows from the Pretty Palette (the gold and champagne) as well as a light and deeper version of the mauve shade I love, and also includes a gorgeous rose gold, forrest green, and shimmery mocha.  

So when I saw that Ciate London was releasing an even bigger palette, I was so excited. But when I saw it, I wasn't all that excited anymore. 

I will say, I still think this is a really gorgeous color selection. But, I already have all these colors. And I have a few of them two times over in Ciate London's other palettes. I was also disappointed to see that the palette layout has changed. Something that I really love about the other Ciate London palettes is that they fit in the palm of my hand. They are so sleek (again, perfect for travel) but also hold a ton of product. The Chloe Morello Beauty Haul palette just looks like any other palette to me. 

Again, sometimes I find it most helpful to look at the shade selection as just pigments outside of their packaging and presentation. 

When I look at the colors like this, I can see that I absolutely already have all of these shades. They also don't look all that special to me, which is sometimes what I need to see in order to let go of wanting to buy something new. 

Another point I would like to discuss is price. This entire collection retails for $49. Typically, for a 15-pan eyeshadow palette of good quality, I wouldn't really think much of this price. However. Ciate London is claiming that this is a $219 value. And I absolutely disagree with that. 

The Ciate London Pretty Palette has 0.56 ounces of product, nine eyeshadows, and costs $35. The shadows break down to roughly .062 ounces per shadow. The shadows, however, vary in size due to the layout of the palette. 

The Beauty Haul palette has 0.76 ounces of product, fifteen eyeshadows, and costs $49. The shadows breakdown to roughly 0.50 ounces per shadow. 

So, the shadows in the Beauty Haul palette are slightly smaller than those in the Pretty Palette. Now, I am not necessarily upset over the price of the Beauty Haul. There are six more shadows in this palette than in the Pretty Palette, so even though there is less product per shadow, the jump from $35 to $49 is not unreasonable, especially when you factor in that this is a collaboration and the collaborator also needs to be paid, which increases prices. 

But what I want to know is how the other products in this collection—a mini (sample-sized) mascara and mini matte liquid lipstick plus a makeup bag—have a value to Ciate London of $170. Is this makeup bag from Coach or something? 

There is just no way that this collection has an actual value of $219, and I find it really annoying when brands try to sell you on a value that is not real. This is an eyeshadow palette that includes two sample products and a gift-with-purchase makeup bag. That doesn't make it a $219 value. That makes it probably around a $49 value. 

As far as quality is concerned, if this palette is anything like the Pretty Palette, the quality will be great. I would be curious, however, since this is a limited edition product and also a collaboration, to see if Ciate London changed the formula of the shadows to something slightly cheaper to manufacture. I certainly hope that's not the case, but it's an unfortunate reality with a lot of limited edition and collaboration products. 

Personally, if you are interested in this palette, I would recommend checking out the Pretty Palette as well. The quality is great, it has a wonderful color selection, and the price is very reasonable. 

But it's also worthwhile to take a look at this palette and the rest of your collection critically if, like me, you already have all of these colors in your collection already. 

The color scheme is very similar to the Lorac Unzipped:

As well as the Violet Voss Holy Grail:

And is extremely similar to the new Lorac Mega Pro 3:

It's exciting to me that a brand I like so much that I don't usually hear people talking about is expanding their eyeshadow palette range. However, I do feel that a lot of their releases have been quite similar, and the Beauty Haul is no exception. 

It's a pretty palette, but it's not any different from so many things I already have, and I won't be buying.