What I'm Not Buying: Too Faced Sweet Peach Palette

Ugh, this palette. 

Too Faced's "beloved" and "best-selling" Sweet Peach palette that was quite intentionally very hard to come by is making a comeback in December that surprised no one. 

I'll be honest. I hate every thing about this palette, what it represents, how it was marketed, and how it was sold. But at the same time, I am grateful for this palette. This was the palette that pushed it all over the edge for me. This was the palette that made me scream, "Enough!" This was the palette that finally curbed my excessive and unhealthy makeup buying habits and inspired me to write this blog. 

And you can bet that when this baby hits stores again—conveniently at the exact time people are throwing reason and caution to the wind and spending, spending, spending—I sure as hell won't be buying. 

I made a post back in May about this palette, but it was my first post and my style of blogging wasn't what it is now. I thought it might be excessive for me to make two posts on this palette, but then I guess if Too Faced is going to make two releases of the palette, it's only right that I make two anti-haul posts about it. 

As I said, to me, this palette is the epitome of everything that is wrong and corrupt with consumerism and marketing within the cosmetics industry. Too Faced released what was arguably a boring eyeshadow palette with two peach-ish shades. But, here's what they did:

• They gave it a cute (and misleading) name
• Scented it synthetic peach
• Gave it cute packaging 

Photo: Temptalia 

And that was it! That was all it took for people to completely ignore how run-of-the-mill and boring this eyeshadow palette was. But Too Faced didn't stop there. They teased (in typical Too Faced fashion) the palette for months, gave consumers unhelpful snippets of information (like only the name of the palette), and organized one of the biggest shit shows of a palette release in recent memory. 

The Too Faced party line is that they had no way of knowing the palette was going to blow up like it did and they simply could not have expected the demand. And to that I call major bullshit. I absolutely believe every aspect of the Sweet Peach launch and ensuing fiasco was 100% orchestrated. And considering Too Faced just sold their company for $1.45 billion, I'd say they knew exactly what they were doing. 

You simply don't tease a palette for months on end and then make a fraction of the anticipated demand for it. I read reports of multiple Sephora and Ulta locations receiving less than ten palettes for the entire store! And most of those palettes ended up being sold to the employees before the average consumer had the opportunity to purchase. Websites crashed, people stayed up late into the night, and some called and/or drove to multiple stores, cities, and states just to get their hands on this. It was absolute hysteria. 

And all the while, I looked at images of the palette and did not understand whatsoever why people thought this was so special. But because I was strapped onto the derailed hype train heading for a cliff, I started wondering if I should try to get my hands on it too because there had to be some reason people were going crazy. 

And then I realized there was no reason. Too Faced created an incredibly small amount of palettes so that the demand would be enormous. Because there is nothing that sexies up an unsexy, boring product more than the idea that everyone is trying to get it and no one can. Sweet Peach was playing the oldest trick in the book: hard to get. Good move, Too Faced. I hope you enjoy your $1.45 billion. 

Let's look at the palette a little closer. The two most common "dupes" attributed to Sweet Peach are both from Makeup Revolution, a brand known for shamelessly duplicating popular items. 

There's the Chocolate Vice:

And New-trals:

But if you really look at Sweet Peach:

And take away Just Peachy and Candied Peach, you've got a pretty average (and boring) neutral palette. 

You've got Too Faced Chocolate Bon Bons:

And Ciate London x Oliva Palermo Smokey Suedes:

But it is called the "Sweet Peach," so people are most drawn to the peach shades. And that's what is so wild about the chaos: there are only two peach shades! The others lean pink or golden, which are present in both palettes listed above, and most are just straight-up brown with the crappy purples Too Faced always throws in. 

So, if you were one of the many who were unable to get your hands on the Sweet Peach palette and plan to purchase it this December (out of pride or spite or general hype sickness), I really recommend that you don't. It is very, very likely that the quality will be poor (and I'll talk about that in a moment), and you more than likely already have most of the shades in the palette. 

And if you're drawn to the idea of the peachiness of this palette (because really, the peachiness of "Sweet Peach" is just an idea and not a reality), I would like to offer you some alternatives:

First, there's Lime Crime Venus:

I think this is the only entire palette that could work with a peach vibe. 

But there's also plenty of amazing singles:

There's L'Oreal Amber Rush:

A cruelty-free dupe is Makeup Geek Grandstand:

Makeup Geek Cosmopolitan:

Photo: Temptalia

Makeup Geek Cinderella:

Makeup Geek Mango Tango:

Photo: Temptalia

Makeup Geek Mai Tai:

Makeup Geek Spell Bound:

Makeup Geek I'm Peachless:

From my own collection, I have:

Inglot 311 matte:

Inglot 314 matte:

And Inglot 361 matte:

And yeah, I get the convenience of a palette. The biggest excuse I always gave myself when I bought palettes I didn't need that were filled with shadows I already owned was that I wanted to have all these colors I already owned together in one place. And if I liked the formula, even better. But that's a bad excuse and really showed the depths of my addiction that I couldn't see past that. 

But really, you would be better off buying a Makeup Geek or Inglot palette full of peachy shades than buying the Sweet Peach palette. Even if you only bought a quad, it would most likely be a better investment for you and would be something you would use a lot more than Sweet Peach. 

I made some predictions several months ago when people were going crazy trying to find this palette. I said that since it was limited edition, the hype would burn off nearly as quickly as it came in. People on YouTube wouldn't be using it anymore since many of them have an aversion to showing anything limited edition, and there would be so many more hyped products coming out that it would get lost in the conversation. I also predicted that in a year's time, Sweet Peach would be showing up in many people's declutter videos. And sure enough, I haven't seen anyone mention their Sweet Peach palette outside of a collection video (and they are most proud to show it as "completing" their Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette collection), and I have already seen it show up A LOT in blog sales and other declutter videos. Because once the hype died down, everyone was left with what the palette always was: a boring neutral palette with uninspiring shades that everyone already owned. Oh, and two peach shades. 

I am also weary of the quality of the rereleased Sweet Peach. It has been strikingly obvious in the past year or more that Too Faced has cared way more about packaging, theme, and gimmicks than about the actual quality of their products. (Again, hope they are enjoying that $1.45 billion. Because they sure earned it convincing people to buy lackluster quality items because of a smiling peach or peanut butter sandwich.) Pretty much all Too Faced items (especially eyeshadow) that I have seen released in the past six months or have been included in their massive and unnecessary holiday releases have been of very poor quality. The Sweet Peach palette wasn't that great of quality to begin with, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the quality of this release is even worse. But that won't stop people from buying it. Because they will remember the hype of the last release and how they searched and searched and came up empty-handed. And how they felt awful every time they saw someone mention it in a haul or swatch video even though it never made an appearance again. They will want the peach packaging to complete their dark brown, light brown, and pink Chocolate Bar packaging collection. They will want to feel "complete" that they have the palette that eluded them for so long. And then that "complete" feeling will wear off almost as quickly as it came to be. And they will only have packaging and synthetic peach smells. And Too Faced will again be laughing all the way to the bank. 

The Sweet Peach palette doesn't interest me whatsoever. And it never did. And Too Faced as a brand has made me lose all interest in them with their hype tactics, gimmicky products, insane amount of mediocre releases, and now their sell to Estee Lauder. Sweet Peach is smoke and mirrors. The best thing it has going for it is a gimmick, which is pretty bad. I have plenty of gorgeous peach colors in my collection that outperform the few included in Sweet Peach. I don't need or want this palette—never did—and I won't be buying.