What I'm Not Buying: Zoeva Matte Spectrum Palette

Zoeva's latest release is a colorful, all matte palette that looks, honestly, very beautiful. 

But I won't be buying. 

This post is going to be a little different for me. I usually give you all the reasons why I personally am not going to buy a new product so that it might curb the hype or help you make a more informed decision on purchasing a product or not. 

And it's true that I am not going to buy this palette. The reason I am not going to buy it is because I already own Viseart Dark Matte:

As you can see, there are a LOT of similarities between the Matte Spectrum and Dark Matte palettes. The major difference is that Matte Spectrum offers more colors and includes the light end of the spectrum. 

When I write anti-haul posts about all matte palettes, I usually acknowledge that they are very similar to most everything on the market, are not unique, and bring little to the table. And I use Dark Matte as a reference point because this is one of the most unique and beautiful selections of matte colors I have seen. Dark Matte is also a perfect matte palette for people who have dark and deep skin tones, and I support the fact that this is a palette inclusive of everyone. 

I would not be surprised at all if Zoeva was inspired by Dark Matte in creating the Matte Spectrum palette. The similarities are too close for it to be a coincidence, in my opinion. 

Here's the thing. I've had a lot of people comment that they are lusting after Dark Matte, especially because I rave about it. Dark Matte was once a palette that I regretted purchasing and one that I seriously considered decluttering from my collection because I never used it. Because of my one week, one palette project where I forced myself to use color (and subsequently fell in love with it), I found Dark Matte to be an "essential" palette for me. I use quotes because, come one, this is makeup. Nothing is essential. But to put it into perspective, I use Dark Matte way more than I use Viseart Neutral Matte. 

And the main reason people hesitate purchasing Dark Matte is because it is a hefty $80. That is a ton of money to spend on a palette no matter your budget. And because I knew how little I once used Dark Matte, I hesitate to tell anyone that this palette is worth spending $80. I'm so glad I have this palette now (I used it today, in fact), but for a long while, I very much regretted spending the money on this. 

To be fair, I have no idea how the quality is for the Zoeva palette. I have only owned one Zoeva palette, and it was Cocoa Blend. The mattes in that palette are incredible, and they are absolutely shadows that I wouldn't part with. I ended up depotting Cocoa Blend into my singles palette and I decluttered some of the redundant shades and the shadows that I knew I wouldn't use much, but I kept all but one of the matte shades.

The Matte Spectrum palette is $40 USD. According to the Zoeva website, shipping to the US starts at $9. I know when I ordered Cocoa Blend last year shipping was around $13 to New York City. I have no idea if shipping rates have gone down at all. With that being said, Matte Spectrum is not a cheap palette. It is as expensive as palettes in the mid-range, like the Naked palettes or Chocolate Bar palettes. So, it is not as though this is drug store pricing, meaning $20 or less. But, without shipping, this palette is half the cost of Dark Matte. With shipping, it's still around $30 less than Dark Matte. And there are more shadows.

So, if the quality of the Matte Spectrum palette is the same as the Cocoa Blend palette, I would not hesitate to recommend Matte Spectrum if you have been wanting Dark Matte but don't want to pull the trigger because of price.

Here are swatches of Matte Spectrum:

Photo: ConMdeMiriam Makeup

And swatches of Dark Matte:

It's important to keep in mind that both photos show heavy, unrealistic swatches. But you can still tell that the colors are incredibly similar. 

Switching back to my normal anti-haul format, in all honestly, I was tempted by Matte Spectrum. And that is so hilarious to me because I so obviously already own literally all of the colors. As I've said, I really love my Zoeva mattes and this is clearly a color scheme that I like, and because of that, I was tempted. 

But, in all honesty, if both palettes were the same price, I would still choose Viseart. And the reason is because I prefer the tones of the Dark Matte shadows. I feel like they all have almost a brown tone in them that I feel makes them incredibly wearable. The Zoeva colors look much more bright and "true" to color. 

And I realize that I said I prefer Viseart when I just said I think Matte Spectrum would be a great alternative for those who don't want to spend $80 on Dark Matte. But I am also being honest with the fact that I prefer what I already own. And that's great for me because there really isn't any temptation once that is realized. 

Matte Spectrum is also a good reminder for me that sometimes brands come out with "new" products that are just repackaging old products that I already own. Sometimes brands will put it in really pretty packaging so that it tempts us or they will rearrange the colors so that it tricks our brains into thinking that it is something new. And, truthfully, Matte Spectrum is somewhat different. It has lighter colors that I might use as transition colors and cream shades that I would use under the brow bone. Dark Matte doesn't have those, so I had a moment where I thought maybe it was different. But it's not. Not really. It's just a new way of looking at colors that I've had in my collection for over a year. So while I can certainly see why people will be drawn to this palette, it's not unique to my collection, and I won't be buying.