What I'm Not Buying: Tarte Tarteist Pro Palette

Tarte has released the Tarteist Pro palette, which is filled with 16 matte shadows and 4 metallic shimmers. 

And I won't be buying. 

Pathetically, it actually makes me a little sad to say I won't be buying this. When it first launched and I saw the promo pictures, I really thought this would be an item I would purchase, mainly for the third column of shadows. I've loved berries and mauves on my eyes ever since I purchased the Tartelette in Bloom palette, so this one really called out to me. 

But I don't need it, and really, there is nothing all that special going on here. 

Before I get into all of that, I want to talk about Tarte's new marketing tactics and why they are pushing me further away from their brand and wanting to purchase from them. Several years ago, most people didn't think about Tarte. Everything from their line was "meh" and boring until they released the Amazonian Clay Blushes. People went crazy over those, the product was incredibly successful, and then Tarte was known as the brand with "the" blushes to get and "meh" everything else. 

Recently Tarte has decided to aggressively change that image, but I don't think they are going about it in the right way. The "right way," in my opinion, is creating a top-notch formula of products that are unique in concept and are on par with or outperform the existing top-notch market. I do think Tarte has made some strides in terms of eyeshadow formula, but that was most notable in the Rainforest of the Sea palette that had a completely different formula from anything else in the brand's line. I was really hopeful that the palette would be the stepping stone for Tarte to completely overhaul their eyeshadow formula, but disappointingly, the Rainforest of the Sea seems to be a random one-off palette for Tarte. 

The "wrong way" to go about changing one's image, in my opinion, is to do everything Tarte is doing right now, which is to go the "influencer" route and send YouTube personalities on exotic and very expensive tropical vacations as they release a new product. With the launch of the Tarteist Pro, they sent YouTube reviewers on a trip to Bora Bora. 

Tarte is also trying to "cool" up their lingo, which, as an adult woman, I find really childish and annoying. People across the beauty community have made fun of Tarte for this, comparing them to the "Fellow Kids" meme. 

Here are some of Tarte's new lipstick names:

• Bae
• Twerk
• Yaassss
• Tbt
• Manbun
• Cray Cray

Lipliner names:

• Totes
• On Fleek
• Squad
• Latergram

And names from the Tarteist Pro Palette:

• Profesh 
• No Filter
• Trendy

About the Tarteist Pro palette, Tarte has said, "Take a makeup artist home with this high-performance Pro palette for Instagram-worthy looks."

Ugh. Stop, Tarte. Please. 

To be honest, this kind of marketing is trying so hard that I actually find it quite off-putting. I don't care whatsoever if my makeup is "Instagram-worthy." I care if it looks good for what I want it to be in real life, not on the internet. Many professional makeup artists have come forward and said that makeup for photoshoots or to be flattering on Instagram does not look flattering in real life, and that there are different techniques to execute the different looks. Most beauty consumers are going to want makeup application that looks good in day-to-day life. 

Marketing this product as "Instagram-worthy" accompanied by taking several YouTube personalities on an exotic vacation so they will shill your products is not a way to make me interested in it. If fact, it is a perfect storm to make me not want to buy it and to start moving away from your brand altogether because it feels like you're more interested in being "popular" or "friends with the popular kids" than you are about creating a quality product and letting it speak for itself. 

I'll move on to my thoughts about the actual product. 

Typically, I like to look at shadow pigments when possible so I can just see the colors without all the influence of packaging and presentation. 

This tactic wasn't all that helpful for me this time because all these pigments look absolutely stunning together. And they should, at least for me, because I love warm-toned peaches and berries, and this palette is full of them. 

But then I looked at the swatches:

(As a side note, I find it really obnoxious that Tarte doesn't offer promotional swatch photos of different skin tones other than fair.)

The swatches got me a little less excited and kind of brought me back down to earth. But still, there are some pretty colors going on here. I love the tropical peach color (third on the top), as well as the mauve-gray, orange, cherry, and plum. But the rest of the shades feel incredibly basic and similar to each other. On my warm olive skin, the four darkest shades will all translate onto the eye very similarly, as will the two white shades and the lightest four transition shades. 

As for the shimmers, there is absolutely nothing new going on there. There's a peachy gold shade, which looks really similar (though not as stunning) to L'Oreal Amber Rush:

A white gold shade that looks like MAC Nylon:

A taupe mauve that looks like MAC Sable:

And a blue-brown duo chrome that looks like MAC's Blue Brown pigment, the Definer shade in the Wet N Wild Comfort Zone palette, and MAC's Club:

The Tarteist Pro also reminds me a lot of the Tartelette in Bloom palette, which is probably why I had such a strong pull to it. 

I do think it's a little strange that Tarte came out with a permanent palette that looks so similar to another one already in their permanent line. The Tarteist Pro palette feels like an extension of the Tartelette in Bloom, which in some ways is really cool, but since I already have the Tartelette in Bloom, there would be a lot of overlap. 

Still, I couldn't quite stop feeling drawn into the colors of the Tarteist Pro until I saw Temptalia's swatches. It will be interesting to see how the shadows perform in her review, but I wasn't all that impressed with the swatches. The colors seemed to be in the realm of what I've come to expect from Tarte: not the worst, but certainly not the best. 

Looking at the swatches also helped me to see that I was not, in fact, lusting after this entire palette. I was lusting after pretty much one shade: Mod. And I already have that shade! I have several in the Lime Crime Venus palette alone! 

The Tarteist Pro palette retails for $53. While I don't think that is an unreasonable price considering the size and the cost of most Tarte palettes, that is still an incredible amount of money when I already have all of the colors in the palette already, the quality is likely not outstanding, and I'm really only drawn to one shade. 

With the way Tarte is currently handling their marketing, my interest is being pushed further and further away from this brand. I care how objective reviewers think the palette performs. I don't care to watch YouTube personalities make videos about their amazing Tarte-sponsored Bora Bora vacations and then gush about the latest from Tarte. I don't care enough about anything other than product quality. This marketing also tells me that I am no longer in Tarte's target audience. And that's strange to me because Tarte's products aren't cheap. They don't have pricing set for a high school student's allowance. I just find the entire brand to be in an identity crisis at the moment, and I'm not all that interested in anything they are putting forward. The Tarteist Pro palette is pretty, but it looks so similar to the Tartelette in Bloom and everything else I already own. And I won't be buying. 

What I'm Not Buying: Tarte Pretty Paintbox Holiday 2016

In holiday marketing season tradition, Tarte has released another giant book-like palette that is overwhelming in size and selection and lacking in quality and practicality for everyday use. 

And I won't be buying. 

At first glance, this seems to be totally the opposite of the Hourglass holiday offering that was quite (in my opinion) the ripoff. Tarte boasts that this palette is a $418 value for $59. If that seems to good to be true, it's because it absolutely is. 

As I mentioned in my post about the Tarte Color Wheel holiday blush palette, the values of these palettes are incorrectly calculated since the quality is not the same as items in their permanent collection. If these shadows were the same quality as the Tartelette in Bloom palette, and the blushes the same as the ones in their permanent line, this would absolutely be a steal. But they're not. At all. 

Tarte's eyeshadows and blushes that are a part of their permanent line are made in the USA. These huge holiday palettes are made in China. The formula and quality is not the same as that of their permanent line. And because of that, saying this is a $418 value is wrong. 

The Pretty Paintbox looks very similar to last year's holiday offering: 

Let's compare close-ups of the two.

Holiday 2016

Photo: Musings of a Muse

Holiday 2015

As you can see, the color selection from the Pretty Paintbox is quite similar, nearly identical, to the holiday 2015 palette. If you have the holiday 2015 palette and were hoping for new colors to add to your collection, the Pretty Paintbox is absolutely not the palette to get. 

And these are also shades that we've seen time and again from Tarte. It seems as though very little thought has gone into this palette, which again, doesn't give the palette much value. 

If you have much of a makeup collection, you absolutely already have these colors in your collection. And if you're new to makeup and thinking this is a great way to get a bunch of shadows at a low cost, you are better off buying better quality eyeshadows. 

Reviews for the Pretty Paintbox have been pretty bad. There have been numerous complaints about pigmentation, especially in the lighter colors. The texture has been described as dry and very dissimilar to Tarte's traditional texture. Some reviewers have even said they are retuning this palette because the quality is so bad that it did not justify the price. And that's the $59 price, not the inflated $418 value price. 

To be fair, even as an eyeshadow junkie, holiday palettes have never really interested me that much. And it's because the quality just never felt the same. I don't care about holiday packaging or holiday-themed color names. I don't have the "fear of missing out" because I see all the reviewers get every holiday palette or because the palettes are limited edition and I won't be able to get them once they sell out. I want a quality product, and I've always found the majority of holiday releases to be lackluster. 

I have two limited edition palettes in my collection. Both are great, and one of them is from Tarte. It is the Rainforest of the Sea palette, and I purchased mine soon after it was released in March. As of late September, it is still for sale. 

Because of this palette, I absolutely cannot give Tarte a pass on such a bad quality holiday release. The Rainforest of the Sea palette is one of my absolute favorites. The packaging is gorgeous, compact, and functional, and the quality is the best I have seen from the brand. The formula of the shadows reminds me of the Make Up For Ever Artist Shadows, and those are among my all-time favorite. I was really hopeful that Tarte was going to adopt this incredible formula into all of their future releases, but it looks as though it is tied exclusively to the Rainforest of the Sea palette. (It is also worth mentioning that the Rainforest of the Sea palette was not made in the USA, like the shadows in Tarte's permanent line. It was made in Italy, and nearly all of the best shadows I have ever tried have been made in Italy.)

Because Rainforest of the Sea is so good, it is immensely disappointing that this huge holiday offering is so bad. But, for what it's worth, even if the Pretty Paintbox had received glowing reviews, I still would not have purchased it. And the reason for this is because I already have all of those shadows in my collection, and this palette is so bulky. It would not be convenient for me to pull such a huge item out to do my makeup on a regular basis. 

It may seem simple, but in the future, I hope Tarte learns the simple lessons of less is more and quality over quantity. 

If you were really interested in the general color scheme of the Pretty Paintbox and wanted to dip your toes into Tarte's eyeshadows, I really recommend the Tartelette in Bloom palette. 

This is the number-one palette I recommend to people. I think it is a perfect palette and perfectly curated. There are shades that will flatter all skin tones, from light, medium, and deep, to those with warm, cool, neutral, and olive undertones. There are only three shimmers, but they are (in my opinion) the perfect shimmers colors to build beautiful looks. 

When I see Tarte have the ability to make a palette like Tartelette in Bloom and Rainforest of the Sea, the Pretty Paintbox looks like nothing more than a waste of money. And I won't be buying.