Coca-Cola: Is it the 'Real Thing'?

Jul 13, 2020

A review on the Morphe X Coca-Cola Palette.

This post is in no way sponsored or affiliated with Morphe or Coca-Cola

On June 18th, Morphe launched five limited-edition “Coca-Cola” inspired Products: lip gloss, loose highlighter, brushes, and an eyeshadow palette.

The collaboration hit me in the heart, my Gramma had loved her coke, and the launch was right near her birthday. It felt like a reminder that she was still around, so I purchased the palette. I didn't really look at the colours, it was more sentimental to me.

The hyped-up release of the 18-shade palette sold out in 24 hours.

Before it arrived my sister told me that some beauty gurus were disappointed with the palette. I chose not to read other reviews until I had received mine. On July 7th, my Palette arrived.

Packaging

The packaging is simple but effective. The box is black on the bottom, red on the top. ‘Coca-Cola’ in its classic font adorns the top of the box.

To be honest, it reminds me of a Coke Zero can.

Inside, the same colour scheme continues, with black taking lead as the main colour. The use of black as the palette background, surrounding each of the one-inch pans causes the colours to intensify. Although the names of the colours are not printed above or below the pan, a clear insert sits on top of the shadows with the names of each.

.I was pleasantly surprised to see a mirror embedded in the lid. I will also say, the safety of the palette was taken into consideration when packing.

I noticed the palette is bubbled wrapped twice, Considering our mailman isn’t ‘gentle’ I appreciate the extra protection.

COLOURS:

The Colours are described by Morphe as:

“Let those good-time vibes run wild, babe. From ice-cold blues and iconic reds to energizing neutrals, this palette of powerful shades has a legendary life of its own.”

the website describes the shadows as mattes and shimmers.

I'm not sure where they got that information from. just from looking at the palette, I can see a mix of mattes, shimmers, metallics and glitter.

The colours seem extremely pigmented, with the red shades popping, I found it hard to decipher if the colours are actually pigmented or it is just the illusion of the black background.

I notice an alarming number of brown shades. There are 5 matte browns plus the shimmers and metallics which bring the brown total to nine. Gold? Copper? Why are these needed?

As I scanned each row, I was surprised by the lone blue in the middle of the palette. Morphe writes that the palette contains ‘ice-cold blues’. That 's' on the end of 'blue' makes me believe there will be more than one

In fact, The 2020 Pantone colour of the Year is ‘Classic Blue'. The Blue shade included in the palette looks to be the shade, ‘Denim’.I would have been all for having more shades of blue instead of all these matte browns.

In my opinion, ‘Cool Story’ was just added to fill space and we all can tell.

‘Iconic Reds’, really? There are three.

if it’s so iconic, why isn’t it the focus?

Personally, I would have included a red shimmer, A dark poppy for depth, A pink perhaps. it is also brought to my attention that the other classic coke colours: White and Black, are not included.

Pros & Cons

Starting at the top left and working right

Fizz is an iridescent shimmer, making it the perfect Highlight, it is however, almost invisible without a light shining directly on it. It is not true to the website swatch, but nonetheless, it is gorgeous.

Bubble Up and Recognized are both very light. They match my skin tone enough so perfectly they seem invisible. Both would as wonderful as base colour to build on to.

Real Thing: This is our first, matte brown. I have no other comments, it is nothing special

Awaken: highly pigmented copper metallic, when used with a primer the colour stayed true, even after I was touching it.

Name Drop: This is our second, matte brown. I have no other comments, it is nothing special

Open Up:

Cool Story: This is our Denim blue, I was so excited for this colour. When I think of Coca-Cola, I think stampede, cowboys and jeans. This colour is not the same as the online swatch, it is beautiful, however it is not as advertised.

Always Bright is a cherry red, while it looks gorgeous in the pan, I found this colour hard to blend while still keeping the colour vibrant. It went 'muddy' very quickly even with a primer.

Good in Red would be considered a true red, it is highly pigmented and easy to blend. It is gorgeous.

Pop Culture is a red glitter. I have nothing nice to say about this one. It did not stay and when attempting to ‘blend', the colour seems to come off the glitter. the colour did however stain my skin. It has no 'staying power' either.

Add Life is a gold metallic and honestly, it’s nothing special. It’s a nice colour but no real dimension. I also found it clumpy when coming out of the pan, it needed to be pressed into the skin and ‘shimmied’ to get the lumps.

Happiness this brown glitter shadow is actually super cool. It seems to have intension silver glitter mixed with the brown glitter, it actually looks like bubbles in coca-cola. It didn't have any of the problems that the red glitter had.

Can Do is a slate grey metallic which is highly pigmented and very ‘IN’ this season. But I don't know how it goes with a Coca-cola palette..

Move It: metallic brown and again, it’s nothing special. It’s a nice colour but no real dimension. I found it clumped as well as had the most fall out

All the Feels, Energetic & Refreshing are completely boring and uninspired matte browns.