Sleek Ultra Matts V1 and V2 Palettes

It seems like an age since Sleek last released any I-Divine palettes but it was a welcome break. I think many of us were suffering from a little palette fatigue after the last round of quick fire releases last year. I think that it seems more special when you have a wait period between releases. I would hate for my favourite eye shadow palettes to become tiresome like the never ending MAC releases.

Sleek have managed to make these palettes a little different to the norm by including only matte shades. This is not a new concept, way back when they released Chaos which is entirely matte too. They have made some changes to the front of the packaging and have lost their signature waffle print imprints in the pans. V1 is full of bright shades, V2 is more smokey and smouldering.

The is V1. You can click the pictures to see them bigger so you can read the names. 

And V2. My personal favourite!

Matte shadows are notoriously difficult to get right. They can be less pigmented and tougher to blend than shimmery shades. Sleek has gotten it mostly right here but not completely perfect. Some shades feel creamier and better pigmented than others. Some are completely disappointing. Bamm! The yellow in V1 is very poor with almost no colour payoff. Thunder (ash grey) in V2 is equally underwhelming. But there are some gems in there too and in general if you stick a good base under them you do get good pay off.  All of these swatches are done on bare skin with one swipe of a finger and it’s easy to see which are the better shades.

Top row of V1.

Bottom row of V1.

 Top row of V2.

Bottom row of V2. 

As for how they perform on the eyes these do need a little work. The darker shades can be a little tricky to blend. I find that it helps to lay down a skin tone shade, Dune in V2 works well for me, in the crease before blending in a darker crease shade helps the darker shade to blend more easily. Here is a quick look I did using V2 yesterday using Orbit, Highness, Ink, Noir (on the upper lashline), Pillow Talk (to highlight), Dune (in the crease before adding the darker shades) and Thunder (to blend out the crease). I will play with the shades over the next few weeks and will post some looks with verdicts on the shades after thoroughly testing them.

Do you need these shades? Well if they are shades you will wear, I know some people wouldn’t, and you don’t have anything similar then I still maintain that these palettes are fab value for money. They currently cost £7 on the Sleek website and you can buy them in Superdrug too.

Sleek have now released 22 palettes (not counting the primer palette which I do not own) so there is going to be some overlap in the shades. Noir (V2 palette) is not a jet black like most of the previous shades called ‘Noir’. It’s a softer charcoal grey black than we are used to and it isn’t as pigmented as Sleek’s usual black shadows. Chill (V1) is similar to the mint blue shade in Curacao but it is slightly darker. Incidentally Curacao also contains a much more pigmented matte yellow which out performs Bamm! And matte yellow can also be found in Bohemian and Circus.  The matte blue in Curacao is similar to Bolt but slightly softer and more vibrant. Cricket is softer, more pigmented and less yellow than the matte green in Bohemian. Sugarlite is slightly pinker and less well pigmented than the matte purple in the Acid palette. Pout and Pucker in V1 are actually pretty similar, similar enough for me to think you really don’t need both and there is a hot pink in the Good Girl palette that is pretty much identical to Pout.

Whilst a couple of the shades are very good quality the more I sit here swatching comparing shades to previous palettes the more I think that a lot of these shades are lacking the exceptional quality I’ve come to expect from Sleek. They are all workable but these are not the best quality matte shades I have used and in a lot of cases I seem to prefer the older palettes. I think I will get a lot of use out of V2 but V1 just has so many shades that have been done better in older palettes in my humble opinion. So no, I don’t think these palettes are must have items sadly x

*Bought by me*

P.S Liloo suggested I start a Sleek Sunday Swatching Session (catchy ;) in which I post comparison swatches off all the palettes. For example all the purples one week, greens the next. Thoughts? Would it be useful? Any requests? xxx