Colored Raine Safari Raine Collection

So far this year, the Colored Raine Safari Raine palette is the best I’ve seen in terms of pigment saturation and quality. I didn’t know much about the brand to be honest so after a quick Google, I’ve discovered that Colored Raine was founded in the US by Loraine R Dowdy who left a career in the finance industry to create an inclusive make-up line in 2013. It’s well worth looking through the site because they have some stunning imagery HERE.

Safari Raine takes a jungle theme – rich and deep colours for all skin tones in a mix of matte and metallics. The metals, by the way, go on to the lids like liquid, they’re so gleaming and soft. There’s very little drop but I did need to ‘tidy’ after applying Amazon Basin, my favourite shade from the 9 pan palette. It’s just gorgeous. I used it over my lid only with black khol liner on inner and outer rims – and tons of mascara, of course. It’s absolutely lovely. I’ll get straight into the swatch so you can see the other shades.

I mean, just looooook! I always use one swipe of a sponge applicator and the level of colour that came out in the swatch was stunning. It’s going straight into my favourite palette stack – I’ve got a one-in, one-out policy so I have a dilemma coming! So from bottom to top it’s: Toucan, Clay, Tigress, Jungle, Green Valley, Congo Basin, Matriarch, Amazon Basin and Lioness. On my lids, the metallic shades are smouldering – the colour radiates and actually I didn’t muddy the waters with any other shadows at all – just a bit of brow colour for balance but I left the upper eye area bare.

The lipsticks aren’t quite right for me being matte, but I love the depth of colour in them and the fact that they’re creamy and soft feeling.  They’re not expensive at £11.40 (the palette is reasonable too at £29.66 – they ship directly from the US site hence the conversion prices). Shades from left to right are: May She Raine, Huntress and Queendom.

There’s no issue whatsoever with pigment – rich and full – but I didn’t test for longevity.

Finally, the most mahooosive lashes I’ve ever seen! They’re faux, of course, but oh my – so fluffy. I can’t imagine wearing them but I can imagine how stunning they’d look on the right person (not me!). My info says that they should be good for about 15-20 wears so £15.21 doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

My one tiny gripe about the palette is that the cardboard casing isn’t strong enough for the lid to sit up – it just automatically falls flat and if you’re trying to use the palette mirror, you’ll need something to prop it. Other than that, I’m really blown away – the pigment and pay-off is better than Urban Decay if you need a benchmark. The other thing you need to know is that there will be shipping charges calculated at the time of order so I don’t have a way of calculating what that might be so you may be better to wait and see if it appears on BeautyBay where there is a good stock of the brand’s other offerings. They also sell singles and I’d highly recommend getting one of those even if you don’t fancy the palette, just to try the incredible metallics. They’re £5 each HERE non aff HERE and I’d recommend Golden Olive as close to Amazon Basin.