Viseart Neutral Matte Palette Review + Comparison to Sonia Kashuk Eye On Neutral Matte Palette

Today’s makeup review is on my new Viseart Eyeshadow Palette.

Everything about this palette has me conflicted! It costs 80 bucks which made me not want to buy it, but it gets universally glowing reviews which makes me want to buy it. It’s all matte which I love, but the shades have a definite slant to the warm side so the colors aren’t my favorites. It’s professional makeup so I really want to see if there’s a huge difference in quality, but I have a drugstore palette that looks almost exactly the same that was only $20. And did I mention it costs 80 bucks?!?!?

After 2 years of seeing everyone on YouTube rave about these palettes and with my 20% off VIB savings in hand I finally decided to dip my toe into the Viseart world and get it. I just had to see for myself if it’s worth the money and if it’s really 4X better than my $20 Sonia Kashuk palette. The first part of this review will be on the Viseart palette alone, the 2nd part will compare the Viseart “01 Neutral Mattes” and the Sonia Kashuk “Eye on Neutral” palettes head-ti-head.

There are 7 different Viseart palettes to choose from but they all have 12 pans of color, and the same no-frills plastic packaging. There are all matte palettes, all shimmer palettes and mixes of matte and shimmer. I chose the one I thought I’d get the most use out of which is the 01 Neutral Mattes. The Viseart website says the shadows are made in small batches by hand in France to ensure color quality and consistency.

It’s mainly comprised of warm peach and brown tones but there’s a cool grey and a cool mauve thrown in as well. If it didn’t have those two shades, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it.

The top row are all light white and peach tones, the center row has the warm browns and a terra cotta color and the bottom row has a more neutral brown with the grey, the mauve and a dark black.

Color Pay-Off/Swatches/Feel

Let me start by saying this palette was surprising in so many ways.

First, when swatching the Viseart shadows I was expecting them to feel ultra smooth, ultra creamy, ultra soft. Instead they’re much harder than I expected, they feel quite dry and a little rough to the touch.

Second, the color payout when swatching them was disappointing, especially the top row of pale shades. The first time I tried to swatch them, very little color was deposited onto my arm and they were barely visible. I had to go over them a couple times to get them to show up for the photo.

The second and bottom rows were much better but still most of them aren’t opaque or uniform in the swatch.

I wasn’t sure if the dry feel was going to be good or bad for application, because the shadows I love the most are usually more creamy than dry.

Application

I used the Viseart shadows for 2 weeks before writing the review so I could get a good feel for them, and because it wasn’t love at first use. I used them with primer and without, with my favorite brushes, and with some new higher quality brushes.

Hard to believe I put 3 coats of the palest peach on my lid… it still doesn’t look opaque. . .

From the first use I found that they tend to stick to the skin really well where you first put them but yet, the color payout wasn’t that great. When I tried to blend them out, they didn’t really move around much, so the first place the brush touched is where the eyeshadow will stayed.

Surprisingly, I found some of the shades go on more sheer than others and some go on more colorful than they look in the pan.

To get the look pictured, I used the off-white shade from the top row 2nd from right all over the lid and had to pack on 3 coats to get the pale shade I was hoping for. Then, I used the soft peach from the top row far left in my crease which goes on much more colorful than how it looks in the pan. I added the dark warm chocolate brown from the middle row far left and it went on so sheer and light I needed a few passes to build up some color but never quite got to what I was expecting. Finally, I added the black to darken up the outer corner.

The first time I used them with my usual big fluffy brushes (which I love for my older crepey eyelids) I made a real mess and applied way too much eyeshadow that wouldn’t blend right.

I found that the shadows are a bit hard to control with large fluffy brushes, so I went out and bought new, smaller, higher-quality brushes to see if they would help and they did somewhat. The technique that worked best was to use a light touch using smaller brushes to control color placement, and instead of packing on the color and then blending, it helped to apply them using blending motions to start. So I basically had to get new brushes and learn a new technique to make theme work.

The good points about the Viseart are that it’s practically impossible to make a muddy mess. The colors don’t blend together and staying fairly separated they maintain their individuality. They didn’t fade much throughout the day either, here they are just applied, after 5 hours and after 10 hours of wear:

So, all in all, I didn’t love my experience with these professional quality eyeshadows. It may be more a problem with my tools and application technique than the actual eyeshadows (it’s a reach but I need an explanation). For an amateur like me this palette definitely isn’t worth $80 (or even the $64 I paid for it on sale)! I feel like I’m the only person on the planet who didn’t like this eyeshadow palette, but oh well, live and learn. . . YouTube made me buy it and I so regret it!

Viseart “01 Neutral Matte” Vs. Sonia Kashuk “Eye on Neutral”

The first time I saw the Viseart palette on a review video my first thought was that it looked exactly like my Sonia Kashuk “Eye on Neutral” pallette. They’re both 12 square pans of color housed in a simple black plastic case with a clear hinged lid. If Sonia Kashuk wasn’t trying to knock off the Viseart palettes, then the color selection is a remarkable coincidence! Of the 12 shades, 8 are almost exact matches.

Looking at them side by side, the Viseart palette is larger and does contain more powder by weight, but is it so much more that it’s worth 4X the price? More importantly, since the colors are so similar, is the quality 4X better than the Sonia Kashuk?

Colors:

For a “neutral” palette, the Viseart is very warm overall, and it’s definitely warmer than I usually go for except in the fall when I’m into those “pumpkin spice” eye looks. The cool grey and the mauvy-taupe on the bottom row keep this from being totally warm. I don’t think I’d get much use out of the terra-cotta color in the middle row.

Top Palette: Viseart                                                                    Bottom Palette: Sonia Kashuk

By contrast, the shades in the Sonia Kashuk palette are more true neutrals in my view and personally I just prefer the tones and shades of the SK palette. It has more mid-tone shades that I can use above the crease and not so many really warm or orange tones.

The Viseart may be the more versatile of the two, but I’ll get much more use out of the colors in the SK palette.

Feel:

The first ingredient in both palettes is talc, second in Viseart is mica while second in SK is silica both of which are natural minerals that provide bulk. They feel remarkably similar… neither is particularly creamy and both are kind of dry and powdery. I can feel the talc in both, and both are sightly rough or gritty to the touch.

Swatches:

I’m careful to make the swatches the same way for each palette. I rub once on the eyeshadow to pick up color, then do one swipe on the arm. I was disappointed in the color payout when swatching the Viseart palette. I thought the Sonia Kashuk swatched much more easily, opaquely, and smoothly.

Viseart 01 Matte Neutrals Swatches

Sonia Kashuk Eye on Neutral Swatches

Application:

The Viseart shadows stick right to the skin and were more difficult to blend while the SK performed much better from a blending standpoint. In the photo below, I applied the Viseart shadows on the left and the Sonia Kashuk shadows on the right. I used the white on the lid, the 3rd peach above the crease, the mauve on the center of the lid, the grey in the crease and the black at the outer corner. I prefer the more smoothly blended eyeshadow on the right (SK side), although I feel like the actual colors are slightly more colorful on the left (Viseart side).

The eye on the left was done with the Viseart palette and the eye on the right was done with the Sonia Kashuk palette… which one do you think looks better?

Fall-Out:

They each had very little fallout. I had a couple black dots on each side when I applied the Viseart to one eye and the Sonia Kashuk to the other.

Wear:

The wear was pretty similar as well although the Viseart looks slightly better at the 10-hour mark than the SK which was faded just a bit.

Viseart Vs. Sonia Kashuk 5-Hour Wear

Viseart vs. Sonia Kashuk 10-Hour Wear

Opinion Poll:

I wore one eye done with Viseart and one eye done with Sonial Kashuk all day and asked people which eye they liked better. The vast majority of people said they looked exactly the same. It just shows how similar the palettes are that I could do the same look on each eye with a different palette and no one could tell the difference!

The Verdict:

For me, the Sonia Kashuk Palette wins hands down. I wish I had kept that $80 I spent on the Viseart palette in my wallet and used $20 of it to buy the sister palette to the Sonia Kashuk Eye on Neutral palette which is all shimmers.

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