Rainbow palettes are always fun, and though 30-pan palettes are daunting, I was inspired by ColourPop’s Fade Into Hue palette (their take on rainbows) to put together what I envisioned as a rainbow palette at this scale that would grab my attention–I’m really more into smaller color stories (like 10-15-pan palettes), but it’s always fun to challenge myself to think beyond that!. I had a concept for each row, but I did use existing products from the get-go (instead of doing a digital mockup) so if something catches your fancy, it DOES, in fact, exist!
Here’s how I wanted the palette to work out:
- Iridescent/Sparkling Top Coats: The first row was designed to be a row of iridescent/sparkling top coats that could be used wet/dry, individually or layered over other shades to lighten/brighten. Did I cheat by going for all Clionadh Multichromes? Probably. I definitely wasn’t envisioning Multichromes – just more iridescent or duochrome with a translucent base.
- Duochromes: The second row was all about more mid-depth duochrome shades for each color family.
- Brighter/Mid-depth Mattes: The third row was about brighter and more mid-depth matte shades that would coordinate with the shimmer shades selected for each color family. These would be more “typical” for inclusion in rainbow-inspired palettes!
- Deep Shimmers: The fourth row was designed to offer deeper, richer shimmer eyeshadows for each color family. In a real dream scenario, these would be more satin-to-pearl in finish, almost working as a psuedo-matte as well as a shimmer (and would play particularly well with the first row). I didn’t want to create a digital mockup and then pick real versions, so I just stuck with what does exist in permanent ranges.
- Deeper Mattes: The fifth row was selecting deeper mattes for each color family that would support the shimmers and contrast with the mid-depth mattes. I think with a rainbow-inspired palette with so much color that part of playing is to layer and create in-between shades.
See below for the shades in each column (which is by color family, effectively!):