A Gem of A Palete: Lorac Unzipped (Swatches)

The Lorac Unzipped palette ($42) has been on my radar for a few years now. YouTubers talk about it a lot, but not half as often as they rave about the Lorac Pro palette. The Pro comes with eight matte and eight shimmery shades, while Unzipped comes with just three mattes seven shimmers.

Last year I excitedly added the original Pro (there is now a second version) to my collection and learned the hard way that more eyeshadows and a greater number of matte shades does not a  better palette make. I wrote about it in this post and since then I have been able to use the Pro palette, but not very often.

Despite the so-so experience I had with the Pro palette, I couldn’t get the Unzipped palette out of my mind. The shades looked so buttery, so vibrant… and much more interesting than those of the popular Urban Decay NAKED 3 palette, which also features rosy pinks heavily.

As you may have surmised by now, I did finally go and get my own Lorac Unzipped palette. It’s beautiful, as you can see, and OMG guys — wait until you see the swatches (if you haven’t seen them on other blogs yet, that is). You’ll be drooling over this palette fo shizzle. Since I was bringing this home from abroad, I chucked the box early on, but you should know that it originally came in a bigger box with a mini eyeshadow primer and lipgloss included inside.

The palette itself is made of reinforced, coated cardboard with a glossy finish. There are ten square eyeshadow pans and there is a long, thin mirror included on the back of the top cover. The whole thing feels sturdy without being too heavy.
Ah, names, names! What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet! … uhm, yes. Still. I love when eyeshadows come with pretty names! Haha. These follow the beginning with “un” trend that the name of the palette set. I think it’s cute!

Of the ten eyeshadows, three (3) are matte and the other seven (7) are varying degrees of shimmery. They’re all in the sort of rose gold family, but Lorac categorises this as a general “nude” palette. If rosy tones aren’t your thing, there is a second version of the Unzipped palette that features gold tones (so more yellow based) instead.
What did I tell ya? These eyeshadows have created a buttery smooth, creamy-yet-vibrant swatch party on my forearm and my eyes gorge on this visual feast every time I look at it.

My favourite shades are Unbelievable, Unattainable, and Unreal. The shimmers all perform exceptionally well and are of crazy pigmentation levels. The mattes are above average and I like that the tones are not what we usually see. These eyeshadows wear well even without a primer, but they become even more vibrant over top of one. They last for 8 hours without a primer, and I’m guessing they’ll last even longer with one underneath (haven’t been able to test it out yet).

Here’s a bonus eye look I did using Unattainable over the entire lid, Unreal on the center of the lid, and Unbridled through the outer-v!

I highly recommend this palette, especially if you love your shimmers and pinks. It’s a gem in the world of permanent palettes and people don’t talk about it often enough.