Celvoke Voluntary Basis Eye Palette

In the spring of this year, Celvoke released a new and permanent range of quads called the Voluntary Basis Eye Palette (hmm, voluntary basis as opposed to what, exactly?). Unlike the previous Voluntary Eye Palettes (which I don't see these online anymore--what happened?), the new palettes have all new and unique shades, as opposed only 1 palette-unique color and the other 3 picked from their singles lineup. From online photos, palette 03 Purple caught my eyes though and that was what I went with.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

A couple of months after this palette, I also picked up Voluntary Eye Palette 06 Purple which I'll get to later (I think I'm going through some kind of purple phase ^.^"), but for now I'm going to stop here with Celvoke, with an open mind that they might turn around and really wow me with a future release. Might. 

Because three eye palettes and four eye shadow singles later, I'm still ambivalent about the brand. Again, it's neither the quality of the eye shadows (excellent, not as moist as Suqqu but still soft, smooth, pigmented, and with minimal fall-outs) nor the price point (fair enough). I'm not sure what it is I'm lukewarm about and I can't put a finger on it yet. Sure, it irked me that 3 of 4 pans from the Voluntary Eye Palettes were from the singles lineup, but the colors are decent enough that I bought a second palette.

- 03 Purple: I'm ho-hum about this palette as well. From the photos online, I thought I was getting a palette with olive, taupe, gray, and an accent pan of violet. Not your average combo of colors, right? However, I was disappointed to see it in person, because in natural light 3 of 4 pans all appear grayish-taupe and are hard to distinguish unless viewed from an angle. The shades are pretty, but after blending I can't tell them apart at all. Why on earth would they put colors that are so close together in the same palette? Anyway, the palette looks a bit washed out, but after swatching I realized all the colors medium crease shades. I suppose that's one upside, right? I do have a lot of separate highlighter and liner singles I could use, in addition to eyeliner pencils and such.

Clockwise from top left:
- Shimmer, medium intensity. An olived gray with hints of taupe when looked at directly.
- Shimmer, medium intensity. A plummy mauve.
- Shimmer, medium intensity. A semi-translucent taupe-gray.
- Metallic, medium intensity. Taupe with a metallic silver-gray sheen.