Zoeva Goes Travel-Sized

My love of Zoeva eyeshadows and brushes is well-documented on this blog! For summer 2018 they've released three mini palettes and a mini brush set - which is great for me, given that I do tend to be away from home quite a lot. Being the fanatic I am, I actually own the full-sized products for everything in this collection so today I'm going to review the Voyager editions and compare them to the full-sized products!


Background

Zoeva is a mid-priced German makeup brand that I've been a fan of for many years - I've purchased many of their brush sets and palettes in that time and I'm really lucky that they now send me a lot of their new releases. The Voyager Collection is available now from the Zoeva website, Cult Beauty and Beauty Bay and consists of the Voyager Travel Brush Set* | £22.50 and the palettes | £11.50 each: Cocoa Blend Voyager*, Caramel Melange Voyager* and Matte Voyager*. It's not a huge deal but there's always a slight price discrepancy with the products being 50p cheaper when purchased direct from Zoeva as opposed to through Cult Beauty or Beauty Bay - I've listed Zoeva's prices here.

The first thing I noticed is that these palettes really are dinky! I've put the Voyager collection side-by-side with the standard sized products so you can really see the difference - when I first saw them on social media, I thought they were going to be almost the same size as the originals but with fewer shades but they're way more compact. I often hear YouTubers say 'no one travels so much that they'd need travel makeup' - I personally beg to differ! Having a week where I'm not away for at least 1 or 2 nights is an exception for me... I'm not saying you absolutely need these if you have the originals but if you haven't tried these palettes then I do really like the shade selections overall (we'll talk about that more later!)

The palettes

As I mentioned, my Zoeva palettes are firm favourites in my collection - the standard sizes cost £17.50 (or £18) each, so price per gram-wise, you will be paying more for the convenience of these. The existing palettes are slimline in terms of depth but are obviously quite long and wide - I've never had any issues travelling with those so it doesn't bother me at all that the Voyager collection uses the same packaging. It's cardboard with a magnetic closure, but they do invest effort into the design of these palettes, so although they don't feel super-premium, they're still pretty. I've had my oldest Zoeva palettes for quite some time and the packaging has held up perfectly.

Overall, I love the quality of Zoeva shadows - the mattes are so smooth, even and easy to work with and they have both soft, sheeny shimmers and full-on dewy foiled finishes, and they're very opaque. I don't find them the longest-lasting shadows in the world but they're at least average. I love the themes they have in their range and they're very affordable. One of the things I wanted to test was that the colour tone and quality in this range are exactly the same as the original palettes and I can confirm they're identical. I now want to go through the palette shade by shade and tell you what I think of the colour selection and how they compare to the full-sized palettes.

Let's start with Cocoa Blend - as you can probably tell, this is one of my older Zoeva palettes and it's pretty well-loved. I actually couldn't have picked a better shade selection for the mini version than the one in this Voyager palette! Besides the cream matte (I never use these but appreciate a lot of people do), these are all of the shades I use regularly from the large palette. I never use matte blacks, the micro-glitter Infusion isn't a shade I liked and although I used to wear Sweeter End quite a bit, I don't actually find the formula of this light pinky shimmer to be as good as the other shades. That only leaves the purple shimmer Delicate Acidity, which I use occasionally but could live without if I was weighing up whether to buy the full-sized palette or the mini (I may actually get rid of my big one soon, as it's pretty old and this one contains the shades I actually use from it).

I do tend to create the same look with this palette but it's one I love and it's the one I went for even with the full-sized palette. I transition it out with the warm mid-toned caramel brown matte Substitute for Love before deepening the crease with Freshly Toasted, a reddish brown matte. The light gold shimmer Pure Ganache is beautiful all over the lid and in the inner corner with the brown-bronze shimmer Subtle Blend on the outer part of the lid. Warm Notes is a cranberry-toned shimmer that can be used to add a pop of colour to the crease and /or the lower lash line.

Another of my favourites is the Caramel Melange, which I do find more versatile in its full-sized form (unlike with Cocoa Blend, which gives you a really good spread even in its Voyager form). I can create a number of different looks with minimal effort using the large palette, though obviously it's all very warm oranges, reds and golds. Besides Wax Paper (with the same reason as before), I use every single shade in the full-sized palette. The Voyager palette is entirely made up of shades I use but I do think that the burnt orange Soft Start and poppy orange-red Aftertaste are both pretty similar mattes, so I'm not sure they both needed to be in here. Personally, to introduce a bit more variation, I'd have swapped one of the two for Finish Sensual, a more neutral brown matte. This would also add a bit more depth to the shade selection. I also really like both the orange gold soft shimmer 182C (apologies I mislabeled it in the first image below - it was so hard to read!) and the foiled copper Liquid Centre, but would probably have swapped the former for Edible Gem. I know it's a controversial choice but this plum tone with gold micro-glitter is one of the few of this sort of finish that I really like and use! I think it would've added a bit more variation and smokiness to the colour selection (plus it tones down the warmth of the looks you get with this palette in a good way).

When it comes to the Caramel Melange, I wouldn't swap the full-sized version for the Voyager because the mini version is missing a few shades I really love. Although you can create a gorgeous look with the Voyager, it is going to be pretty much one look, which is very warm-toned with no shades in here to really balance things out.

Finally for the palettes; we have the Matte. This is actually the one I was going to pick up even if the whole collection hadn't been sent to me. As I mentioned in my palette declutter, I'm going to be saying goodbye to the full-sized Matte palette (my mum has already claimed it!) because I have enough neutral matte shades and didn't think I should keep it just for the handful of unique colourful shades I don't have. This was pretty much an answer to my predicament! Whilst there are a couple of neutral shades in the Voyager (which keeps things coherent) it's primarily the warm, slightly brighter shades from the original palette in here. I know I said it in my general introduction to Zoeva shadows but the formula of this is so good, and a lot of brands struggle to get matte formulas in these kinds of colours right.

Apart from Across the Street (again, for reasons already discussed), I get use out of all of these shades. Urban Culture doesn't swatch well on me as it's pretty much my skin tone, however the pigmentation is there objectively and I like this as a transition colour. You get an orange, a red, a purple and a warm brown in here, which give you variation, as well as a colour story. I really, really recommend the Voyager edition and if you (like me) already have neutral mattes for days; this is basically a collection of the most unique shades from the original palette.

The brushes

As I'm sure you can see from my image up top - these are pretty much the same as the original brushes but with shorter handles (the standard brushes do come in the black colour, it's just that my brushes are from their themed sets). The difference is subtle but will save you valuable bag space without impacting on ease of use. The full-sized brushes are £9 each, so you're actually getting a pretty good deal on this set if you know you'll use all of the brushes in here. The set comes in a little pouch with an elastic to secure it. I love Zoeva eyeshadow brushes in particular - they have fluffy, natural-synthetic mix bristles that make it easy for just about anyone to get a good application. I've not had any issues with shedding in the years I've had a lot of my Zoeva brushes, so I expect the Voyager ones will have similar longevity (however the eyeshadow brushes do have some natural bristles, as I mentioned, so can stain over time).

The Luxe Crease Brush has a large tapered shape so can be used for blending eyeshadow or to apply your transition shade. It's one of my must-have eyeshadow brushes and I reach for it almost every day. The Luxe Smoky Shader is another one I use all the time! It's perfect for laying down and blending in a darker colour on the outer part of the lid. The Brow Line is nice for applying powder brow products and even pomades but I tend to use pencils these days - I instead utilise this for tidying up my brows with concealer to get a sharp look. It isn't one of my favourites but I do have a use for it. Finally, we have the Concealer Buffer. I used to use this every single day, but I prefer to apply my current concealer of choice with my fingers. This does work really nicely though to seamlessly blend your concealer in with your foundation - the shape is also really great for getting into any awkward corners.

Have you / will you be checking out the Voyager collection? Have you tried Zoeva products before?

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Disclosure - products marked * were sent to me for consideration however all opinions remain my own.

Read more posts from this series here!