Lime Crime Venus 2 – Review & Swatches

Venus 2 is the second palette in Venus series from Lime Crime.

It costs £34 from UK Suppliers or $38 from Lime Crime direct. It has 16 g of product and has a 24-month shelf life once opened. It’s vegan and cruelty-free.

Described by Lime Crime as

Venus 2 recklessly pigmented eyeshadows will take your makeup game to the next level. A variety of distinct shades that create equally distinct looks.

The packaging is cardboard with a lovely large mirror in the lid. The mirror does not stand up on its own, as xSparkage would say it needs palette viagra. The outside is pretty and based on the Venus the Roman Goddess of love, although she’s had a dye job. There are 8 shadows in rusty tones for the perfect ‘grunge’ eye. If you’re like me and grew up with ‘grunge’ this is nothing like the original grunge. It’s the updated version, 2.0 if you will.

Lime Crime’s description of the colours is a little fanciful. So let’s not use those, bruised fruit anyone?

• Fly – Ivory base with a green shift, this shade is so unique, I really love it.
• Pidgeon – Dark brown base with a blue shift, it’s a beautiful shade, blends out well. The shift is still visible on the eye.
• Jam – described as Pumpkin spice creamy matte, it’s a really nice warm orange.
• Filter – described as luminous cornflower blue, it’s a baby blue and it’s nicely pigmented but can lack depth on the eye.
• Mud – described as rich burgundy-brown, the colour of spoiled fruit. It does look like the bruise colour you’d see on fruit.
• Marsh – perfectly described as a mossy green/grey.
• Boot – described as Nebula black with multi-colour sparkle. It’s black but the sparkle does fade away on application. You can retain some of it using a setting spray.
• Mustard – described as the colour of corduroy, it’s proper mustard yellow and quite unique.

The colours work really really well together. They are soft, pigmented and buttery. I know people hate that word but it’s to imply the smoothness with which they go on the skin and these do.

There’s almost no fallout with these shadows and I’ve seen little fading with the colours when they’re worn on the eye. There is a little kickback in the pan but it’s tiny because these have been well pressed. They’re not quite as finely milled as I’d expect from a palette of this price but it never affects the performance.

I’ve been using this palette for a while now and the formula is great, it hasn’t changed even though it’s long past the ‘expiry’ date. The colours are still on trend today but they’re also fairly unique. You’ll likely have dupes for some of these but not all. Fly in particular is very hard to dupe.

If you’d like this one you can get yours from UK Suppliers for £34 or $38 from Lime Crime direct.

BOOT (Eye): Mica (CI 77019), Triethylhexanoin, Zinc Stearate, Silica, Tin Oxide, Phenoxyethanol. May Contain/Peut Contenir [+/-]: Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891). FILTER/FLY/JAM/MARSH/MUD (Eye): Mica (CI 77019), Triethylhexanoin, Zinc Stearate, Phenoxyethanol. May Contain [+/-]: Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Manganese Violet (CI 77742), Red 40 Lake (CI 16035), Ultramarine Blue (CI 77007), Blue 1 Lake (CI 42090), Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140). MUSTARD/PIGEON (Eye): Mica (CI 77019), Triethylhexanoin, Zinc Stearate, Silica, Tin Oxide, Phenoxyethanol. May Contain/Peut Contenir [+/-]: Iron Oxides (CI 77491, CI 77492, CI 77499), Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891), Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140).