The Cargo Vintage Escape palette is my favourite TK Maxx find in a while. Apologies for it looking less than pristine but I’ve been using it for a week and apparently I like to smudge stuff around when I do my makeup. The outer packaging is tan faux leather with a mirror and magnetic closure – mine is a bit battered but still secure. I’d personally dump the brush which seems much lower quality to the one I got in my other Cargo palette.
The colours in this are lovely and I really like the formula of most of the Cargo shadows that I’ve tried; the mattes are mostly fine but the shimmery and satin shades tend to be really smooth and pigmented, and easy to use. Admittedly the warm tones might be more suited to autumn than spring winter, and the three shimmery bronzey/coppery shades are a bit similar, but I think you could take this away with you for a weekend and not need any other eye products apart from liner and mascara.
Onto the swatches!
The first quad of the palette is made up of the palest four shades, all of which are soft and buttery (I’m sorry, I’m sorry). Harvest Moon, Crisp, and Cuddle don’t show up much on my super pale skin but are a great satin base colour, a really very shimmery champagne highlight, and a pretty pale pink shimmer respectively. Hot Cocoa is a useful, if not exciting,
warm-toned matte which blends well.
The second quad are all gorgeous and very warm. Frolic and Cinnamon are both really pigmented and shimmery, and Autumn is much nicer on the skin than in the pan; I was scared it was going to be too orange but it’s actually more neutral than that. It’s probably not going to get as much use as the others but it’s handy to have a matte brown in there, and it’s a really smooth consistency. Withered Leaves is much prettier in person, with gold sparkles which really catch the light – sadly you can’t capture that in a photo without any bloody sun…
The third quad is a bit of a mixed bag. Twigs, a pretty blue-grey shimmer, is slightly powdery, and Rustic, a warm coppery shimmer with a lot of sparkle, is smooth and really pigmented. Black Crow and Chestnut are the two most disappointing colours in the palette. Both are matte and although they don’t feel particularly chalky, they’re patchy and need a lot of layering to get decent pigment. Black Crow is a charcoal at most and Chestnut is a surprisingly cool-toned deep brown, if you can get the stubborn bastard to actually give up its colour.
All in all, I think it’s a rather great palette. The mattes could be better but they’re workable and the shimmers are, for the most part, really lovely. Cargo isn’t widely available in the UK, which is a shame, but Debenhams do occasionally have some stock. I found the Vintage Escape Palette at Fragrance Direct here for £12.99 (RRP £35.00) or keep an eye out at your local TK Maxx.
cashmere mouse 