DISCLAIMER: I saw this Freedom range on Tam Beauty’s website and immediately wanted to try them out. I wrote to their PR team and asked if they would consider sending me samples to review, and they graciously accepted. Some of the links in this article will be affiliate links – revenue from these help keep the site alive and running, but this is my honest review, with, as you can hopefully see, some pretty clear swatches and pictures showing you guys this stuff is the real deal.
At the time of writing (24/01/18) Tam Beauty & Freedom are having a big sale, the magnetic palette is on sale for £3.90 (normally £6), the metallic 1 and burnt foil sets are on sale for £3.25 (normally £5), and the contour and highlight are £1.95 each, (normally £3). You can get everything I used (except highlight 01 which has vanished from the site) for £14.30 reduced from £22 total. Not too shabby.
I love the idea of magnetic palettes. Who doesn’t? They’re perfect for travellers, beginners, hoarders, minimalists – you name it, they need one. So what are our options when it comes to purchasing our magnetic blank canvases?
Well, there are quite a few options (some pictured) but even on sites like Amazon and eBay, a knock-off is going to cost you about a tenner to store 18 shadows. Rip off!
That’s why I initially became interested in the Freedom Mega Pro palette, which will hold a whopping 30 eye shadows for £6. It’s sturdy plastic rather than cardboard, and has a enormous mirror.
Other palettes range from 38p-£1 per shadow stored, whereas with Freedom you’re paying just 20p.
When it comes to magnetic palettes, why anyone would buy anything besides the Freedom one is beyond me. But what about the shadows themselves?
I filled my Freedom Mega Pro palette with
- HD Eye foils Metallic 1 – £5
- HD Eye foils Burnt – £5
- HD Pro Refills Pro – Contour 02 – £3
- HD Pro Refills Pro – Highlight 01 & 02 – £3 each (01 no longer seems to be available on TAM’s site)
- HD Pro Refills Pro Eyeshadow – Shimmer 10 – £2
At £2 per shadow or five for £5, you can get a lot for your money. They have a fairly impressive range, where you may not necessarily find every colour under the sun, but there’s a nice selection of warm tones and neutrals, as well as some electric blues and purples in the Bright set.
Freedom also offer blushes and banana powder in their refillable line, but I have not tested these so cannot speak to their quality.
I’ve spent the last two months testing the eye shadows out, and putting them up against bigger and more expensive brands like Too Faced, Juvia’s Place, and Makeup Geek.
Comparing the shades to more expensive brands helped me test the pigment of the shadows. Pictured above are the three matte shades compared to Too Faced’s Peaches & Cream palette.
Which order are the shades in? Is Freedom on top, or TF? I’ll tell you later.
Pictured above is a Freedom (£1 p/s*) shade compared to the closest comparable shades I could find from Juvia’s Place (£2.50 p/s), Makeup Geek (£7.95 p/s), and Too Faced (£2.40 p/s).
*p/s – per shade
Here’s Too Faced vs Freedom again – have you guessed which brand is on top in the picture?
…
Freedom is on the top!
The pigment on these eye shadows is great. It will surprise no-one that the foiled and shimmery shades are far stronger than the mattes, but the mattes do hold their own against the more luxury brands and are significantly better than some I’ve seen/tried, such as No7’s Glamorous Nudes palette, and the Soap and Glory eye palette that came in last years Winter Wonderglam.
They blended really nicely together, and with other shadows.
A few friends and I wear tested them and – while the shadows won’t last the whole day looking the same as they did when they went on – they did no worse than shadows of other brands when doing a half & half face. At the end of the day my eyes still looked like they had shadow on – but just blurred orange-y pink, rather than easily distinguishable colours.
I never thought I’d find myself saying I’d found a contour shade too light for me, but here we are. It’s the third swatch in the picture on the right. But I actually enjoy it, it’s subtle, I can trace out and soften my contour areas with it, and go in with something else later to deepen it up and give a nice gradient.
The highlights are very subtle, and not very build-able. Two or three layers is as much as you’re going to be able to put on, you won’t see much of a difference, and adding anything beyond that starts to look chalky. But they are very nice colours, and if you’re into a natural, earthy glow, it’s definitely worth swatching them in store at Superdrug and making your own mind up.
Final Verdict
Freedom magnetic palette – 5/5, why would anyone buy anything else? It’s made of a sturdier material, holds more shadows, and has a bigger mirror than almost anything else on the market, for less than half the price.
Freedom eye shadows – 4/5, I would thoroughly recommend these. If you’re a beginner, get these, they’re a perfect balance between pigmented and forgiving. If you want to experiment with techniques or colours, get them, the foils are as bold and glamorous as anything else you could buy, and the mattes are functional and build-able. If you just love having stuff, get them, they’ll blend in nicely with all your other stuff!
Freedom Contour – 3.5/5, I feel like with a darker shade I would have enjoyed this more, which is entirely my fault, but it works just as nicely as my Makeup Geek contour pan for way cheaper.
Freedom Highlighter – 2/5, there are more colours to be tried of course, but the two I had were very natural and subtle, which would be fine if they were build-able. They’re not, and they do pick up texture quite a bit.
University drop-out, pretend artist, makeup enthusiast. Uses too many brackets when writing. Can’t be stopped.
Thanks for a great review..proving expensive doesn’t always mean best.