Pan that Palette, 2022-2023

I'm starting my 2023 Eyeshadow Pan that Palette a little early. I didn't do one for 2022, and I hardly made a dent in the one I was trying in 2021. But I'm hopping on the Pan that Palette Train again! Huzzah!

Here it is with my palette of singles - but it still provides a bit of context as to where I'm starting. 

I've been working on Gilded Terra for most of July, and I'm making progress already. This palette was one I'd hardly touched before starting to pan it - it was mostly an impulse buy. But you see already there's quite a dent in the lightest shade!

In my experience panning eyeshadow, the lightest shade is always the one to go first. On my skin tone, it's the most versatile - I use it to set eye primer or to mix with a slightly-too-dark shade.

I also wanted to go into my method for panning this palette.

I try to be systematic about it, to make sure I am, in fact, putting my brush into every single shade in the palette. Being on the paler side of things, I tend to use up the lightest shades first and then hardly touch the darker shades until the end of the year. At that point, I'm furiously giving myself raccoon eyes and trying every single dark look I can think of to make a dent in the darkest shade in the palette.

But, I did some math. There are 455 different 3-color combinations in this 15-pan eyeshadow palette.

Work with me, here.

Let's assume we're only touching each shade once per eyeshadow combination. For example, a 3-color combination might include "unplugged" for the inner corner, "weekender" on the lid, and "Slow Burn" in the crease. 3 different pans, 3 different colors. Using the shade "Bloom" in the crease, "Weekender" on the lid, and "Bloom" on the lower lashline - for the sake of this experiment, that combination doesn't count, because we're using "bloom" twice.

(I know that sounds complicated, but the only thing I remember from high school calculus is that I need to rule that out).

If you add up each of the separate combinations of shades - with no repeats of shades or combinations - it totals 455.

I've already done combinations of "unplugged" and "weekender" - first "unplugged," "weekender," and "slow burn," then "unplugged," "weekender," "take a hike," and so on. Now, I'm doing combinations of "unplugged" and "slow burn."

Once I'm done with doing combinations of "unplugged," I'll repeat the process with "weekender," but NOT with "Unplugged." So the process will be - "weekender," "slow burn," "take a hike," "weekender," "slow burn," "road to nowhere," and so on.

This does result in some odd or non-ideal color combinations. "Spruce Up" and "branch out" are similar enough on my face, even though one is shimmer and one is matte.

I know that I'd rarely use a shade like "beleaf" or "like a moss" without something like this palette. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I've owned an iteration of "enjoy the view," "unplugged," and "take a hike" several times over in singles and palettes. They're pretty common shades, but I'm pretty basic.

For a different explanation on a 9-pan palette, check out this post, which I did for the Too Faced PB&J Palette, back in 2018.