The nostalgia train keeps rolling right along with the latest reinterpretation of a pop culture classic: Hocus Pocus 2. And king of Disney collabs ColourPop is right there to turn it into a Halloween collection of your sweetest nightmares.
Strap yourselves in, kittens - this is gonna be a big'n! I bought the whole damn kit'n'caboodle of the Hocus Pocus 2 collection...and I have thoughts!
First of all, the artwork for this collection is perfection. I've been lukewarm to both of the previous HP collections from ColourPop. I tried to get the first palette in that bungled launch that they had, and then just gave up trying. Last year's palette was slightly more what I had in mind in terms of both a Halloween collection and something that represents the movie, but it still wasn't quite enough to get me to pull the trigger...or wave the wand...or whatevah.
Well, now here we are with the whole damn collection. This palette hits the high notes of what I'm looking for in a Halloween collection and color story. The emphasis on green, purple, and orange is very in-line with what I think of as the typical Halloween colors, and they also represent the colorful costuming of the original and sequel movies. The palette is my favorite part of the collection, so let's start there, and then we'll cover the rest of the collection.
Swatches of the palette were done over the Ulta Matte eye primer with a finger swatch on the left and a brush swatch on the right. The top photo is under my studio lighting with no flash, and the bottom photo is under the same lighting with a flash. Normally I go horizontally across the palette, but look at this thing. You get it.
Candle is Alight is a pale golden shimmer with a greenish undertone. 29 Years is a medium cool brown shimmer with a green shift. Come to Us is a medium to deep brown matte. I appreciate the greenish tones in these shimmers, but this row is a little ho hum.
Spell Book is a peachy beige matte. This is a nice light shade, but I wish they would have made it even more peachy to really go with these gorgeous orange tones. Marvelous is a peachy orange with a strong golden shift. It's odd that it sheered out so much with a finger, but the glittery reflect is still really beautiful. Doomed is a bright medium orange matte, very pumpkin orange, perfect for the season.
Cursed is a pale lime matte with glitter in it. Please, for the love of GAWD, stop making shades like this! There is nothing holding the glitter into the shadow and it's immediately everywhere. Blend for half a second, and it's everywhere except on the eye. It's a beautiful base shade, but fuck! Brew Another Batch is a grassy green shimmer with golden tones. This is a lovely springy green and I love the yellow lean. Night of Sins is a forest green matte, a little dry and stiff, but definitely workable.
Havoc is a slightly purple tinged greige shade. This is fine, and it does give a little bit of calmness next to the other two purple shades, but I would have preferred a more lilac pale shade for this row. Wicked Ways is gorgeous, a violet-fuchsia base with a strong blue shift. Not terribly unique, but a good interpretation of this staple shimmer shade. Observe is a gorgeous deep purple with red undertones. This one struggled a little on top of the primer, and got weird around the edges, but I love the way the hints of red emerge.
17th Century is a lovely silver shimmer that has golden glittery tones that make the shade really interesting. I love shimmers that sort of mix silver and gold together, and this is an interesting combo. Witch Hunters is a medium gray matte, a little boring, but certainly appropriate for spooky season. Till Midnight is an ok black matte. It's definitely black, not charcoal gray, but it's a little bit patchy to apply, especially if there is any tackiness to your primer.
I love that this palette hits all the main color notes that I would want in a Halloween palette, but there are a few oddball choices. I think that a few shade tweaks here and there, maybe a surprising pop of red, could have made this really great, but I think it's solid, and the performance is pretty decent. There are a few shades that can be a little finicky depending on the primer situation, application, technique, etc. but there were no shades that I found to be particularly painful to work with. These are lovely shades in fun little monochromatic trios, and I think that this will give you spooky season inspo untilthe next Hocus Pocus sequel rolls around.
I want to love Jelly Much shadows - I really do! I've bought quite a few of them over the years, but whenever I go to use them I find hardened clumps of glittery concrete. These are gorgeous when you first get them, but in my experience, you'd better use them fast. I ordered a couple of the green shades that came with the Limelight palette, and they were dried up within two weeks! I get that this sort of formula/texture is going to have a more limited shelf life, but two weeks? That's bananas! Theformula is great for a wash of color with some shimmer and glitter, but it's also hard to get anything very precise, and the coverage can be a little inconsistent, like painting with watercolors. But if you know how to work with them - and use them immediately! - they can be a beautiful tool in building your look.
I Am Calm! is a golden green shimmery base with iridescent rainbow glitter. Come to Play is a bright purple base with a reddish undertone and blue glitter as well as some iridescent purple glitter. Shish-Ka-Baby is a bright pumpkin orange base with iridescent orange glitter, lots of golden reflect.
These are pretty, but I guess I just have to hope that the seals on these jars are more effective than other versions of this formula I've picked up in the past.
I think they may have done lipsticks with both of the previous collections, so maybe it makes sense to have glosses for this release, but I am a little disappointed that we didn't get a some more opaque lip options, especially since they're really working the whole green, purple, and orange Halloween color combo. I know that ColourPop can make gorgeous green and purple lippies, and I would have loved a Lippie Stix or even a bullet lipstick in coordinating shades.
Boys Will Love Me! is a black base with iridescent glitter. In the tube, the glitter against the deep color is gorgeous, but this really sheers out and you get just a grayish wash with pretty basic iridescent glitter. Sisters, Behold! is very similar except that the base looks like a greenish white and sheers out to basically just a wash of glitter. We're Young! is a light peachy orange base with golden iridescent glitter.
On their own, all three of these glosses are a mostly sheer base with some kind of iridescent glitter. They are a little bit different, but the look on the lips isn't going to be that different. The way to get more impact is definitely to pair these over a coordinating opaque lip product to really bring out the base color and give the glitter something more substantial to sparkle against. Since these are so sheer, it would have been nice if the glitter was more densely packed, but these are fine for a subtle, slightly sparkly application.
To round out the collection, we've got the Billy Butcherson BFF mascara in a plum color. I'm glad that Billy got his moment in this collection. I didn't do an application of the mascara to show it off. It's a deep plum, so it's a really subtle look but I've had good experiences with the ColourPop colored mascaras in the past. The little cat ears are adorable and I'm sure I'll be clipping those into a wig for a filming day! And how could I resist a green highlighter?!
This shimmering body powder, Find The Book, is not going to be a surprise to anyone. This is that pretty typical white base that sheers out pretty easily that has a strong golden green shift. If you sheer it out a lot, like the brush swatch on the right, you could almost pass it off as a golden candlelight sort of shade but paired with green shadows on the eye you'll get a much more impactful green. And the more you build it up, the more of the green comes out. This isn't really all that unique, but it is a lovely addition to the collection.
The glosses are probably the only real disappointment in this collection, and it's mostly just because this collection is designed to give you basically a full face of coordinated colors. I would have liked the lips to be just as playful as the rest of the products. That aside, I think the quality is good, and the color story is one of the better Halloween releases that they've done. ColourPop is pumping out product at a breakneck pace - I think we're back to a pre-pandemic cadence of at least one release a week! - so it's good to know that they are still producing high quality products among these releases. Sure, not everything can be a winner, but at least for this collection they've still got me firmly under their spell.
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