Zoeva Brand Review

Based in Frankfurt, Germany and founded in 2007, Zoe Boikou started her brand on eBay as a small store and soon after, Zoeva became an extremely sought after cosmetic line.

Before we get into the review, I want to give you a little background on the brand and the founder, Zoe Boikou. Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Boikou moved to Germany with her family in 1990 and although she didn’t come from a cosmetic background, in an article with Get The Gloss, Zoe claimed that finding good quality makeup brushes at an affordable price was near impossible. From then she decided to buy some generic brand brushes from Canada and to her surprise, the brushes sold out quickly and at a profit and which resulted in the start of the brand we all know and love today, Zoeva.

Zoeva is a recent discovery for me having brought my first product about a year ago, an eyeshadow palette. Before I’d even opened the palette I loved it (pretty packaging). From then, I went on and purchased a highlighter, a blush, highlight and contour palette, two blush palettes and three more eyeshadow palettes. I discovered Zoeva through Lisa Eldridge who often featured Zoeva brushes on her channel, link to Lisa’s channel is down below. I noticed Zoeva wasn’t mentioned much on social media, which is a shame because the products on offer are excellent quality and excellent in price!

Lisa Eldridge’s YouTube Channel

I also want to mention that Zoeva is 100% cruelty free and even offers a completely vegan brush range. Zoeva also claims on their website that they do use some ingredients of animal origin such as carmine (sometimes labelled as Natural Red 4), however, they do stress that their brand is cruelty free. Carmine is a pigment commonly used in cosmetics and is produced from insects such as beetles. I’ll link an article about carmine down below for those who are interested.

An article from Gentle World explaining Carmine and it’s uses

On to my thoughts about the products I own –

Firstly I want to talk about the strobe gel. This is a recent purchase. I’m not sure about this one, it’s a very peculiar product. I’ve never used anything like it before. The highlighter’s consistency is like pudding, like a really thick jelly, it’s so strange! If you dip your brush or finger into the pot, making a dent the product will resettle giving the appearance of a brand new item! Which isn’t a bad thing I suppose. The highlighter it’s self is okay, but I’ve used better. It’s really sheer and will give you a very subtle glow, which makes this ideal for no makeup makeup, or for those of you who prefer a more “lit from within look”. I found the best way to blend this is with your fingers, I tried with a beauty blender and dense brush and didn’t like the finished product. This really needs to be worked into the skin with the warmth of your fingers otherwise it’ll sit on top of the skin and look very unblended. It comes in three shades, Halo, Corona and Aureole. Halo is the lightest silvery shade that ever so slightly shifts gold in certain lights, it’s perfect for lighter skin tones. Corona is designed for medium skin tones and is a beautiful bronzy shade. Aureole, the darkest of the three and suited for deeper skin tones and is a gorgeous copper shade. The packaging is very luxurious coming in a glass pot with a black glossy lid, however it’s a little bulky which may cause some storage issues but for the low price of £11, it’s definitely worth it. My feelings on the strobe gel are mixed, it’s nice for no makeup days but I find the formula too hard to work with. I do think there’s better highlighters on the market, especially if you’re after a subtle glow.

A high-end alternative is Le Blanc De Chanel (£35) – I’ve been using this for years and swear by it. A cheaper alternative are Sleek’s Bare Kissed Illuminators (£8.99) which I also love.

Le Blanc De Chanel illuminating base – House of Fraser

Sleek Barekissed Illuminator – Boots

Next let’s talk about the blush palettes. These palettes are very reminiscent of the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kits! I love these blushes, they’re absolutely amazing and have a beautiful soft formula. They feel like velvet to the touch! They’re very, very pigmented so make sure you go in with a light hand when working with these, and I suggest using a duo fibre brush to apply these, something like a MAC 159.

The Coral Spectrum is my favourite and has a combination of shimmers and mattes. I would describe these colours as peachy pinks, definitely on the warmer side and will look beautiful on medium/olive skin tones. The Nude Spectrum palette is also a fantastic quad offering some beautiful bronzy shades. I’ve used the colours in the Nude palette as both blushes and bronzers. The lighter matte shades will work excellently as bronzers for anyone with fair skin due to the cooler undertones and the deepest shimmer shade would make a lovely highlight on deeper skin. I love both these palettes but find myself reaching for the Coral Spectrum more, the Nude palette is beautiful but I prefer more colour on my cheeks, it’s just personal preference. The slender packaging makes for excellent storage but these get dirty quickly (as you can see) because of the velvety outer material. The only downside is that these blushes kick up A LOT of powder when you dip your brush in which leads me to believe these will hit pan fairly quick, but for the price of £15 I don’t mind because individually, these only cost £3.50! That’s cheaper than the Sleek individual blushes which retail for £4.99.

Next, the Rose Golden Palette. This is from the Rose Gold Collection which includes numerous brush sets, an eyeshadow palette and a lip product. This is another product I am very much in love with! I love the compact

size which again makes for easy storage, the outer packaging colour is a beautiful rosy shade that shifts gold, very fitting, and the product inside is amazing. The contour shade is the perfect cool toned brown, ideal for fairer skin, like mine, and it’s completely matte which I expected considering it’s a contour shade. It blends effortlessly and makes contouring very easy, perfect for non-professionals like myself. In the pan the highlight shade looks white but on the skin it shimmers a beautiful light gold. It’s very pigmented, you don’t need a lot but it blends beautifully, like a cream product would. The blush is true rose gold shade and it’s very shimmery and again, super pigmented. Not much is needed! The powders are all a very soft velvety formula and are a pleasure to work with! I highly recommend this little trio, especially at the cheap price of £13! You will not be dissapointed.

Last but certainly not least, the eyeshadow palettes, my personal favourites. I have four of the 10 pan palettes, Caramel Melange, Blanc Fusion, Naturally Yours and Matte. These palettes are some of the best I have ever used. The swatches don’t do these justice but I can promise you the pigmentation, longevity, bendability, quality and overall performance is there. They’re everything you’d want in an eyeshadow and they’re incredibly affordable at £18 per palette. My favourites are the Caramel Melange and the Matte palette because I love the warm browns, oranges and reds which are very on trend at the moment. (F.Y.I, If you have blue eyes, theses colours are going to look amazing on you!) You can create a wide variety of looks with just one of these palettes due to the different finishes and tones. I can’t recommend them enough.

All of Zoeva’s palettes have the same sleek, compact packaging and every eyeshadow palette has its own beautifully done unique design, which I really appreciate. While these shadows are all nicely pigmented, they’re not as pigmented as something like the famous Anastasia Modern Renaissance palette, however, I like that quality because it gives you margin for error if like me you’re not a professional and don’t feel as confident with eyeshadow application. You can start off light and really build these colours to achieve an intense eye. One thing I was worried about was inconsistencies with the formula but I was really happy to find out each shadow in each palette (I own) is just as good as the last. Some brands, even higher end ones, are known for quality inconsistencies amongst their eyeshadows but with a Zoeva palette, you’ll never get a dud! That I can promise you.

My eyes are also very sensitive and there’s some eyeshadows I can’t use, like any ABH shadow, but these have caused me no irritation. They’re very comfortable to wear and are suitable to anyone with sensitive eyes. Overall, I think every makeup lover should own at least one Zoeva palette, they’re my go-to shadows and I can’t imagine anything replacing them! Give them a try, you won’t be disappointed!

All Zoeva products are manufactured in Italy. Below I will provide you some links to where you can purchase Zoeva products.

Zoeva Website – Ships internationally

Cult Beauty – Ships internationally

Beauty Bay – Ships internationally

“Makeup can be a powerful took to help women feel more confident, and a strong, confident woman is a source of enrichment for all of us” 

Zoe Boikou

 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post. I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions and I hope you come back for my next post.

Sofia x