The Etude House Play Color Eyes In The Cafe Eyeshadow Palette is a good one to use all year with everyday type neutral shades that can be used not only for eyeshadow but also contour, blusher and eyebrow powder.

I recently re-arranged and housed my favourite shades from this palette in another case and will be discarding this empty case. Although I don’t have these eyeshadows in this case or in this original order anymore, I still want to share swatches of each of the In The Cafe shades with a little description and my thoughts about each one.

Etude House Play Color Eyes In The Cafe Palette shades:

1 Honey Milk – A white shade with a hint of shimmer that’s barely noticeable. This shade is way too light for my eyes but it can be used as a subtle soft highlighter for my nose bridge and cheekbones. After several years of on and off use, I found it doesn’t enhance my makeup the way I like and I had only been using it for the sake of it, so I recently decided to crush and add this to my custom blush mix to lighten the colour of the blush a little.

2 Cafe Mocha – A dark ash-brown shade that can be used to smoke out my eyeliner, contour and sculpt eyes and cheekbones, and also as an eyebrow powder to fill in sparse areas. I personally used this one mainly for my eyebrows and hairline.

3 Chocolate Latte – A medium chocolatey brown that can be used to contour and smoke like the previous colour but lighter. It can also work as a slightly lighter eyebrow powder.

4 Caramel Latte – A sand brown base and blending shade that is similar to my skin tone but just a little warmer. This works really well for blending and neatening the edges of darker shades.

5 Coconut On Beach – A camel orange-yellow brown that can also be described as a darker sandy brown compared to the previous shade. This is one of my favourites for a transition crease shade to add depth to my eyelids.

6 Fall Into My Heart – An orange-yellow base with gold glitter. I like to apply this shade all over the lids for a high-shine effect.

7 Takeout Without Syrup – This used to be the most popular etude house eyeshadow shade; a neutral brown with gold shimmer. This shade looks great all over the lids or blended with the previous shade. You can sheer it out or build up the pigment for more impact. It’s the best shade in this palette in my opinion.

8 Cafe Latte – A matte neutral beige base and blending shade that is extremely close to my skin tone and barely even noticeable. As it’s so close to my skin tone I decided to also crush this shade and add it to my custom blusher mix to neutralise and lighten the blusher colour making it more suitable for my skin.

9 Grapefruit Marmalade – A matte muted baby pink that can be used as an eyeshadow transition shade in the crease of the eyelids or as a blusher. I could also make it work as an all-over lid base colour with the next glitter shade as a topper. Over the years I soon realised I reach for it more as a blusher, so I’ve now crushed the shade and pressed it in another container along with similar shades from other palettes to make a custom peachy pink blusher.

10 Peach Pepper Salt – A peachy pink gold with a lot of gold and silver glitter that works best as an eyeshadow topper. This is another one of my favourites.

The 5 shades I like the most from this palette are:

4 Caramel Latte,

5 Coconut On Beach,

6 Fall Into My Heart,

7 Takeout Without Syrup, and

10 Peach Pepper Salt. I used these shades together with Coconut On Beach as a crease transition, Fall Into My Heart and Takeout Without Syrup blended as a gradient on my eyelids, Peach Pepper Salt as a glitter topper in the centre of my eyelids to add some sparkle, and then blend the edges with Caramel Latte for a neater look. I sometimes also add the glitter topper shade Muscle Mania from the Juice Bar Palette to this look for a warmer golden shine. I would most likely only purchase my favourite shades as single eyeshadows rather than this whole palette again.