HIPDOT x Spongebob Bikini Bottom Eye Palette Review & Swatches + 3 Looks

Happy Friday!

I’m so excited to finally share my review of the Spongebob palette from HIPDOT. It seems so long ago that I posted my lookbook and you guys have been so patient with me this whole time. If you have not seen my review of the Jellyfish Lip Gloss Trio, be sure to check it out as well.

I bought the palette and glosses with my own money when my friend forwarded me their post on IG. I had never jumped onto something this quick!! ;P Even though I hadn’t heard of the brand prior to purchasing, I couldn’t pass up not buying something from the collection because SB is literally part of my childhood–I quote the show on a daily basis (yes, I’m a child).

Anyway, let’s get started on this review because it’s a little lengthy.
Let this review be a introduction of HIPDOT to you, if you’ve never heard of them before. 🙂

Product Description from HIPDOT:

Who lives in an eye palette under the sea? Cut Crease SquarePants! Ok — maybe not, but we can’t help but sing the SpongeBob theme song while we build dreamy Bikini Bottom inspired looks from this matte and shimmer palette. The SpongeBob animation team blessed every name and every shade here, so even Squidward has given his stamp of approval. Don’t forget to say hi to Gary on the back!

Packaging, Color Story & Cost Breakdown

The palette came in a cardboard sleeve with the same likeness as the palette. It’s mainly black packaging with gold lettering and graphics of Spongebob and Patrick. It also includes a few colored graphics of bubbles, jellyfish and flowers that appear in their “sky” on the show. The palette itself is also cardboard with magnetic closure and includes a mirror. It feels slightly heavier than normal but it is a little bulky. The palette has a separate opening flap that allows the mirror to stand up for convenience. I think it’s cool that it has that but I felt like it was unnecessary.

On the inside of the palette, the mirror is slightly small as it has a pretty thick border around it with a cute Spongebob graphic on the bottom right corner. As for the color story, it is mainly colors from the characters themselves and I think the ratio of mattes to shimmers is really off at 5 mattes to 10 shimmers/metallics.

This palette has a net weight of 27 grams and it cost $36.00 USD when it was released. The cost then comes to $2.40 per pan and $1.33 per gram. All in all, the cost may seem high, but broken down in this way we can see that we’re actually getting quite a bit of makeup; as the pans are slightly bigger than most at this price. I’d say for the size, price and weight, this palette is well worth it.

Formula & Application

Ah yes, finally we get to talk about the formula of this palette. I created a total of 8 looks with this palette and I was honestly shocked at myself for being able to come up with that many with a palette like this. Especially because there are far more shimmers than mattes. I was worried at first about not being able to come up with anything at all. However, the more I played with his palette, the more creative I got, and the more I saw the versatility of those shimmers. I was quite shocked, yet again, that I was able to use some shimmers on the outer corners of my eyes to either darken the look or to add dimension and depth.

The formula feels super buttery smooth and the shades are highly pigmented. It blew my mind that a brand I had never heard of could make such amazing makeup. They should honestly have more followers than they do. The eyeshadows are also free from pthalates, paraben, talc, and mineral oil, and HIPDOT is vegan and cruelty-free. As for application, all I can say is WOW! The shades were phenomenal! Super pigmented right from the get-go, they blended so well into each other, and even the shimmers and metallics packed a punch. If anything, I had to use a light hand in both dipping into the palette and applying these shades when I wanted something much lighter. I was seriously so impressed at the quality and felt like my money was well spent.

Shade Breakdown & Swatches

Usually swatches are not a good representation of how the eyeshadows will perform. However, in the case of this palette, I felt like the swatches and the way they look on the eyes are really spot on. You can hardly tell that there’s any great difference between the two. HIPDOT did a phenomenal job with this palette, and if this palette is any indication of how the rest of their makeup is, I can safely assume they’re just as high quality as this one.

First Row:

Treedome — cream shimmer
Bikini Bottom Blue — cobalt aquamarine metallic
Best Shade Ever — golden yellow matte
Wumbo — bubblegum hot pink matte
Penny Pincher — ruby pink matte

Second Row:

Coral Floral — light buff beige matte
Angry Tentacles — sea foam green shimmer
Imagination — bright marigold matte
Meow Meow… Meow — medium orchid metallic
Jumpin’ Jellyfish — salmon pink duochrome with gold flip

Third Row:

Rock Bottom — red terracotta metallic
Deep Sea Blue — indigo shimmer
Golden Pineapple — metallic gold
Blue Lagoon — azure metallic
Advanced Darkness — dark burgundy shimmer

Makeup Looks

As I keep mentioning, despite the lack of mattes in this palette, I still had so much fun playing with this palette. Aside from BH Cosmetics’s Trendy in Tokyo and Summer in St. Tropez palettes, this is yet another palette that inspired and challenged me at the same time. The range and variety of shades in this palette truly made me think outside the box.

I did create 8 looks, but I’ll only be sharing my top 3 here. It was really hard to choose, by the way.
Feel free to see my entire lookbook and my Pink & Blue MOTD that was posted separately.

Look #1: Pinky

Shades used: Penny Pincher, Wumbo, Coral Floral, Jumping Jellyfish, Meow, meow…meow

This look is a good representation of how Penny Pincher looks on the eyes. On the pan it leans a little red, but it’s more of a pinky shade. It still is a very pretty shade and as you can see on the outer corner, it can be packed on more to darken it, or blend it out as much as possible to lighten it (inner corner). Penny Pincher and Jumpin’ Jellyfish blend beautifully together.

Look #2: Jellyfish Jam

Shades used: Wumbo, Penny Pincher, Meow, meow…meow, Treedome

This is a MUCH* lighter look, and it is a good representation of how light the shades can also be, despite how highly pigmented they are. The purple-y shades are some of my favorite in this palette, they just looked so dreamy in this look.

Look #3: Bikini Bottom

Shades used: Penny Pincher, Wumbo, Best Shade Ever, Imaginaation,
Advanced Darkness, Deep Sea Blue, Blue Lagoon, Angry Tentacles

For this look I tried to use as many shades as I could, to really test out my theory on how well they blend together. The formula did not disappoint. This look came out gorgeous, and it’s my favorite out of all 8 looks. If you look closely, you can see I used some of the shimmer shades on the outer corner of my eye, but I barely packed it so as to not transfer so much of the shimmer on the lid. This allowed me to create more depth into the look, while still letting the other shimmers shine.

To conclude this rather long post, I highly recommend this brand to anyone who is into makeup. They deserve more exposure, and I’m more than happy to share their makeup with you. I didn’t intentionally make this post longer than I normally do to hype up the brand, but rather to show you how great the quality is, and how indie brands can make great, if not better, makeup than the top brands out there.

I hope this review doesn’t come across as overly exaggerated, as that is not my intention.
I was just really impressed and wanted to express that here to you.

So…what do you think of this brand?
Would you purchase something from them or pass?

Find me on social media:

Disclosure: this review is a personal opinion and is honest. I do not receive compensation for my reviews. Product(s) was/were purchased by me, unless noted otherwise.