Product Review: Kat Von D High Voltage Eye Primer

I bought one of the Kat Von D "Get the look" kits from Sephora on my epic birthday trip that Kaye Eh and I went on. I'd been coveting it for awhile, because I really wanted the palette, and I was curious about these primers. Finally, I broke down and bought it as a birthday gift. The kit came with both the "skin" and "smoky" colors (there is also a shimmery beige called "stellar" which I don't have).
Here's my thoughts on them in general:

The formulas on both are kind of thick, and it makes it a bit hard to work with. The wand also pulls out a lot of product. If you put it on with the wand, and don't blend it, it will take forever to dry, or you will end up with smudges or creases, so you definitely want to blend it with a brush or a sponge, or even your finger.

                                                       look at all the product that comes out!






Skin:
This is the one I would use most often. It is a bit of a strong color, so one downside is that with light  shadow colors, you have to be a bit heavy-handed to cover it up- at least on me, because I'm pale, and it's definitely more yellow-toned than my skin is.  The upside is, it brings out the subtleties and duochromes in a lot of the lighter shadow colors. It has a lot of coverage, so it definitely makes your shadows look very bold, which is nice. 

Smoky:
I like the idea of this primer, but in practice, it has a couple downsides. First is, you can't use it all over your eye, unless you want to look like you have a black eye. So because of that, when I use it, I have to also use another primer color for the highlight area under my brows. That is slightly inconvenient. The other problem is that it's a lot more noticeable when you make mistakes. You have to take care to make sure you have the same shape of it on both eyes, or you'll end up with Very different eyes. What I do like about it is that it brings a whole new layer of depth to colors. Lighter colors instantly turn sultry, and dark colors just get richer and have more depth. 

Swatches:

  (top- skin, Middle- no primer, bottom- smoky... Left to right KVD in Rehab, KVD in Bellbottom, KVD in Babe, KVD  in Cholita, Smashbox eye brightening quad orange color)

Overall:
While these primers aren't the best primers I've ever used, I do think they're pretty good quality products. They're good it you wear a lot of bold colors. If you do a lot of neutrals and more demure looks, you could probably skip these for a different brand, but the formulas on these are long-lasting, and are overall pretty good, but just a bit harder to work with than some other primers on the market.