MAC Eyes On MAC Eye Shadow X9 Palette in "Navy Times Nine": Review and Swatches

Disclaimer: Product featured was provided for review.

New from MAC are curated travel-friendly shadow palettes each featuring nine different shadows with an assortment of finishes. Today I have a "navy" themed palette called the Navy Times Nine Palette ($48 CAD). If you are a big shadow palette fan, then you definitely want to keep on reading.......

Each shadow is slightly smaller than a nickel.

Packaging: 
The shadows comes in a slim square black palette with a clear window in the front that allows you to see all the colors. Each shadow is about the size of a nickel, or approximately 0.6g. The palette is travel-friendly and it has a nice and secure magnetic closure.

Formulation:
This is actually my first time trying MAC eyeshadow. I know, crazy, but I've only really invested in MAC lipsticks before. Overall, I have to say I am pretty disappointed in the formulation of these particular shades. The overall theme I notice with these shadows is that most of them have a very dry texture with sheer pigmentation. They swatched very patchy (see swatches below, normal and heavy). Additionally, the patchiness was also very noticeable when I tried them on my bare lids so I suggest using a good primer.

Silver Fog: A sparkly silvery off white, this one is mostly shimmers.
Blonde Milk: A nude sparkle, this is also super sheer.
Copperplate: Matte light taupe brown, this one is decently pigmented but the application is patchy and dry.

JG Gray: This is a frosty light blue, the formulation of this one is decent. Nice shimmers and softer texture.
Mulled Over: A cool-tone grey matte, the pigmentation of this one is ok but again it applies very dry, tugging the skin along the way.
Cast Iron: A warm grey matte, this is sheerer than Mulled Over and the formulation is similar.

Cloudscape: A pale taupe matte with subtle silver sparkles, this shade is very sheer.
Club: A red and green duochrome metallic, this has a nice buttery texture but it is not as intense as I'd like.
Black Tied: Black matte with silver shimmers, this has lots of sparkles but not a lot of color.

Arm swatches, as you can see, most of the colors are super sheer and patchy.
There was a lot of tugging. (Click on image to enlarge)

Heavily swatched to really show the colors, I swirled my fingers in each color about six or seven times
(as opposed to one or two that I usually do) before swatching on my arm. (Click on image to enlarge)

Overall:

I am very disappointed by the palette. The overall impression I have is that these shadows are dry, patchy, and generally sheer. Perhaps when applied wet these will fare better but given how good the shadow formulation has gotten over the years, I was really expecting more.

Availability:

The new X9 Palettes from MAC are available online and in stores starting March 5th in North America and in May internationally.