The Sephora Collection Wild Khaki Nude Mega Mix Palette is a warm brown neutral palette with a touch of green. It contains 2 cream-powder matte hybrids, 3 true powder mattes, 3 shimmers with sparkle, and 1 smooth shimmer with all fine particles.

This selection of shades is one I’d describe as “everyday glam”. I thought this palette was better than the Fearless Cool Nude and Rebellious Rosey Nude for overall quality. All the mattes in here ranged from very decent to great. The ease of use and fallout from the shimmers was about on par with the Fiery Warm Nude palette. I liked this one. 

Price: $18
Availability: Sephora

Swatches

The shades are not named but are numbered 1-9 starting with 1 at the top left corner and 9 at the bottom right corner.

1 – Cream-powder hybrid. Pale warm nude with subtle golden tones and a mostly matte finish.
2 – Olive-toned bronze shimmer with a little bit of sparkle.
3 – True powder matte. Medium olive-toned brown.
4 – Pale nude shimmer with lots of larger sparkle, a small amount of glitter and not much of a base color. Feels waxier, adheres well.
5 – Medium green shimmer with larger sparkle. Mostly cooler toned because of what looks like a deep greyish green base color but has a golden sparkly sheen.
6 – Cream-powder hybrid. Black with a satin-matte finish. This gives off a “dewier” look than a true powder matte would.
7 – True powder matte. Deep warm brown.
8 – Deep bronze shimmer. All small shimmer particles.
9 – True powder matte. Light warm golden nude.

Looks

Look 1:

• 1 – Inner corner, brow bone, inner lid
• 2 – Inner lower lashline (dry brush)
• 3 – Crease
• 4 – Inner corner, brow bone (dry brush)
• 5 – Outer lower lashline (dry brush)
• 6 – Liner, smudged into upper lashline
• 7– Inner crease, outer lid
• 8– Center of lid
• 9 – Transition above crease
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Boundless Bisque – Waterline
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper lashes
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Lower lashes

I used every shade here. Didn’t use any primer but I did put a little bit of foundation on the lid and I used a powder foundation to set the lid before applying any of the shadows. I didn’t notice anything annoying or unpleasant about any of the shades. I thought they all worked well. I can see a tiny bit of fallout in the photos from the deepest matte. Even the sparkly shimmers didn’t have much fallout. The inner corner shimmer looks like it might have some glitter particles in it. From an angle, they look darker than the rest of the color in this shade and it looks like dirt or fallout from a deeper shade, but it’s not. It adhered nicely without the help of a setting spray and applied over another powder. The mattes were slightly powdery and gave me a little bit of kickup when I picked some up with a brush. It was most noticeable with shade 9. I don’t think it was excessive though. 

Look 2:

• 7 – Outer crease, outer lower lashline
• 9 – Transition for outer crease
• 6 – Outer lid
• 5 – Center of lid (dry brush)
• 8 – Inner lid, inner crease (dry brush)
• 1 – Inner corner

Shade 7 had a lot of pigmentation and blended okay by itself but being so dark, I found it helpful to use Shade 9 around the edges to diffuse the blend some more. Shade 9 was also nicely pigmented. Both of these seemed better than the mattes in the Rebellious Rosey Nude Palette.

Shade 6 is a cream-powder hybrid. It wasn’t hard to build up to the color payoff you see here, it adhered well, and blended easily. I didn’t use it over a large enough area to get a good feel for if it made my lid look more textured or dry compared to the lighter shades in this formula, but I feel like it may look slightly better in this deeper shade.

Shade 8 was a really nice shimmer. It is mostly, if not completely, made up of fine shimmer had great color payoff, adhered easily to the lid, didn’t require much building.

Shade 5 has sparkles and fine shimmer and wasn’t quite as easy to build up as the previous shimmer, but was still pretty good. It had a very little fallout.

Look 3:

• 3 – Crease, lower lashline
• 2 – All over lid (dry brush, fingertip)
• 1 – Inner corner, brow bone, used to blend around edges of matte brown

Shade 3 was a pretty good matte. I didn’t feel it was too sheer or too pigmented, color payoff was just right. I used Shade 1 to help smooth out the edges of the blend but I feel I could have skipped that and it would’ve looked fine.

Shade 2 was also decent. It seems to have mostly fine shimmer in it but I can see some tiny sparkles in it too. There was a very small amount of fallout but I had no issue brushing it off my skin. I was able to get a nice level of coverage with a dry brush, which, in real life, I felt looked perfectly fine. In photos I noticed it was ever so slightly uneven, so went back and applied a bit more with my fingertip to even it out.

Look 4:

• 9 – Crease, lower lashline
• 7 – Outer lid
• 8 – Center of lid (dry brush)
• 4 – Inner corner (dry brush)

Shade 9 worked well for the crease. Not much work to build it up to be easily visible. Blended out smoothly. I didn’t use any other shades to help it look smoother around the edges. Went on evenly. Decent quality.

Shade 7 was also a good matte. Good level of pigment, even color payoff. As far as I could tell it seemed to blend well, though I did sheer it into the lighter brown, which makes it more difficult to see. No fallout. In any case, it was not frustrating at all.

Shade 8 is the type of shimmer I prefer recently. No sparkle at all, all fine shimmer, high level of color payoff with minimal effort required to apply it. Almost no fallout.

Shade 4 was pretty nice too. This was is a sparkly “topper” type of shade. It is made of white flecks of sparkle without a base color. I was careful in how I applied it but I didn’t have too much fallout from it. I think if I was in a rush, being impatient, not being careful, I could easily get more fallout from it though.

The Sephora Collection Rebellious Rosey Nude Mega Mix Palette is a soft, warmer, pink-themed palette with several shimmer textures, a cream-powder matte, true powder mattes, a matte with fine sparkle, and a true self-adhering glitter.  

Visually to me, this shade selection stands out from the other palettes in the collection but I didn’t love it as much with actual use. The shadows worked well enough but the quality wasn’t quite as good as what was in the Fiery Warm Nude Palette. The shimmers were nice and there was less sparkle fallout than I got with the Fearless Cool Nude Palette but color payoff from the mattes was somewhat lackluster.

Price: $18
Availability: Sephora

Swatches

The shades are not named but are numbered 1-9 starting with 1 at the top left corner and 9 at the bottom right corner.

1 – Cream-powder hybrid. Pale pinky nude with a mostly matte finish.
2 – Pale sparkly nude. LOTS of sparkle, less emollient than the other shimmers.
3 – True powder matte. Deep reddish brown.
4 – Medium matte rose pink with micro fine sparkle. Sparkle isn’t visible on the eye.
5 – Pale nude (almost white) shimmer with a smooth sheen. Mostly small shimmer particles.
6 – Cranberry pink self-adhering glitter.
7 – Medium rosy pink shimmer with a subtle silver sheen. Mixture of fine shimmer and sparkle. Feels more emollient.
8 – True powder matte. Light warm pink.
9 – Burgundy shimmer with a little bit of larger sparkle. Feels more emollient.

In general the mattes were not that impressive to me in this palette. The creamy-powder in this palette, as with all the other palettes in this collection, sits heavy and textured-looking on my lids. The true powder mattes showed up okay but I found myself having to continuously build them up during application to maintain color vibrancy. They were too easy to sheer out while blending or while applying the shimmers nearby or over top of them. Using a primer can help solve this issue, however, I have been using primers less lately because my lids have been dry.

I liked the shimmers more in this palette than the mattes. Most had some level of sparkle fallout but I generally didn’t find it as annoying as the ones in the Fearless Cool Nude Palette. They all showed up easily, adhered well to the lid, and had a nice amount of shine. The only one I’d say needed the help of a setting spray or sticky primer was Shade 2. 

Shade 6 is the lone true glitter. This is one of the best glitters across all the palettes. It sticks to the skin better and I get very few stray specks falling down onto my face. It takes some effort to maneuver it around if you don’t place it just right at first, but it’s doable. I prefer that over one that doesn’t adhere well and gets everywhere. 

Looks

Look 1:

• No primer or any type of base product on the lid
• 8 – Transition (most visible in the center part of the crease)
• 3 – Outer crease, also added a TINYYYY amount to outer lower lashline to deepen the pink
• 4 – Inner crease, outer lower lashline
• 6 – Inner corner
• 2 – Outer edges of the glitter
• 5 – Center of the lid
• ColourPop Graphix Ink Liner in So Winey
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper lashes

Shade 4 didn’t go on as evenly as I would have liked but I felt that maybe my skin was just too dry. I’ll have to try it again. I had some spots that looked more sheer and I tried to build it up in those spots but it resisted layering over itself. It has ultra fine reflects within the matte powder but it doesn’t really translate as visible on the eye and it doesn’t give the finish any type of sheen either. It just looks like a regular matte.

Shade 6 is a self adhering glitter. It really sticks and wasn’t super easy to move around once I placed it on the skin.

I liked shade 5. Nice fine shimmer with a soft glowy finish and semi sheer opacity. 

Look 2:

• 3 – Inner/outer lid and crease
• 8 – Transition (used very lightly around the edges of shade 3)
• 2 – Center of lid, center of lower lashline (dry brush, wet brush)
• 9 – Inner/outer lower lashline
• 1 – Very inner corner
• 5 – Inner corner (layered over previous shade), brow bone
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Dimensional Dark Brown – Waterline
• Elf Lash It Loud Mascara – Upper lashes

I was going to do this on both eyes and I started out with Shade 3 on an unprimed lid and immediately regretted it. I started later in the day and my lids were a bit oily and this shade very obviously deepened in areas that were more oily. After trying to apply more to build the color up, it just wouldn’t build up. I gave up on that eye and tried again on the other eye over an eye primer. It went on WAY better. No clinging to oil/moisture, even color payoff, nice blending for the most part. I was able to move this shade easily but it needed a little bit of help from a lighter shade for a very smooth gradient around the edges. I also was not able to build it up a whole lot on this eye, so I think that’s just an issue with these mattes in general.

Shade 2 has small/heavy sparkles that fall out easily to an almost annoying level. They stick to the skin kind of firmly as well so it’s not the fastest thing to clean up afterward. It adhered mostly fine to the lid though and showed up nicely as a very noticeable sparkle with a dry brush. It didn’t stand out as much as I wanted when used on the lower lashline, so I applied it again with a wet brush there and then went over the lid with another layer using a wet brush as well. This shade gives off somewhat of a wet look though it doesn’t feel creamy or emollient.

Shade 9 had fine shimmer and sparkle but not much fallout. Very nice color payoff, shimmer/sparkle shows up well too, adhered well.

Shade 5 is more of a regular shimmer with smaller particles. 

Look 3:

• No Primer (small amount of concealer on lid)
• 8 – Crease, lower lashline
• 7 – All over lid (dry brush, fingertip)
• 1 – Inner corner, brow bone
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Boundless Bisque – Waterline
• Elf Lash Out Loud Mascara – Upper and lower lashes

Shade 8 was lighter and a bit sheerer than I thought it would be. I ended up packing it on heavily to get it to what you see here.

Shade 7 applied fairly well with a dry brush but I amped it up some more by pressing another layer on with my finger. It had moderate sparkle fallout and took some effort to clean up, sticking a bit to my powdered foundation. 

Shade 1 is a cream-powder. Looked a little heavier and more textured on my lid than the true powders.

Look 4:

• No Primer (small amount of concealer on lid)
• 4 – Crease, lower lashline
• 9 – All over lid (dry brush)
• 7 – Inner corner (dry brush)
• 1 – Blended around edges of matte pink with this
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Boundless Bisque – Waterline
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper and lower lashes

Shade 4 picked up and transferred easily, initially seeming to have good color payoff but it ended up dusting away easily when I applied the deeper shimmer nearby and while blending. I kept adding layers in the deeper part of the crease to build the color back up. Hardly any fallout from either the matte or sparkle portions of the shade.

Shade 9 has a slightly thicker/creamier feel for a shimmer. It also picked up easily on a brush and adhered well to the lid with minimal fallout. I didn’t have to layer it that heavily for it to show up well.

Shade 7 was also on the creamier side for a shimmer. I applied this to the inner corner with a dry pencil brush and had minimal fallout but this gave me a sheer application of color. To get it to pop more, I switched to a thick eyeliner brush, which gave me much more color payoff off but also increased sparkle fallout to be more on the moderate side.

The Sephora Collection Fiery Warm Nude Mega Mix Palette is a warm brown, bronze, and gold eyeshadow palette that contains 3 types of mattes and 5 shimmers with varying degrees of sparkle. There are no true glitters but one of the shimmers has some glitter particles in it.

Compared to the Fearless Cool Nude Palette, I enjoy this one a bit more. There was less fallout overall and for the style of eyeshadow I like to wear, I like the choice of shades better.

Price: $18
Availability: Sephora

Swatches

The shades are not named but are numbered 1-9 starting with 1 at the top left corner of the palette and 9 at the bottom right corner.

1 – Cream-powder hybrid. Pale peachy nude with a mostly matte finish.
2 – Copper shimmer with mostly small shimmer particles and a few larger sparkles.
3 – True powder matte. Deep reddish brown.
4 – Light peachy nude matte with micro fine sparkles.
5 – Medium bronze sparkly shimmer. More fine shimmer than larger sparkle.
6 – Golden white sparkly/flakey/glittery shimmer. Has a thicker and waxier feel to it.
7 – True powder matte. Medium orangey brown.
8 – Pale gold with larger flakey sparkles. Slightly drier, doesn’t grab onto skin as readily as shade 6.
9 – Yellow gold shimmer with larger flakey sparkles and a waxier feel.

There is 1 creamy-powder in here and it applied about the same as the ones in the other palettes. This one is a slightly deeper color which I think helps it to look a little more flattering. It is not deep enough to use as a crease shade but is good for blending and diffusing other shades or (on my complexion) to use as a color corrector and evening shade on the inner corner. I don’t love this formula as a “base” because the heaviness can still be seen even with other eyeshadows on top of it.

Both of the true powder mattes were nice. They gave me rich, even color payoff, blended easily and had little to no fallout.

The 1 matte with sparkle was decent. I did get a small amount of sparkle fallout from it, but the sparkles are very tiny and there’s not that much of it in the shade. I was able to use it heavily as a lid color and more lightly in the crease without much issue.

There are some very sparkly shimmers in this palette but I found these ones less messy than the ones in the Fearless Cool Nude Palette. The only one I didn’t give a good try on the lid was Shade 9. The way I used it probably wasn’t the best to test for fallout, but I remember it stuck well to the skin. Most are different enough to tell them apart on the eye except for Shades 6 and 8. Those two stand out well from each other in the pan but I think they look very similar in color once I put them on the lid.

Looks

Look 1:

• No Primer (but lightly used concealer on the lid)
• 4 – All over lid/crease (brush then tapped extra on with fingertip), lower lashline
• 7 – Add depth to upper outer part of crease
• 9 – Inner corner, upper part of winged liner (wet brush)
• 3 – Winged linger (wet brush, layered over top the previous shimmer)

The shimmer in shade 4 is extremely fine and pretty sparse. I got a little bit of sparkle fallout but it was very minimal for how heavily I applied this shade and it was easy to brush away.

Shade 3 was a nice matte, good color payoff, easy to blend, no noticeable fallout, not too powdery/messy in the pan. The formula is well balanced so it doesn’t feel dry/dusty.

Look 2:

• No Primer (but lightly used concealer on the lid)
• 1 – Inner corner, transition
• 4 – Add depth to outer crease
• 8 – Center of lid (dry brush)
• 2 – Lower lashline (dry brush)

I was hoping to show how shade 1 looks on the skin but it doesn’t translate all that well in the photos. Every shade in this collection that is this creamy formula sits on my lid this way. I find it more unflattering in real life than it comes across in photos. I prefer the true powder mattes in these palettes.

Shade 4 worked fine used this way — applied lightly with a fluffier brush, without regard for possible sparkle fallout. I had no issues. The fallout was very minimal and easy to clean up and the matte portion of the shade worked very well for this purpose.

Shade 8 is mainly sparkle with no noticeable base color (the way I used it). I didn’t apply it very heavily and it didn’t take much layering to get it to this point. It is not a very creamy feeling shade but it still adhered pretty well and surprisingly wasn’t very messy as far as fallout.

Shade 2 is the closest thing to a regular/standard shimmer. Mostly finer particles and a softer sheen. It felt slightly thin on color payoff but didn’t take me much time to build it up to this level.

Look 3:

• 1 – Inner corner, brow bone
• 3 – Inner/outer lid and crease
• 4 – Transition
• 2 – Center of lid
• 8 – Inner corner
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Limitless Brown – Waterline and smudged under lower lashline

Shade 3 was a good matte. I applied a lot of it and I didn’t get any noticeable fallout from it. It blended pretty well by itself but I wanted some warmth so I added shade 4 around the edges.

I also wanted to use Shade 2 again on the lid to get a better idea of the finish. Like I thought from the first time I used it, it has a softer sheen, isn’t sparkly, and had hardly any fallout which was a breath of fresh air compared to many of the other shimmers I’ve used from these palettes.

I didn’t quite use enough of Shade 8. It shows up but I should have used it over a slightly larger area so it would show up better. It’s a chunky shimmer. Looks like a glitter in the pan but it’s mainly sparkle + flakes.

Look 4:

• No Primer (but lightly used concealer on the lid)
• 7 – Crease, lower lashline
• 5 – Inner/outer lid (dry brush)
• 6 – Center of lid (dry brush, fingertip)
• 8 – Center of lower lashline (wet brush)
• 1 – Inner corner, lightly around edges of entire look to blend
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper and lower lashes

Shade 7 is a really nice matte. Most of the mattes in this collection are decent and there are a few that leave something to be desired, but this one stands out as being a little extra nice quality. Color payoff is great and it applies very smoothly. Easy blending, no noticeable fallout.

Shade 5 has a mixture of fine shimmer and larger sparkle but it’s a good balance between the two. The fine shimmer is dense enough to provide a solid base color so it goes on with a pretty high opacity. I got some fallout but there was less of it than with many of the other shimmers in this collection.

Shade 6 is a sparkly/flakey/glittery shimmer and it also has a thicker and waxier feel to it. I started out applying this with a brush and that did fine. It adhered perfectly well without having to wet my brush or use a sticky base and there was minimal fallout. However it went on a bit sheer and I wanted it to really show up, so I tapped on a bit more with my fingertip at the end. Sparkle annoys me lately but a formula like this one makes it much easier to tolerate.

Shade 8 is a drier type of sparkle and one that produces more fallout so I didn’t even try using a dry brush with it.

Shade 1 is a cream-powder but it almost matches my skin tone and I feel like that helps it look a little more flattering than the lighter shades in this formula in this collection.

The Sephora Collection Fearless Cool Nude Mega Mix Palette is one of several newly released, budget-priced palettes featuring the ability to rearrange rows of shades within palettes to customize them to your liking. This one mainly contains cooler-toned browns and taupes with various formulations ranging from a cream-powder hybrid matte to true powder mattes, as well as shimmers with a mixture of fine shimmer and larger sparkle, and flakier/chunkier shimmers that resemble glitter.

Price: $18.00
Availability: Sephora

Swatches

Shades are not named but are numbered 1-9 starting with 1 at the top left corner and 9 at the bottom right corner.

1 – Cream-powder hybrid. Ulta pale taupe with a mostly matte finish.
2 – White sparkly shimmer with a subtle golden sheen. 
3– Medium shimmery taupe. Mostly small shimmer particles. 
4– Flakey white shimmer with a subtle blue sheen.
5– Sparkly silver shimmer.
6 – Matte black base packed with lots of silver sparkle.
7 – True powder matte. Deep cool-toned brown.
8– Light bronze sparkly shimmer. 
9 – True powder matte. Medium cool taupe.

The cream-powder hybrid is more powder than it is cream. Pressing into it does not cause me to leave a dent in the pan. In the swatch above, it is layered pretty heavily, and in that state, it looks like it has a bit of a satiny-sheen to it. I don’t find that it has a satin finish on the eye though. Instead, it looks mostly matte but it looks heavier/thicker than a standard powder matte and emphasizes the natural texture of my lids.

The two true powder mattes were both nice. The lighter one was a tiny bit powdery in the pan but nothing excessive. Both had a good amount of color payoff and went on mostly evenly. Very little to no fallout from either.

There is a ALOT of shimmer in this palette and most of it is larger sparkle. If you like pinpoint reflects and you don’t mind sparkle fallout, you’ll probably be okay with this. If you prefer smoother-looking (metallic/satin) sheens and hate fallout, I’d caution you on picking this up. The composition and finish of the shimmers varies by shade. Some have much more sparkle than others, some are a bit more opaque than others. I thought they all generally were easy to pick up on a brush, without having to dig or press hard into the pan to do so. They also transferred easily from my brush to my lid. I nearly always found using my fingertip instead of a brush to be more effective at depositing color more heavily/opaquely. The formulas feel “balanced”, meaning they are neither dry/dusty and do not fly up in the air at the slightest touch, nor are they very creamy or emollient-feeling. I like the balance that they have.

Looks

Look 1:

• No Primer
• 1 – Crease/transition
• 9 – Add depth to outer crease
• 2 – All over lid (dry brush, fingertip)
• 3 – Lower lashline (dry brush)
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper lashes only

Shade 1 was barely deeper than my skin tone and very cool toned. This one has an almost-creamy feel to it and I thought it sat a little heavy on my lid.

I didn’t use enough of Shade 9 here to get a good feel for it.

Shade 2 went on a little sheerer than I wanted with just a dry brush but I liked how it looked when pressed on with my finger. It had borderline annoying fallout applied this way. The sparkles are small but heavy and they fall down under my eyes easily. 

Shade 3 didn’t seem to have as much sparkle in it, and more fine shimmer. I didn’t notice much fallout the way I applied it to the lower lashline. 

Look 2:

• No Primer
• 9 – Crease/transition
• 7 – Liner
• 5 – Center of lid
• 8 – Lower lashline
• Refy Lash Sculpt Mascara – Upper lashes only
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Infinite Nude (this shade is discontinued but Boundless Bisque is similar) – Waterline

Shade 9 was a little powdery in the pan when I went to pick some up on the brush. It wasn’t a crazy amount but it wasn’t a particularly firmly pressed shade. I tapped some of the excess color off onto the back of my hand before applying it to the lids just so I could get more of a gradual buildup of color. It blended nicely without the primer underneath. It was a nice true cool toned neutral taupe on me (not too grey and definitely not a warm brown) that I could see myself using on a day where I just want “natural” looking eyeshadow.

Shade 7 worked well as a liner. Plenty of pigment, not too “soft” or “silky” of a formula. Stayed where I placed it with my brush and built up well.

Shade 5 was more sparkle than anything. I thought it might be a little more like a metallic but it’s just a lot of large silver sparkle. It adhered surprisingly well for how sparkly it is but I did get quite a noticeable amount of fallout. It wasn’t that hard to brush off with a spoolie. This shade looks blue on Sephora’s website. It’s definitely not blue. It’s a true light/bright silver. 

Shade 8 is also sparkly but has a sheer brown base color. I got some fallout from this as well but it also was not difficult to clean up.

Look 3:

• No Primer
• 9 – All over lid/crease
• 6 – All over lid (layered over previous shade), lower lashline
• 4 – Inner corner (wet and dry brush)
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper and lower lashes
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Boundless Bisque – Waterline

This is mainly to show the texture of Shade 6 on the eye compared to in the pan. There’s a lot of matte in the shade but also a lot of sparkle. It’s a fairly deep black with good color payoff. I got a lot of both pigment and sparkle fallout from it the way I applied it in this look. I applied this with a combination of flat shader brushes and my fingertip.

Shade 9 is my transition so the black looks more smoothly blended. I did not intend to apply the black so heavily over so much of the lid and if I’d realized that’s where I was going to end up, I would not have applied this taupe shade so heavily underneath it. 

Shade 4 is the flakiest shimmer in the palette. The clumps break up into smaller bits of shimmer if I smooth over them enough. I started with a dry brush but them dampened the brush as I continued layering more color on.

Look 4:

• ABH Eyeshadow Primer
• 7 – All over lid/crease
• 1 – Transition, used very lightly around the edges of shade 7, lower lashline (underneath the shimmer)
• 5 – Center of lid, lower lashline (wet brush)
• 2 – Inner corner (wet brush)
• Loreal Voluminous Noir Balm Mascara – Upper lashes and lower lashes
• Urban Decay 24/7 Glide On Eye Pencil in Mushroom – Waterline

I applied and blended Shade 7 mostly with a flat shader brush. It had plenty of pigmentation but wasn’t difficult to blend or apply evenly. I didn’t have much fallout from it. It darkened ever so slightly in the line of my crease but was easy to even back out by applying a bit more color in lighter areas.

Shade 1 is so light it almost blends in with my skin tone. I found it worked well to even out any redness or discoloration on the lower lashline, and the creamy formula sat better on that part of the eye.

Shade 5 is mostly sparkle with little to no base color. Applying it with a wet brush gave me this less-sheer look but if I use a dry brush with this, it will look more like scattered sparkles.

Shade 2 has finer, more dense shimmer and goes on with even more opacity than Shade 5. I prefer this texture more. It took on more of a metallic finish applied this way.

The Huda Beauty Icy Nude Palette is a cooler toned palette with lots of pinks, greys, silvers, and a hint of peach and gold in the right side column. It’s possible to get some depth out of this palette but for the most part, it is not a very smoky or dark palette. A good majority of the mattes stay in the light and medium range and the shimmers are also quite light and reflective. 

As with most of the larger Huda Beauty Palettes I’ve collected over the years, this one is ALMOST neutral but not quite. It complements a true neutral palette nicely but the tones in this are not really true skin-tone neutrals. 

I find it easy to grab for this palette on any old day for an easy-to-wear look that doesn’t feel too bold or done up. The most common way I’ll wear this is by using shades like First Class, Oneself, Poised, or High Life in the crease, the palest mattes on the inner corner and any of the shimmers on the lid. On a typical day, I don’t often wear deeper shades but these are not that dark on me and I’m able to easily use them with a light hand to add just a little bit of extra depth.

Price: $69
Availability: Huda Beauty, Sephora

Swatches

Iced Out– Pale blue to purple shifting shimmer with a very subtle and sheer warm base color. Sheerer opacity but builds easily and shows up well.
High Life – Light dusty lavender with a matte finish.
Platinum – Bright silver metallic with mostly fine shimmer and a little bit of sparkle. Has more opacity than some of the other shimmers.
Unapologetic– Medium deep reddish brown with a matte finish.
Faux Fur – Deep purpley grey-brown with a matte finish.
Gold Standards – Light peachy gold shimmer with larger flakey sparkles. Drier to the touch than the other shimmers.
Avalanche – Matte white. Somewhat sheer but brightens effectively.
Aurora – Medium rosy bronze with a sparkling metallic finish. Has more opacity than some of the other shimmers.
VVS – Warm silver with a subtle purple-gold shift. This one is flakier than the other shimmers.
Poised – Medium purple-grey matte.
She Riiich – Much deeper cool grey matte.
Cold Plunge – Pale peachy yellow nude with a matte finish.
IDGAF – Ultra pale, cool pink with a matte finish.
Bling – Silver biodegradable glitter. Feels grainier/sandier than traditional glitter and also has less of a reflect to it.
Oneself – Ultra pale greyish taupe with a matte finish.
Diamond Dew – Another warm silver similar to VVS both in texture and finish. This one is less warm than that one and is almost like a cross between a white gold and a warm silver.
Lavish – Medium muted rose with a matte finish.
First Class – Medium peach with a matte finish.

Video swatches here:

The mattes have a nice fine, smooth texture that feels lightweight and almost airy. They are a drier matte formula compared to other brands and I feel most of the lighter shades adhere better if used over a primer. They work fine alone but a primer definitely helps guard against dusting away with heavy handed blending. The only shade I had trouble using over primer was the shade Faux Fur. For some reason, that one would apply much more unevenly over primer and looked better over bare lids. Even if I didn’t use primer, this shade still did not apply as evenly as I would have like and emphasized texture on my lids. All the rest, even the cooler greys, were very nice though and I enjoyed how smooth they looked on my lids. If you’ve purchased any of the larger Huda palettes in the past, the formula of the mattes feels the same.

I like the shimmers less than I like the mattes mainly because of the fallout I get from them. The shades Gold Standards and Aurora had the most fallout and it took me a fair amount of effort to clean it up. The rest had minor fallout that was easy to clean up. Every shimmer has some amount of larger sparkle in it. Platinum has the least and mostly looks like a smooth metallic shimmer once I put it on the eye. It was helpful to use a setting spray with some of them both to keep fallout to a minimum and to get them to apply with more opacity more quickly. Despite needing a bit of help, I think the shimmers are still beautiful. They show up well, reflect a good amount of light, and I like the color choices that were made.

I personally enjoy the color story for the style of eyeshadow I like to wear. I felt there was a good range of depth in the mattes with a few different color directions I could go in (grey toned, rosy toned, or peachy) and the shimmer options easily complemented those mattes. I didn’t find it difficult to come up with looks but at the same time I didn’t feel bored by the shade choices. I could add some depth but in general I got lighter looks out of this palette, which is what I prefer. 

One thing to note about the color story… In the sea of palette options, this one might appeal as a potential everyday neutral palette. I want to just point out the shades in here are generally not true skin tone neutrals so it’s probably not the best choice for someone that wants a very “natural” eyeshadow look. For example, when I want an eyeshadow look that doesn’t actually look like I’m wearing eyeshadow, I end up needing a very light midtone neutral brown, which is not something you can find in this palette. Just keep this in mind depending on what you’re looking to get out of this palette.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• Love the matte formula for my aging eyelids
• These shades are easy to reach for any day of the week for any occasion
• Shades show up well but are not crazy bold/colorful/dark on me
• Cold Plunge and IDGAF double as color correctors on me

Drawbacks and other considerations:

• Shimmer/sparkle fallout is borderline annoying
• Faux Fur was the only matte I think didn’t perform well

Do I Recommend It?

Maybe. Only if you are not bothered by fallout. If you hate fallout, this may not be the best choice. I like the lighter tones, the nuanced colors, and the formula of the majority of the mattes enough that those positives outweigh the drawbacks for me. 

Looks

Looks 1-5 are available in the YouTube video below with some commentary on how the shades worked. I did looks 6-8 later off camera just to try a few more color combos.

Look 1:

• Cold Plunge – Inner corner, brow bone
• Lavish – Inner crease, inner lower lashline
• First Class – Outer crease/transition, outer lower lashline
• Aurora – Center of lid (dry brush, fingertip)
• Avalanche – Inner corner, brow bone (applied lightly to brighten)

Look 2:

• Oneself – All over lid and crease (applied pretty heavily)
• Poised – Crease/transition, most of lower lashline
• She Riiich – Outer lid/crease
• Avalanche – Inner corner, brow bone (more heavily than last look), near tear duct by lower lashline (very heavily)
• Iced Out – Center of lid (dry brush, fingertip)

Look 3:

• Cold Plunge – Inner corner, all over lid
• First Class – Crease
• Gold Standards – All over lid (first with dry brush, then with setting spray)
• Avalanche – Inner corner, brow bone (not very heavily, just to brighten)
• Faux Fur – Lower lashline

Look 4:

• Avalanche + Cold Plunge – Inner corner 
• High Life – Crease/transition (do this first!), lower lashline
• Faux Fur – All over lid, blended up into the crease
• Platinum – Center of lid (dry brush, then dampened brush)
• Bling – Lower lashline, layered over High Life
• IDGAF – Inner corner, brow bone (added this after the fact)

Look 5:

• Oneself – Transition
• Poised – Inner/outer crease, lower lashline
• Faux Fur – Add depth to outer crease
• VVS – Center of lid (dry brush, fingterip)
• Avalanche – Applied precisely near inner corner/tear duct
• Diamond Dew – Lower lashline (dry brush)
• She Riiich – Winged liner, smudged into upper lashline

Look 6:

• Poised – Inner lid/crease, inner lower lashline
• Unapologetic – Outer lid/crease, outer lower lashline
• VVS – Center of lid, center of lower lashline (dry brush, fingertip)

Look 7:

• High Life – Inner/outer crease, center part of lower lashline
• IDGAF – Center part of crease
• She Riiich – Liner
• Diamond Dew – All over lid (dry brush, fingertip)

Look 8:

• Cold Plunge – Inner corner
• First Class – Crease
• Unapologetic – Outer lid/crease
• Iced Out – All over lid
• Aurora – Outer lower lashline

The ColourPop Lost In Love Palette is a limited edition Valentine’s Day palette for 2024. It mainly consists of various pinks and one true red but also has some peach/orange/coral and berry shades. There are 6 mattes, 4 shimmers, and 2 pressed glitters. As far as I can tell from the outside of the palette and the box, it doesn’t seem that any of the shades are pressed pigments. Some of the deepest mattes left a tiny bit of staining on the skin during swatching, but none of the shades left my eyelids stained after use.

The size of the palette is like the ColourPop Fairy Well Palette, which is slightly larger than some of their older 12-pan palettes (like the So Very Lovely Palette) and has larger 26mm pans. The pans are magnetic and removable but are shallower in depth than regular single shadows from ColourPop and other brands.

Price: $18
Availability: ColourPop exclusive

Swatches

Falling – Pale pink shimmer without much of a base color. Particles are larger than fine shimmer but not super chunky/large.
Ever & Ever – Matte pale peach.
Totally Smitten – Pressed multicolored glitter in a sheer, shimmery pink base.
Dibs – Cooler-toned matte light pink.
All My Heart – Bright tangerine orange shimmer with a mixture of fine shimmer and larger sparkle and a sheer pinky-coral base color.
So In Love – Medium warm pink shimmer with lots of large silver sparkle. Lots of fallout from this shade.
Cupid Called – Very bright medium pink with fine shimmer.
Better With U – Pressed multicolored glitter in a sheer, shimmery peachy-gold base.
Amorous – Vibrant, matte coral-orange.
Fave Texts – Intense tomato red with a matte finish. This is a warmer red that doesn’t turn pink as it is sheered out.
Just Us – Pinky raspberry red with a matte finish. Feels a bit drier and grittier than the previous two mattes.
Yours Truly – Deep berry pink with a matte finish. Same drier/gritter feel as Just Us.

The mattes have good color payoff in general, with Ever & Ever being the sheerest but still pigmented enough. They are slightly drier in feel than other matte shadows I have, especially the two deepest shades, which are also a bit gritty. They apply to the lid with plenty of intensity right off the bat but can be easy to brush away with blending or when placing the shimmers/glitters over them. Using a primer helped them to adhere better and reduced the amount of dusting away that happened. Whatever I wasn’t able to prevent, I just fixed at the end of the look I was doing by layering on a bit more of any shade that got sheered out. I noticed this more with the deeper mattes than with the lighter ones.

The 4 shimmers vary slightly in finish and they also vary in the amount of fallout I get from them. The hot pink Cupid Called is the only one with all fine shimmer and almost no fallout. The one with the worst fallout was So In Love. Compared to other shimmer formulas I have, these aren’t quite as “creamy” or “buttery smooth”, but they apply with reasonable ease. For some, I find it helpful to apply them with a dampened brush or a fingertip to get a bit more color payoff and opacity out of them.

The 2 pressed glitters have a waxy texture that adheres to the skin without the help of any other product. The larger particles in both shades seem like they are basically the same coloring and look like they are duo chrome or multi chrome. The majority of the glitter particles are gold/orange/warm green and fewer of them are indigo/violet. Better With U, the warmer one, also has a tiny bit of green in it. Both have smaller shimmer particles as well. Totally Smitten has light pink shimmer and Better With U has light gold shimmer. When used on the lid, I don’t see a whole lot of the shimmery base unless I apply it very heavily. For the most part, I get a sheer overspray of warm-ish multicolored glitter.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• Fills some gaps in my collection. I don’t have much pink eyeshadow in general.
• Good variety of textures and depths to use it as a standalone palette.
• The pinky/orange theme instead of strictly pink and red is a nice change for a Valentine’s collection.
• Color payoff is pretty good overall. The two very lightest shades in the top row are the sheerest but still show up on me.
• The pressed glitters are easy to use. They adhere to the skin well by themselves without needing help from any other product. I also feel that I’m able to move them around if I don’t quite place them where I want at first. Fallout is mostly minimal.
• None of the shades stained my eyelids.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Some of the matte shades feel like they dust away easily during blending or when adding shimmers over top. Using a primer helped them stick to the lid better. After applying shimmer, I also would go and layer on a bit more of any matte shades that seemed to sheer out.
• The only shade with a lot of fallout was So In Love. The rest either had little to no fallout or a small/tolerable amount of fallout.
• The glitters take more effort to remove than the rest of the shades. When doing some of the glitter heavy looks, I felt the need to use an extra makeup remover wipe to make sure I got all the glitter off.

Worth Buying?

I think the price for this palette is actually really good for all that you get. Even if you don’t like the entire palette by itself, if there are enough shades in here you think you would like to have and use with other stuff you already own, it might be a good one to pick up. If you are someone that is very picky about quality and already have lots of stuff from indie brands, this is probably not going to do it for you quality-wise. Everything in here works well enough but you might just not really love it. Personally, I think it’s a fun little palette and worth the $18.

Looks

Look 1:

• ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer
• Ever & Ever – Crease, lower lashline
• Falling – All over lid (dry brush/finger)
• Sydney Grace Snow Queen + Makeup Geek Vanilla Bean single shadows – Brow bone, inner corner
• Make Up For Ever Infinite Sand Liner – Waterline
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Upper and lower lashes

The lighter matte turned out lighter / pinker toned than I was expecting based on how it swatched. It has pretty good color payoff but I did build it up a little. Very easy blending, didn’t dust away easily, didn’t look chalky for being a lighter shade. The shimmer photographed nice and has kind of a unique light pink sparkle/reflect. It adhered decently well but I did use my finger to apply it more heavily for better payoff. There was a notable amount of fallout that I had to clean up but I don’t feel it was annoyingly excessive. Particles are larger than fine shimmer but not super chunky/large.

Look 2:

• ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer
• Makeup Geek Vanilla Bean single shadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Dibs – Above crease, center part of lower lashline
• Yours Truly – Liner, outer lower lashline
• Better With U – All over lid, layered over mattes along lower lashline
• Falling – Inner corner, brow bone
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Lower lashes
• Elf Lash Xtndr Mascara – Upper lashes
• Make Up For Ever Boundless Bisque Liner – Waterline

I used one of the pressed glitters here. On the upper lid, I mainly kept it on a bare part of the lid so I could see what kind of base color there was in it (not much really) and on the lower lashline I used it over some of the matte shades. I like the glitter better over something a little deeper to help it pop more. It has a waxy feel and it picks up and transfers easily to the lid with a flat brush. I got a few specks of fallout from it, but it mostly stays well on the lid and is pretty easy to move around if I don’t place it exactly how I want at first. I have no idea how it might lift deeper eyeshadow underneath or how it might affect wear time. Previous pressed glitters I’ve used from ColourPop have caused creasing quickly on me. Short take on the glitter: I like it.

I also used Falling again and I can see by how I used it, it’s one of those shimmers that has a more muted/tamped down reflect. It’s not super shiny but more glowy. I used it with a dry brush only and it adhered perfectly fine with not a ton of fallout. I think this shade has more fallout when I apply it with a finger.

Look 3:

• No primer, used whatever small amount of leftover concealer was still on my brush to pat over the lid
• Ever & Ever – Inner transition, inner lower lashline
• Dibs – Outer transition, outer lower lashline
• Yours Truly – Outer lid
• Amorous – Inner lid
• All My Heart – Center of lid (dry brush)
• Totally Smitten – Inner corner
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Upper and lower lashes
• Makeup Geek Vanilla Bean single shadow – Inner corner, brow bone

I applied the lighter mattes first and then went in with the deeper mattes, finding they didn’t want to adhere very well. I think it may be better to go the opposite way with the mattes in this palette. They were easy to brush away when blending or adding the shimmer over top. They don’t feel dry or thin though. I only used a dry brush to apply the shimmer on the center of the lid but I did spend some time layering it. I was tempted to use a setting spray but decided not to, to see how it would look in photos. It didn’t get much fallout and it ended up looking nice in the photos.

I applied the glitter way too heavily on the inner corner. It was pretty easy to move around but I couldn’t really go back and sheer it out after I applied too much. It has somewhat of a light shimmery pink base color behind the larger sparkles.

Look 4:

• No primer
• Anastasia Beverly Hills Baby Cakes single shadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Just Us – All over lid/crease
• Amorous – Transition above outer crease
• So In Love – Center of lid (dry brush only)
• All My Heart – Lower lashine
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Upper and lower lashes
• Elf Lash Xtndr Mascara – Layered a bit over previous mascara on upper lashes for more volume

I went darker to lighter this time with the mattes and didn’t have as much of an issue with adherence. The shimmer on the lid has more chunky sparkle than All My Heart and I had much more fallout with it. It also felt a bit crumbly as I picked it up to use it on the lid. Shimmer on the lower lashline applied without any problems. Blending in general was easy but I did see a tiny bit of dusting away as I tried to use the orange above the crease, so I built the pinky-red shade up a bit once again afterward.

Look 5:

• ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer
• Makeup Geek Vanilla Bean + Anastasia Beverly Hills Baby Cakes single shadows – Brow bone, inner corner
• Yours Truly – All over lid, crease
• Dibs – Lower lashline
• Better With U – Center of lid
• Totally Smitten – Center of lower lashline
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Lower lashes
• Elf Lash Xtndr Mascara – Upper lashes

Yours Truly did better applied this way without any other shadows preventing from adhering. I still had to pack it on a second time in some areas after using the glitter though. The glitter lifted the color a bit. I used a pencil brush to do all the blending around the edges. I usually use a flat shader but the only one I really like has white bristles and I don’t want to stain them with this color. Generally felt okay about the quality of most of this. I got kind of a lot of fallout from the glitter I used on the lower lashline. The other glitter didn’t have as much.

Look 6:

• ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer
• Sydney Grace Snow Queen – Brow bone, inner corner
• Amorous – All over lid/crease
• Ever & Ever – Transition above crease
• All My Heart – Center of lid (wet brush)
• Amorous + Ever & Ever mixed – Base color for lower lashline
• Better With U – Layered over mattes on lower lashline
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Lower lashes
• Elf Lash Xtndr Mascara – Upper lashes

All My Heart went on much better with a wet brush but possibly looked a bit thick. Didn’t have much fallout from the glitter on the lower lashline. This looked more neon in photos than in person.

Look 7:

• ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer
• Dibs – All over lid/crease
• Falling – Inner corner/brow bone (dry brush only)
• Totally Smitten – Center of lid
• So In Love – Lower lashline
• Winky Lux Detail Oriented Mascara – Lower lashes
• Elf Lash Xtndr Mascara – Upper lashes

Dibs performed like the darker mattes where it was easy to dust away and lift with the glitter, except that being lighter, it wasn’t as easy to notice this. I packed on some more toward to end to get it looking good again. None of the shimmer/sparkle/glitter shades had much fallout. Adherence was decent all around except for the issue with the matte.

Look 8:

• Don’t remember if I used primer here
• Ever & Ever – Inner lid/crease
• Fave Texts – Outer lid/crease, somewhat winged out
• Cupid Called – Lower lashline
• Make Up For Ever Boundless Bisque Liner – Waterline
• Danessa Myricks Tourmaline velvet pomade (from the Defining Neutrals Palette) – Smudged into upper lashes and winged out slightly

This last look was me trying to use the remaining 2 shades I hadn’t used yet. I wouldn’t have normally chosen to pair them together but that’s what I ended up with.

The Natasha Denona My Mini Dream Palette is probably the closest thing to a truly neutral palette I have from the brand. The shade selection stays mainly beige and brown and only leans very slightly warm-toned. There are 3 powder mattes and 2 shimmers with all small particles that offer a soft but still satisfying sheen. It includes one shade from the larger My Dream Eyeshadow Palette (Nurture) and 4 new shades.

Price: $27
Availability: Natasha Denona, Sephora, Ulta, Kohl’s, Beautylish

Swatches

Devotion

Devotion is medium warm beige shimmer with all small particles. In the pan, this looks cooler-toned than it looks on the skin. It is definitely warm and has a peachy tone that keeps it from being too yellow or gold.

Balance

Balance is a light peachy nude with a matte finish. It has just enough depth to contour the shape of my eye with but is light enough to get away with using in a no-makeup makeup look. It looks like it would be similar to the lighter mattes in the I Need A Nude Palette but this one is warmer in tone. Those are definitely taupe and this is more visibly peachy/brown once placed on the eye.

Passionate

Passionate is a light peachy pink shimmer with mostly fine particles. There are a very small amount of comparably larger (but still small) shimmer particles that give the finish a little bit more dimension than the other shimmer. They don’t cause a significant amount of fallout though. This is cooler-toned when seen side by side with the other shimmer in the palette. The depth of this is bright enough to use as an inner corner/brow bone highlight and at the same time doesn’t give me a blinding frosty look when used all over the lid.

Loyalty

Loyalty is a very deep brown with subtle red undertones and a matte finish. I like that this has strong pigmentation and adheres well but I am still able to blend it. It requires more time and effort to get a smooth blend with this one but for a very deep shade, I prefer that over something that dusts away too easily.

Nurture

Nurture is a medium brown with very subtle peachy tones and a matte finish. This one looked warmer than I was expecting when used as a transition shade. If I use it to add depth to the crease along with Balance as the main transition shade, it doesn’t add too much warmth, though.

Performance

This palette is not for everyone but it happens to work perfectly for my complexion and for the style of makeup I like to do. Though it is mainly neutral, I did describe a few of the shades as leaning warm (in the peachy pink direction). Having a neutral-cool complexion, these types of shades don’t look warm on me. They look totally neutral against my skin tone. But this is relative, so I’m not sure how they would come across on someone with more yellow or olive undertones.

The three mattes are spaced apart nicely so that the lightest one is just barely deeper than my skin tone, the medium brown steps down in depth just the right amount, and the deepest one is dark enough to use as liner or as a rich smokey eye color. The two shimmers are also different enough from each other to justify having them both in the palette. It is tiny and only has a handful of shades to choose from but feels totally complete on its own. 

The quality does not disappoint either. The past few palettes I’ve used from the brand have been really nice quality and this one is no exception. Color payoff is more intense from the mattes than the shimmers. The deepest matte is the most intensely pigmented of them but isn’t difficult to apply or blend. The shimmers have more of a buildable color payoff. I can pick them up with a dry brush and get a softer sheen from them or press them on with my finger for a bit more shine. These are not the most reflective shimmers but I’m happy with the amount of shine they give off.

I’ve wear tested it twice and got excellent wear time with it. Over primer, I got 10 hours of wear before I noticed slight creasing starting to show and without primer, it started creasing around 6 hours in. On another day, I wore it the same way with primer on one eye and without primer on the other, but I also added a glitter primer to the lid to amp up the metallics. This lasted all day as well but with the glitter primer, I had even less creasing by the very end of the day.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• One of the best shade selections I’ve found in a long time for everyday use. Feels “complete” and very neutral (only slightly warm).
• I can get a decent variety of looks out of it even though it’s only 5 shades.
• Quality of the powders is great. They apply well and last all day. Mattes have that smooth “buttery” quality, blend easily, and have good color payoff. Shimmers don’t have any large chunky particles in them and give a good amount of sheen to the lids.
• Very little fallout overall. I don’t feel the need to be extra careful when applying any of the shades.
• Wears well all day on me.

Drawbacks and other considerations:

• It’s not gonna be the perfect shade selection for every skin tone.
• You might already have shades like this in your collection.

Do I Recommend It?

Yes. I’m thrilled about this little palette. It’s tiny but has all the basics there and in a good quality formula. Personally, I feel it’s well worth the $27.

Looks

Look 1:

• Balance – Transition, lower lashline
• Nurture – Deepen outer corner
• Devotion – All over lid
• Passionate – Inner corner
• Loyalty – Liner

This is the way I usually place neutral eyeshadows for a soft glam look that is still wearable for everyday. The shimmer on the inner corner was applied with a dry brush and adhered fine with not much fallout. The shimmer on the lid was applied with a combo of a dry brush and my finger. I get a bit more pow out of the shine if I use my finger. The shimmer particles are all tiny and are not as prone to falling out. What little does fall down onto my cheeks is not super noticeable. The dark matte brown is very pigmented and worked well as liner.

Look 2:

• Balance – All over lid/crease as a base (most of this got covered by other shades)
• Nurture – Inner/outer part of crease, lower lashline
• Loyalty – Inner/outer lid, smudged into base of lower lashes
• Devotion – Center of lid, layered over mattes on lower lashline

I wanted to use the deep matte brown and the deeper of the midtone matte browns more prominently. The deep brown is nice quality. It applies evenly and blends out smoothly with good adherence and minimal fallout. I was going to just do an all matte look (see the last slide) but decided to top it off with one of the shimmers at the end.

Look 3:

• Balance – All over lid/crease, lower lashine
• Passionate – Center of lid

This one is meant to show the depth and tone of the lightest matte shade and give you a better idea of the lighter shimmer as well. The light matte is deep enough on my skin tone to contour the shape of my eye with but is light enough to use in a no-makeup makeup look. It has a warmer, somewhat peachy-pink tone to it. The lighter shimmer has a subtle pinky tone and it’s not too light or bright.

Look 4:

• Nurture – Crease/transition, outer lower lashline
• Balance – Inner lower lashline
• NYX Glitter Primer – All over lid
• Devotion – Pressed over the glitter primer with my finger

This last one shows the deeper of the midtone browns used as a transition as well as what the metallics look like when used over a sticky primer. I get an overall slight warmth out of these shades but it’s a good amount that doesn’t veer into looking unnatural on me.

Comparisons

Here is the Natasha Denona My Mini Dream Palette shown along with the Natasha Denona I Need A Nude (left), My Dream (right), and Mini Starlette (bottom) Palettes.

When looking at it next to the I Need A Nude Palette, it looks like the same kind of color scheme but it’s not. There is some similarity but this one is more brown and that one is more taupe. On me, I find it to be a nice light neutral brown, not particularly pink-toned and for sure not yellow-toned.

Looking at it next to the Patrick Ta Major Dimension 3 Palette, the shades in the My Mini Dream Palette are closer to the bottom cooler-toned row in the Patrick Ta palette. I don’t consider the bottom row of the Patrick Ta palette to be truly cool toned but closer to true neutral.

Above I picked out the Morphe 18CT Matte Palette to show side by side with the My Mini Dream Palette. The Morphe palette is very cool toned on me through and through. Even the warmer-looking browns in the top right look cool-toned on me. The shades in the My Mini Dream look like they might be similar in tone just judging by how they look in the pan, but once I’m wearing them, they are slightly warmer. I throwing this in here just for visual comparison.

The Huda Beauty Pretty Grunge Palette is the type of palette that looks like it could be a go-to, everyday eyeshadow palette while providing options to go bolder and be more creative. It’s a matte-heavy palette that is sort of neutral but not really considering there are a lot purple, mauve, pink, and peach tones. The more colorful shades add some variety and interest but are still muted enough to reach for on the daily. Only 6 shades are shimmers and there is one 1 black gloss.

Price: $69
Availability: Huda Beauty, Sephora, Kohl’s

Swatches

This is an overview of all the swatches. To see them closer up, in more detail, see this post.

Liberty – Medium pinky peach with a matte finish.
Heroine – Pale matte yellowy peach.
Avant-Garde – Deep brown base color with lots of silver and gold sparkles.
Renegade – Soft black with a matte finish.
Brave – Medium reddish mauve.
Beauty Chaos – Light-medium dusty lavender.
Rise Up – Light matte brown with subtle peach undertones.
Stand Up – Light rose gold shimmer with all fine particles.
Strong AF – Greyish purple shimmer with larger silver and gold sparkles.
Nirvana – Deep muted purple with a matte finish.
Haphazard – Deep grey base color with red-to-purple-shifting fine shimmer.
Fearless – Deep reddish brown with a matte finish.
Hope – Deep neutral matte brown.
Luv Anarchy – Light matte mauve.
Maverick – Metallic white gold with a mixture of fine shimmer and larger sparkle. Creamier/stiffer formula that is easier to pick up with a finger than with a brush.
Rebelle – Dimensional gold and lavender shimmer. Lots of larger gold particles and some finer lavender shimmer. Also has a creamier feel to it but is a bit easier to pick up with a brush.
Freedom – Light matte pink.
Grunge – Black glossy cream.

All of the mattes show up well without the need to build a whole lot to get good color payoff. Some of the lighter ones look a little darker on the lid than they appear in the pan. Beauty Chaos and Freedom were surprisingly deeper than I expected. The deepest mattes are nicely pigmented and can be the type to stick a little too strongly to the lid. They aren’t bad, I’ve had much more difficult and worse-looking outcomes but for these I find it helpful to use one of the lighter mattes underneath first and then go over top with one of the deeper shades. The result looks pretty similar and it is much easier to move the color around. I can also work in the opposite order and go straight in with a deeper shade but I have to be super careful about packing evenly and slowly blending outward to get a smooth gradient. Applying them with or without primer (ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer) didn’t seem to make a difference in how they ahdered or blended. I got the most fallout from the matte black but for that and all the others just being sure to tap excess off the brush was plenty to get a clean application.

There are 6 shimmers in this palette and only 4 of those have a noticeable/bright reflective quality (for use as lid toppers). Haphazard gives me a satin finish at most and has a very prominent base color, enough that I could use this shade as a one-and-done shadow. Avant-Garde has some sparkle but most of what I see is its deeper base color. If you’re the type of person that likes to use shimmers on the lid most of the time, consider whether you think there is enough variety of shimmer in here to suit your taste. In general fallout was not bad from these. I got some fallout from the shades with larger/flakier particles (Strong AF, Maverick, and Rebelle) but it was much less than I was expecting from shades like these. Avant-Garde was the only one that had significant enough fallout to be annoying for me.

There are some things I find unique in here that I’m glad I have it for. Maverick is not my favorite shimmer to use on the lid because of its firmer/waxier formula but it works well to create a sparkly inner corner without needing to use a setting spray for the effect. Rebelle is an interesting crumbly looking mixture of gold and lavender that ends up looking nicely dimensional on the eye if pressed on the lid with a finger. I like the fine reddish shimmer in Haphazard and can’t think of another eyeshadow I have like this. And of course, the black gloss. I have some black creams (like NYX Jumbo Pencil in Black Bean and the black creams in the Patrick Ta Major Dimension III and Danessa Myricks Groundwork Palettes), but this is glossier and balmier. The gloss creases pretty bad but that is kind of the point. I like the smokey, dewy effect of just wearing it alone as eyeshadow and how easily and smoothly it blends around the edges.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• Great variety of color and depth for the matte shades with nothing being too similar to each other.
• Good color payoff and easy blending (recommend applying mattes in order of lightest to darkest though!)
• Most shades had zero or very minimal fallout (only one had lots of fallout).
• Some unique shades you don’t often find in neutral-ish palettes, like Haphazard, Maverick, Rebelle, and Grunge.
• The matte black in here is good quality. Pigmented, nice and dark, has smooth, even color payoff.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Not enough variety of shimmers to use as lid toppers for me personally.
• Not a fan of the formula of Maverick.

Do I Recommend It?

I think this is one of the better larger neutral palettes from this year. It’s not a low-cost palette but the quality and variety is there to support it. If I was looking for a good all around neutral palette, the only thing that would hold me back from this one is there is really only one truly go-to neutral combo of shades I can use. If you want a true neutral palette this might be a smidge too colorful but if you want more variety that is still in comfort zone territory it might be a good pick for you.

Looks

Look 1:

• Hope – Outer lid/crease
• Rise Up – Transition for Hope
• Stand Up – Center of lid
• Luv Anarchy – Inner crease, outer lower lashline
• Maverick – Inner lower lashline

Look 2:

• Freedom – Brow bone
• Beauty Chaos – Transition (applied to entire lid and crease area as a base for the next shade)
• Nirvana – All over lid/crease
• Rebelle – Center of lid (dry brush, finger)
• Maverick – Inner corner (dry brush)
• Haphazard – Lower lashline
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in All Around White

Here I’m using that creamier/stiffer shade Maverick near the inner corner. This is the way I most enjoy using it personally for the sparkly effect I get without lots of fallout and without needing to use a setting spray to get it to adhere.

Look 3:

• Sydney Grace Snow Queen single eyeshadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Freedom – Transition, lower lashline
• Rebelle – All over lid (dry brush)
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in All Around White

I tried to get both the gold and the lavender in the shimmer on the lid to show up here. It’s there but it’s easier to see in person.

Look 4:

• Anastasia Beverly Hills Blanc single eyeshadow – Brow bone
• Heroine – Transition, inner lower lashline
• Rise Up – Crease, outer lower lashline
• Stand Up – Inner lid, inner corner
• Avant-Garde – Outer lid, blended into crease
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Boundless Bisque

Look 5:

• Anastasia Beverly Hills Blanc single eyeshadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Rise Up – Crease/transition
• Hope – Outer lid, outer lower lashline

This is about the most truly neutral look I can get out of this palette. For some soft shimmer, I could top it with Stand Up (will add some rose gold to the look) or for more of a sparkly lid, I could top it with Maverick.

Look 6:

• Anastasia Beverly Hills Blanc single eyeshadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Heroine – Transition, inner lower lashline, inner lid
• Liberty – Outer crease, center of lower lashline
• Brave – Outer lid, outer lower lashline
• Beauty Chaos – Inner crease
• Grunge – Liner
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Infinite Sand

I used a bunch of the mattes in different tones here to show them all together. The palette is more colorful than you might expect but the color is soft and still very easy to wear for most situations.

Look 7:

• Anastasia Beverly Hills Blanc single eyeshadow + Cherished from the Huda Beauty Rose Quartz Palette (mixed) – Brow bone, inner corner
• Luv Anarchy – Transition, lower lashline
• Nirvana – Outer lid/crease
• Strong AF – Center of lid/crease
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Infinite Sand

Look 8:

• Grunge – All over lid, lower lashline
• Freedom – Transition
• Rebelle – Center of lid
• Stand Up – Inner corner
• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Whatever Black

I’m using the black gloss all over the lid sort of like a base. I started this look wearing it all by itself but felt it was a little boring, so I added a shimmer to the center. It creases but I don’t think it looks bad if it’s intentional.

Look 9:

• Heroine – Crease
• Maverick – All over lid
• Hope – Winged Liner

One more just to show you what Maverick looks like all over the lid. I applied this with a Sigma E56 brush (a stiffer, synthetic flat shader) and it took me a while to build it up evenly and strongly all over the lid. I could have also applied the shade with my finger but this formula can look a little thick and crinkly on the lid applying it that way.

The Natasha Denona Xenon Palette is a greyscale themed palette with whites, greys, and blacks in multiple finishes. Some of the midtone and deeper shades have a blue tint or blue shimmer that skews the entire palette extra cool-toned and frosty.

In case you’re wondering, my palette arrived broken and I didn’t want to wait to return and have a new one sent. I just cleaned it up and repressed the broken shades as best I could.

Price: $69
Availability: Natasha Denona, Sephora, Ulta

Swatches

Rime – Metallic. Shimmery white with all fine particles.
Cygnus – Sparkling Foiled. Deep grey with larger silver sparkles.
Stellar – Sparkling Wet Effect. Sparkling white, more reflective than Rime.
Blizzard – Powder Matte. Very pale grey with a slight blue tint.
Greu – Sparkling Metallic. Medium silver with a mixture of fine shimmer and larger sparkle.
Ebb – Metallic. Deep muted navy blue with a satin finish.
Superionic – Sparkling Foiled. Silvery shimmer with lots of larger multicolored sparkles. Silver in direct light and gives off a light lavender reflect at an angle.
Sposh – Creamy Powder. Deep grey, almost black.
Snowbow – Crystal Sparkling. Pale pinky lavender that shifts to a light nude with larger blue-green sparkles.
Night Sky – Metallic. Soft black base with a subtle blue satin sheen.
Contrail – Powder Matte. Matte white.
Snirt – Powder Matte. Medium blue grey.
Névé – Sparkling Metallic. Warm white shimmer with larger gold and blue sparkles.
Flurry – Powder Matte. Pale, warmer-leaning, greyish nude.
Skift – Sparkling Foiled. Warmer pinky-nude with lots of silver sparkle.

After doing a bunch of looks with the Xenon palette, I am surprised I ended up liking it more than I thought. I feel like the quality of the shadows is good and is on par with other Natasha Denona palettes I’ve tried. Color payoff/blending/fallout are all good with some variation between shades. I have nothing to knock it for as far as quality goes. The more tricky thing to consider is the shade selection.

For me personally, this is definitely not a palette I would reach for when doing my everyday makeup or to go to work or run errands. I could make it work for that, for sure, but I have other stuff that’s much better suited for that. This palette, for me, is mainly just for fun and to challenge myself to be creative with a limited set of shades.

Because it is so greyscale, it’s easy to look at this shade selection the same way you might look at a wall of text. It’s a little overwhelming. What do you do with it all? So much white. So much black/grey.

There are lots of similar shades in here but no actual repeats within the palette. For example Rime, Stellar, and Névé are all shimmery whites and could have technically been reduced to a single shade. From afar, from a glance, in passing, they all sort of look similar. BUT, they aren’t all exactly the same. One is sparklier/blingier, another is soft/diffused/ethereal, and the other has hints of purple and pink with bits of blue-green sparkle. Consider whether those small differences matter to you.

I think for this to be worth it, you have to be someone that appreciates subtle difference in texture and color and find those things useful and/or fun. Those differences are easier to notice in person than they are to capture on camera. In person I find it pretty easy to quickly move around to different lighting situations and look at things up close. I find capturing those things on camera much more tricky. Maybe a pro phographer/videographer may be able to pick them up but just taking a few quick snaps with your phone, for example, you’re more likely to just see a white-ish reflection from many of the lighter shimmers in here. The deeper shades stand apart from each better.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• No issue blending out the deeper shades. Cool grey tones, especially deeper ones, are often difficult to use. These are very user friendly.
• Fallout varies but even the most fallout-heavy shades were reasonable.
• Good color payoff overall.
• The shadows adhered well with or without primer and were not too easy to dust away.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Contrail is not as bright of a white as I’d like, but does have good color payoff.
• Contrast between a few of the shades (especially Contrail, Flurry, and Blizzard) was not high enough for my liking. If I used them together in a look, it was not that easy to tell them apart.

Do I Recommend It?

Having gone into this skeptical, I’m now glad that I have this palette. I have some shades like these scattered across many other palettes but I probably would never have thought to gather them all and focus on greyscale looks. For me it was worth it. If it fits into your budget, you like to be creative and appreciate nuance, then I do recommend it.

Looks

Look 1:

• Contrail – Inner corner, brow bone
• Blizzard – Inner lower lashline
• Snirt – All over lid
• Flurry – Crease/transition
• Sposh – Liner, outer lower lashline

I wanted to use all the powder mattes that are in the palette in a single look. Sposh is the only outlier, being a creamy powder.

Look 2:

• Sposh – Thin layer all over lid, outer lower lashline
• Cygnus – Layered heavily over Sposh all over the lid and taken up into the crease. This was difficult to get to the look even and I spent some extra time packing it in certain spots.
• Superionic – Inner corner, applied with a dry brush. 
• Stellar – Outer part of brow bone, far outer corner of the eye.

I used the creamy powder as a sort of creamy base and then applied the sparklier shade, Cygnus, over it thinking the sparkle would adhere well. For as much shimmer as I used in this look, fallout was not terrible.

Look 3:

• Make Up For Ever Artist Color Pencil in Whatever Black – Lower waterline, smudged below lower lashline
• Night Sky – Layered over the black liner, also use for detail lining near inner corner and below lower lashline
• Snirt – Outer crease
• Greu – Outer half of lid
• Blizzard – Inner half of lid
• Snowbow – Inner corner
• Skift – Detail line below lower lashline (used a wet brush)
• Contrail – Mostly on the center part of the brow bone

Look 4:

• Sydney Grace Snow Queen single eyeshadow – Brow bone, inner corner
• Flurry – Crease/transition
• Stellar – All over lid, lower lashline

Just wanted to try this brighter combo of shades. Sydney Grace Snow Queen is definitely brighter than the white inside the palette. Flurry is a nice all over lid shade for evening out the skin tone but is not quite dark enough to be used as a crease/transition shade. Stellar has a good amount of reflect and shine but doesn’t have a “wet looking” effect to me. Fallout from this shade was mild/moderate and not too hard to dust away. I applied it mainly with my finger and then smoothed it out with a brush.

Look 5:

• Snirt – Crease
• Flurry – Lid, Transition
• Greu – Inner lower lashline
• Névé – Outer lower lashline
• Night Sky – Eyeliner

Snirt Blends out quite smoothly for being so cool toned. Most of the time I have trouble getting mid-to-deeper cool tones to not look patchy as I sheer them out in the crease. Night Sky took me some time to apply but I felt it had plenty of pigmentation to be able to use as liner. Fallout in general was not bad.

Look 6:

• Ebb – All over lid/crease
• Cygnus – Lower lashline (applied wet)
• Snowbow – Inner corner (applied wet)

Ebb blended out really well all by itself without the help of a transition shade. Fallout was minimal and very reasonable. Good color payoff all around.

Look 7:

• Night Sky – All over lid, crease
• Greu – Inner corner
• Skift – Outer lower lashline

I mainly wanted to see how different Night Sky looks once used on the lid compared to Ebb. Both are pretty deep and both have blue shimmer in them. Night Sky, I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a metallic black. To me it’s a satin soft black with subtle deep navy shimmer. It didn’t apply quite as evenly or easily as Ebb but still ended up looking nice once I got it all done.

Look 8:

• Blizzard – All over lid, crease, lower lashline
• Contrail – Inner corner, brow bone
• Ebb – Outer wings, inner lashline
• Stellar – Center of lid (dry brush)

Mostly everything I used here worked well. I got a bit of sparkle fallout from Stellar (maybe try using this with a wet brush if you recreate it to minimize that fallout). Would’ve liked for Contrail to be a bit brighter to add more contrast between it and Blizzard. Ebb took me some time to wing it out slowly using a small angled brush but had very little fallout and blended out with ease.

The Danessa Myricks Groundwork Defining Neutrals Palette is an eyeshadow palette and multi-use product containing 10 shades of neutrals, each split into two formulas. For each shade there is one larger pan with a creamy velvet pomade and a smaller pan with its corresponding powder. You can use the pomades and the powders together or separately. I’ll talk about how I’ve been using the palette and what has worked for me later in the post. It retails for $65 which is a bit steep but feels fair for the amount of product and care that was put into its design. It is available to purchase from several retailers including Danessa Myricks Beauty, Sephora, and Beautylish, among others.

The palette is a bit larger than others I have that are in a similar format but I still find it easy to pick up and hold in one hand. Here is what it looks like next to a handful of other palettes for size comparison:

It’s a bit on the weightier side and feels durable and well made. It opens and closes magnetically and the pans can be removed via a small notch on the bottom right of each shade. The outer part feels like it is made of cardboard with a metallic bronze covering and the part that is actually holding the pans feels like plastic. The shade names are visible inside the palette for easy referencing if that is something that is important to you. 

Swatches

Sandstone – Pale yellow-toned nude. Works okay on my cooler/neutral undertone and is just barely light enough to get away with using as a brow bone highlight. 
Desert – Medium yellowish brown. Similar to Mirage but “cooler”, and greener by comparison.
Mirage – Medium orangey brown.
Chiseled – Medium taupe with subtle red undertones.
Sculpted – Deep neutral brown with subtle olive undertones.
Stone – Medium green-leaning taupe.
Core – Medium burnt orange.
Harvest – Medium-deep brown with strong red tones. Leans almost burgundy.
Bark – Deep warm brown with subtle red undertones. Very similar to Sculpted.
Tourmaline – Soft black. The powder has a bit of a sheen that the other shades don’t have.

Ways You Can Use It

As An Eyeshadow Palette

While you can use it similarly to the way you’d use a regular all-powder eyeshadow palette, keep in mind the shades in here are sheerer. Using the pomades by themselves or the powders by themselves doesn’t give me the best color payoff or wear time. To use this as an eyeshadow palette, I would use the pomades first to place color where I want it and give the powders something to adhere well to, and then go back over the same areas with the powders to set them. This combo results in much more satisfying color payoff. The pomades are more forgiving and flattering on my aging and sometimes textured eyelids than a heavily pigmented powder. The powders are also very lightweight. The combo of the pomades and the powders overall sit very nicely on the skin compared to many other eyeshadows I have. 

One pitfall to using it as an eyeshadow palette has been slightly less wear time than regular eyeshadow and I have to be mindful to use a primer, use the pomades lightly, and make sure to use plenty of the powder shades when going over top to handle oil/moisture that will break through during the day. Another pitfall is that applying eye makeup this way is more time consuming and takes more steps to complete than just using a highly pigmented eyeshadow from the get-go. The trade off is that it just looks better though – less patchy and less heavy.

To Contour Or Bronze The Face

I have used Chiseled (pomade) with my fingers to help define and bring some warmth to the sides of my cheeks and along the top of my hairline. It blends out really easily and looks super natural. I’ve used it a bit similarly on the eye but haven’t worn it all day that way yet. The pomade alone adds just enough color for me to tell that I’ve “done something” but it doesn’t look like makeup… so perfect for for the no-makeup makeup look. I have not tried setting the pomades with the powders when using it this way, mainly because the powder pans are so tiny that I find it impractical to try using larger face brushes in them.

To Fill In The Brows

I have mainly been using the pomade side of Tourmaline to darken and fill in my brows. I use a tiny angled brush and tap lightly into the pomade. It helps but isn’t absolutely necessary to tap some of the excess onto the back of my hand. This is easier to use and sheerer than something like the ABH DipBrow Pomade and it doesn’t set like that does, so I don’t feel like I’m screwed if I mess up and don’t apply it quite right at first. I can go in lightly and build up the color to the intensity I want and I find the whole thing really easy to control. I dabbled in the other shades but found they didn’t match my brows very well or were too red/warm for me.

To Define The Lips

I have only used the shade Sandstone for this to either tap onto the center of the lips for some brightness or to outline around the edges of the lip for a crisper line. I tried using Core as a lip color but didn’t think it was a flattering color on me and the pomade was a little too dry to use that way.

Other Miscellaneous Uses

I have also used Sandstone (pomade) to smooth/brighten the brow bone, tightlined with Tourmaline (pomade), and used Core (pomade) as a blush and color corrector.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• Flattering on mature/textured eyelids.
• Wide range of undertones and depths.
• Innovative product design helps inspire creativity.
• More versatile than a regular eyeshadow palette.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Shorter wear time than regular eyeshadow.
• Can be more involved and time consuming than regular eyeshadow.

Do I Recommend It?

Definitely consider the drawbacks but aside from those, I’d still say yes. I have managed to incorporate this palette into my “base” makeup routine (anything that’s not eyeshadow, blush, or lip product) in ways that I’d be sad to not have now that I’ve used it. There are other products I’d rather use strictly as eyeshadow but I’m glad to have these neutrals as well for the fantastic job they did with the undertones.

Looks

Look 1:

• Sandstone (pomade) – Brow bone
• Sandstone (powder) – Inner corner
• Chiseled – Transition, inner half of lid (used pomade and set with matching powder shade)
• Harvest – Outer lid/crease (used pomade and set with matching powder shade)
• Tourmaline (pomade) – Brows, smudged into base of upper lashes, outer lower lashline
• Stone (pomade) – Most of lower lashline, more diffused than Tourmaline

The third and fourth photos in the carousel are what it looks like with just the pomades on the eyes. They’re definitely lighter/sheerer than a regular eyeshadow and using the powders to set them gives me more of the color payoff I am used to from eyeshadow.

Look 2:

• Sandstone – All over lid, brow bone
• Core – Outer crease, lower lashline
• Stone – Inner crease
• Harvest – Inner/outer lid
• Tourmaline – Brows, smudged into upper lashes
• LA Girl Shade Shifter Duo Chrome Eyeshadow in Sunset – Lid

The last photo is an alternative using a shimmer on the lid.

Look 3:

• Mirage – Above crease
• Desert – Inner lower lashline
• Sculpted – Outer lid, crease
• Bark – Outer lower lashline
• Tourmaline (pomade) – Brows, smudged into base of upper lashes
• LA Girl Shade Shifter Duo Chrome Eyeshadow in Jade – Lid

Look 4:

• Tourmaline (pomade) – Brows
• Chiseled (pomade) – Contour, crease, lower lashline
• Sandstone (pomade) – Brow bone, outer edges of the lip, lightly on center of lip
• Core (pomade) – Color corrector underneath concealer

For this one I wanted to show how this looks used in a no-makeup makeup look with a before and after actually not wearing any makeup. I used several other products and have a longer tutorial for this on YouTube if you are curious.

Look 5:

• Stone – Transition
• Tourmaline – All over lid, crease, and lower lashline
• LA Girl Shade Shifter Duo Chrome Eyeshadow in Aura – Center of lid, center of lower lashline
• Fenty Beauty Diamond Bomb Highlighter in How Many Carats?! – Inner corner, brow bone
• ColourPop Creme Gel Liner in Swerve

I wanted to try the black cream and powder layered to see how well they would work for a black smokey eye. I liked this combo a bit better than the cream/powder duo in the Patrick Ta Major Dimension III Palette (review here) and enjoyed the unique finish from the slight shimmer in the powder.

The Patrick Ta Major Dimension III Palette is an all matte neutral eyeshadow palette with both warm and cool toned shades ranging from ultra pale to true black. There are also two cream bases in deep shades for added versatility. Neutral palettes very often lack a very pale matte highlight and a matte black. The inclusion of those two simple shades along with a decent selection of midtones in a palette that isn’t too large makes this seem like a handy pairing palette I can keep permanently in my everyday makeup drawer.

Price: $70
Availability: Sephora, Patrick Ta

Swatches

What’s Inside

5 Warm-Toned Powder Mattes

The warmer, peach-toned mattes in the top row are similar in application to the mattes in the Patrick Ta Major Dimension II Palette with easy, smooth blending and even application. All 5 of these shades have a finely milled, velvety texture that is smooth but not dry or slippery. They have excellent color payoff while still being easy to blend once placed on the skin. There is hardly any fallout even from the deepest shades and they are not messy or powdery in the pan. They adhere well to the lid with or without primer and the primer I use (ColourPop Party Proof Eyeshadow Primer) doesn’t seem to make much of a difference in the way they apply or blend.

5 Cooler-Toned Powder Mattes

The shades in the bottom row are cooler in comparison and differ slightly in performance. The three midtones look pretty neutral on me when used as eyeshadow but they do have a subtle red undertone that’s noticeable if I attempt to use them as brow powders. They do not apply quite as evenly and require more effort to blend out than the warmer tones but can still give me a nice result with a little extra patience. 

I would give the lightest shade an 8/10 on color payoff. It shows up well but using a fluffy brush with it requires maybe two or more layers for noticeable brightening. If you want this shade to really pop, I would suggest using more of a dense brush for maximum impact.

The matte black is the most tricky shade to use and feels more firmly pressed in the pan. It applies in thinner layers, requiring me to layer it more times for the same amount of color payoff. The best way I found to apply it was by using a flat shader for nearly all of the packing and blending, gradually working the brush upward as there is less and less color on the bristles. If a flat shader isn’t enough, I will then use a few other brushes like a pencil brush or a small fluffy brush to refine blending around the edges. It adheres strongly wherever I first apply it and I have to spend more time blending to get it to move and sheer out. Using the matte black over the black cream shade gives me a much smoother, deeper, richer look than just using the matte black by itself. The color goes on more evenly and the edges look more smoothly blended.

2 Cream Bases

In the swatches above Non-Negotiable and Impressive are the two cream bases. They swatch with intensity but with actual use on the eye, they apply a bit more sheer and blend out very easily. I wouldn’t personally wear them by themselves on the upper lid because they crease fairly quickly on me (and also shorten wear time when worn underneath the powders) but I enjoy using them smudged out along the lower lashline and applied as eyeliner with an angled brush. They don’t feel too oily or emollient but they still have enough creaminess to move around easily on the skin. Once I apply and blend them out, they set a tiny bit but not completely. Some of the moisture in them absorbs into the skin but they never become so dry that I can no longer adjust or blend the placement.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• I like that they included a true matte black and a pale matte highlight that is almost a true white. I feel both of these types of shades should be staples in a neutral palette. 
• Good selection of warms and cools to grab from when using this as a pairing palette.
• Color payoff is great for all the midtone shades (both the black and the white are somewhat sheerer but still buildable).
• The creams are a nice-to-have addition.
• It’s a smaller, paired down palette. It’s less overwhelming than something like the 30-pan palettes from ColourPop but possibly also less useful.
• Decent wear time at about 6-7 hours without primer and 8-ish hours with primer.

Drawbacks to consider

• The price. Considering the number of shades and the overall quality, the price sort of makes sense but it’s still a lot. It is definitely possible to find a selection of shades like these for much less.
• Cream bases reduce wear time.
• If you prefer a light matte highlight that isn’t yellow toned or nearly pure white, such as something more peachy or pinky, then you’re not gonna find that in here.
• If you want a range of undertones in your neutral palette beyond peach/taupe, you’re also not going to find that here. Sometimes it’s nice to have neutrals that lean more yellow, green, orange, grey, and purple.

Do I Recommend It?

If the price is not a deterrent, yes. I think it delivers on quality and usefulness. I wouldn’t say it’s the “perfect” neutral palette but they’ve fit a lot of basic things I want to grab for almost daily into a smaller palette. If you just can’t get behind the price/value, I’d suggest looking into the ColourPop Stone Cold Fox and/or Bare Necessities palettes. You can get both of those for the same price as this one palette with many more shades to choose from.

Looks

Look 1:

• Mandatory – Inner corner / brow bone (mainly to color correct)
• Refined – Inner corner / brow bone (to brighten)
• Staple – Transition / lower lash line
• Essential – Crease
• Fundamental – Outer lid
• Irreplaceable – Smudged into lash line, liner on outer half of lid

For this look I used all the powder shades in the cooler-toned bottom row and the lightest yellowy matte in the top row to create this simple everyday smokey eye. I used the light yellowy matte to help cancel out some discoloration on the inner corner and then applied the white matte on top for extra brightness. Color payoff was good, blending was easy, minimal fallout even from the deeper shades and it didn’t seem to matter too much whether I used I primer or not. The shades applied about the same both ways.

Look 2:

For this one I used all the warm shades in the top row to create the gradient from the brow bone to the crease and then packed the matte powder black all over the lid. I smudged the brown cream base along the lower lashline with a pencil brush and attempted to use that same shade on the waterline with an eyeliner brush. Most of what I used here worked out fine but the matte black was difficult to to get to look even and it ended up fading on the crease somewhat early for me. The liked how easy it was to use the cream base on the lower lashline but it didn’t stick around very long on the waterline. I didn’t clean up fallout so what you see under my eye is all there was.

Look 3:

• Mandatory – Brow bone/inner corner
• Classic – All over lid / crease, lower lashline
• Trademark – Outer part of crease, applied lightly with a fluffy brush
• Non-Negotiable – Liner on upper lid

Look 4:

• Mandatory – Inner corner
• Essential – Outer lid/crease, inner lower lashline
• Irreplaceable – Deepen lid/crease
• Needed – Inner lid/crease, outer lower lashline 
• Trademark – Deepen outer lower lashline
• LA Girl Shade Shifter Duo Chrome Eyeshadow in Sunset (shimmer on center of lid)

Look 5:

• Impressive – Outer crease
• Irreplaceable – Outer crease, over top Impressive
• Essential + Staple – Blended black out on center of lid/crease with these
• Refined – Inner corner, brow bone

The last slide in the carousel is what the cream looks like by itself on the lid.

I used the black a lot in this palette, probably more than anyone really cares to know about but I did that because for the most part the other shades are solid. I don’t have too many issues with them and they are generally easy, straightforward shades to use. I feel like lots of neutral palettes skip out on true matte blacks and also very rarely have a good, very bright matte highlight that doesn’t lean any particular tone (yellow or pink, for example). I wanted to do one last black look where I used the cream base underneath to show the difference it makes when applying the powder over top. The cream base doesn’t set completely but some of the moisture in it seems to either absorb into the skin or evaporate once I apply and blend it out on the lid. I can continue to move it around on the lid indefinitely. It doesn’t help to increase wear time and in fact shortens it for me.

Out of curiosity I used the ColourPop Stone Cold Fox on the other eye to recreate this look with similar shades. I feel like the ColourPop palette works just as well to create this type of look and has some lighter transition shade options.

Comparisons

I have a few different palettes here but the best alternatives I have in my own collection are the ColourPop Bare Necessities and Stone Cold Fox Palettes. These are each $35 retail and have 30 shades in them. For the price of a single Patrick Ta palette, you can get both of these from ColourPop and much larger selection of shades to complete your neutral collection.

The Natasha Denona I Need a Nude Palette is a cool toned neutral palette with lots of taupes and pinks. About half of the 15 shades are powder mattes and the other half are a variety of different types of shimmers. Similar to the Yucca palette and many others from the brand, the palette is on the larger side with pans that can be removed from the packaging and a nice large mirror inside the lid. For this one, they went a little bit farther on the outside design of the lid than they have with previous palettes. This one has an acrylic layer set over top some graphic elements underneath, giving it just a bit more thickness than older palettes. All other dimensions are the same.

The shades inside have a range of neutral light taupes, some cooler-toned bronze shimmers, a couple of obvious rosy pinks, and some neutrals with strong pink undertones. There are several pale to light shimmers varying from neutral nude to pale pink. As someone with a cool-to-neutral skin tone, I think the shade selection is flattering and easy to wear. I don’t have to force anything to work on me by altering the shade of my foundation or choosing specific blush/lip colors. However, it’s difficult to categorize this palette as truly neutral or cool toned. It relies heavily on pink, even in the taupe shades so that gives it less of a cool-looking effect. If you don’t like pinky neutrals, it may not be the best fit.

Quality is generally good here, but definitely look further into the “What’s Inside” section for specific formulas, because they all vary somewhat.

Price: $69
Availability: Natasha Denona, Sephora, Ulta, Beautylish

Swatches

Stone – Powder matte. Light taupe with subtle pink undertones.
Whisper – Metallic. Pale pinky nude. All fine shimmer, somewhat frosty finish.
Ella – Sparkling foiled. Medium bronze shimmer with a bit of sparkle.
Vague – Powder matte. Medium muted rose.
Travertine – Metallic. Sheer, light nude with a subtle sheen.
Delilah – Sparkling wet effect. Medium taupe base with large, highly reflective silver and pink sparkle.
Silhouette – Powder matte. Deep cool toned brown.
Muse – Sparkling foiled. Pale pinky nude with tons of large, highly reflective silver and pink sparkle. Most foiled looking shade in the palette.
Fair – Powder matte. Light nude with strong pink tones. Looks a bit darker on the skin than in the pan.
Filigree – Sparkling foiled. Medium-deep bronze shimmer with a some sparkle. Similar to Ella but more pigmented, a bit deeper and creamier-feeling.
Wit – Powder matte. Medium peachy rose.
Sheen – Glossy wet effect. Pale rosy nude with a fair amount of smaller sparkle.
Tender – Powder matte. Medium deep, cool-toned taupe.
Mesh – Powder matte. Medium rosy taupe. Very similar to Stone but this has stronger pink tones.
Mia – Sparkling wet effect. Pale pink. This one looks and feels most like something with a wet effect. More reflective than the other two wet effect shades. Lots of both fine shimmer and sparkle. Not quite as “blinding” as Muse, but still very reflective.

What’s Inside

7 Powder Mattes

All of the mattes in this palette are powder mattes. They all more or less apply in a similar way with buildable color payoff and easy blending. Some of the deepest shades were easier to blend out when applying the dark shades first and gradually fading color upward with a flat brush rather than using fluffy brushes and lighter shades first. Lighter shades applied well either way. Fallout was close to non-existant with these shades. They went on more evenly and were faster to build up when applied over a primer instead of directly to the skin. Some mattes darken with exposure to moisture or oil in the line of my crease and these are that type. It isn’t terrible and a primer does the trick. They are smooth with no grittiness in the powder and sit well on the skin without accentuating dryness. Wear time ended up being little short for me, around 6-7 hours over primer before beginning to notice fading and barely visible creasing.

2 Standard Shimmers

These are their “metallic” formula with all fine shimmer particles that give off a smoother non-sparkly sheen. The sheen is more reflective than what I would consider a satin finish but not as shiny as what I consider to be metallic. They are somewhat sheerer than some of their previous metallics I’ve tried, especially the shade Travertine. They are the type of shimmer I’d reach for if I wanted a soft wash of shimmer when wearing a barely-there, everyday kind of makeup look. Still, I think they apply well enough with a dry flat shader and look flattering. Fallout is minimal for these shades.

3 Sparkling Foiled Shades

These have a mixture of larger sparkle and fine shimmer. The finish I get is not all the same from these. Two of them (Ella and Filigree) have a subtler amount of reflect and do not really give me a “foiled” effect. Muse is the only one that gives me a high shine finish. All of these also apply fine with a dry brush some with more immediate color payoff than others. There is more fallout from them than the metallics but it is still very manageable and pretty easy to clean up.

3 Wet Effects (2 Sparkling Wet Effects, 1 Glossy Wet Effect)

These are a new formula for them. For all three of these, the first ingredient listed is diisostearyl malate, an emollient and skin conditioner. They do not feel like creams and they are not squishy, but they are smoother and have more slip than the other shimmers. The sheen I get from these isn’t what I would describe as wet, maybe more like glowy or dewy. They give me a slightly different look than the other shimmer formulas, but temper your expectations with these new shades.

There are two finishes here: sparkly wet effect, and glossy wet effect. In my opinion, these are all sparkly. I don’t get more dewy sheen from any particular one. Sheen and Mia have small sparkle particles and Delilah has larger sparkles. Mia is the most reflective, seeming to have the most amount of sparkle. Delilah has significant fallout, more than what I remember being typical of other shimmers I’ve tried from the brand. Mia was a bit better in terms of fallout, and Sheen had the least.

Pros and Cons

Things I like:

• High quality cool-toned shades. Stone, Mesh, and Tender are the type of shades I look for when I’m going for a cool-toned look but cool-tones that blend well and apply smoothly are usually harder to find. They did a fantastic job with these.
• Feels complete for easy, everyday looks. Quick and easy to work with.
• If you like neutrals but already have basic browns, this will expand that neutral selection.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Some shades are too similar to each other: Stone and Mesh, Vague and Wit, Filigree and Ella. None of these are exactly duping each other but I’d rather have significantly different shades.
• Fallout from Delilah is pretty heavy, more than what I find typical for Natasha Denona shimmers.
• The new formula is a bit of a let down in terms of what I was expecting. The shadows are pretty and the shades Sheen and Mia give me a slightly different effect than other shimmers but I feel the name exaggerates the actual look I get.
• Filigree is a bit texturizing to my lid. It has a semi-creamy texture to it and when applied too heavily, it can look thick and textured on the lid.

Looks

Look 1:

• Fair – All over lid, inner corner, brow bone
• Stone – Transition, lower lash line 
• Tender – Outer lid/crease
• Silhouette – Deepen outer corner
• Whisper – Inner corner
• Delilah – All over lid

Look 2:

• Fair – Inner corner, brow bone
• Mesh – Transition
• Tender – Outer lid/crease
• Travertine – Lower lash line 
• Mia – All over lid (first applied with dry brush, then finger on one eye, then wet brush on the other eye)
• Silhouette – Pressed into base of upper lashes

Look 3:

• Fair– Transition
• Vague – Outer lid/crease
• Mesh – Inner lid/crease
• Tender – Lower lash line 
• Silhouette – Eyeliner
• Sydney Grace Snow Queen single shadow – Inner corner, center of lid, brow bone

Look 4:

• Silhouette – Most of lid, crease, smudged into lower lashline
• Tender – Above crease, to blend out Silhouette
• Stone – Transition to further blend out deep brown
• Wit – Inner corner
• Ella – Lower lash line 
• Filigree – Center of lid
• Muse – Inner corner, around edges of Wit (applied with dampened brush)
• Sheen – Cheek highlight

Look 5:

• Fair – Transition
• Vague – All over lid/crease, lining above crease
• Wit – Diffused outward from lashline
• Silhouette – Smudged into lower lash line
• NYX Jumbo Pencil in Milk – Center of lid
• Sheen – Center of lid, over top NYX Jumbo Pencil
• Muse – Inner corner (applied with dry brush)
• Sydney Grace Snow Queen single shadow – Brow bone
  

The Natasha Denona Yucca Palette is a mostly warm neutral palette inspired by summer tropics with many shades that lean gently into green, yellow, and orange tones. A few bolder shades are also incorporated but this is generally a very comfortable set of shades to wear even for those that may not be all that into colorful makeup. The palette is the same format as most of Natasha Denona’s recent larger palettes. It has magnetic, removable mid-size pans housed in a high quality plastic case and a large mirror inside the lid.

Price: $69
Availability: Natasha Denona, Sephora, Ulta, Beautylish

Formula Overview

Here’s a breakdown of what all is inside this palette:

There are 4 sparkling foiled shades with a mixture of large sparkles and fine shimmer. These include Plantasia, Komorebi, Elysian and Makia. They are more reflective and give off a higher shine than a regular shimmer eyeshadow. The particles are larger but they are flat and they lay smooth on the skin and don’t have any gritty or chunky feel to the touch. I am able to pick up color from these shades with a dry brush and get plenty of color payoff quickly and they build up easily. If I use my finger to apply these to the lid, it really amps up the intense “foiled” effect. They have some fallout but I find the amount reasonable compared to other sparkly shimmers I’ve used and not particularly difficult to brush away as long as I’ve used enough powder to set my foundation/concealer.

The only “regular” shimmer in the palette is Ray. There are no large sparkles in this one and the particles are generally smaller but they vary in size. This is slightly less reflective than the sparkling foiled shades but still gives off a satisfying amount of shine. It also picks up and applies easily with a dry brush and has much less fallout than those.

8 of the shades are powder mattes. All of these have less pigmentation than I remember from previous palettes. For most of the shades I think this is a good thing. I’ve had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Natasha Denona mattes over the years because I’ve found their intense pigmentation time consuming and difficult to use but also very satisfying when I’m able to get them to apply well. The ones in this palette apply a bit more sheer but they still show up well, go on evenly and blend quickly. They are just more user-friendly. For two of the deepest mattes (Flax and Willow), I think it’s somewhat of a drawback depending on how you plan to use this palette. They require more layering/packing for even-looking application. If you are not a perfectionist, this is probably not something that will bother you much. Using these just to wear makeup for the day and live my life, the little bit of unevenness is not really that noticeable. It is more noticeable when they are seen from up close in photos.

The last 2 shades are creamy powders. These are less dry than a regular powder matte. I’m not well versed in cosmetic chemistry but looking at the ingredients for Calathea and Fushi, I see they have silicones listed high up in the ingredients. They definitely still have that powder-based feel to them but they are more emollient and seem to meld with the skin more than a regular powder matte and blend out more seamlessly. Calathea has similar sheer/buildable color payoff as creamy powders I’ve used in older Natasha Denona palettes but Fushi has a waxier feel (and smell too!) with noticeably higher color payoff.

Pros and Cons

Things I love:

• Neutral but not basic.
• Shimmers have impressive shine and color payoff.
• Formula is easy to work with.
• Excellent wear time for most shades. 7-8 hours without primer, 10-12 with primer.
• A few brighter/bolder complementary colors to play with.

Drawbacks to consider:

• Sparkling metallics do have some fallout. 
• Two deepest mattes require extra time to get even application.
• Wear time is pretty short for the creamy powders. Around 4 hours with or without primer.
• Acacia and Tipu are nearly dupes.

Do I Recommend It?

Yes. The overall quality is there and the color story is approachable without being boring. The drawbacks I mentioned are not enough to deter me from getting a lot of enjoyment out of this palette.

Looks

Here are some looks I did with this palette. If you’re interested in one specifically, these are available as tutorials on YouTube.

Sephora recently launched these new “Color Shifter” eyeshadow palettes. They are $10 each and they come in 4 color variations. Each contains three mattes, a shimmer, and a topper shade. The color selection in them is pretty straightforward and balanced. I haven’t found it difficult to come up with a variety of looks for each palette.

The packaging was designed to be as recyclable as possible, so they are mostly made of cardboard and metal except for the elastic band which is used to hold the palettes closed instead of magnets. The mirror can slide out of the lid completely and be kept if desired. On the back of the palette there are holes to pop the pans out when you are ready to discard the packaging (BUT be aware that the pans are glued in, so this isn’t meant for rearranging shades). The spine of each palette is color coded with the name so if you stack them together vertically, you can easily grab the one you want.

The mattes are pretty good as far as color payoff and ease of blending but there was a little bit of inconsistency in how they adhered to the skin. I’ll let you know in the comments for each palette below which shades were harder to use. The shimmers in general were my least favorite thing about these palettes because they were drier, sheerer and most of them had larger sparkles that fell out easily during application. The one in the Khaki Illusion palette was the best of them all, being all fine shimmer and adhering very nicely to the skin. The toppers are pretty consistent across all 4 palettes with a flakier consistency and higher shine than the shimmers but a reasonable amount of fallout. I noticed that when I used them on the upper lid, they caused my eyeshadow to crease earlier in the day, so I ended up using them on the lower lashline a lot of the time.

Infinite Nude

The Infinite Nude Palette is super neutral and a good go-to on days when I want to wear “no makeup” makeup. The topper, shimmer and deeper matte are nice to have in here too when I want to kick it up a notch.

The most challenging shades to use in this one were the shimmery nude and the medium matte brown. The shimmery nude, swatched on the bottom right, was a little bit dry and didn’t adhere well when applied with a brush, resulting in lots of sparkle fallout. The medium matte nude adhered a little too well to the skin and required some extra patience to blend out. That said, those downsides weren’t so bad that they deterred me from using the palette. I still ended up reaching for this one several days in a row just because the tones work very well for me and the ease of use is good enough.

For this first look, I used the lightest matte on the inner corner and brow bone and blended the lighter brown matte in the crease and along the lower lashline. Then I applied the ivory shimmer all over the lid, used the deepest matte as a liner, and applied the topper to the inner lower lashline.

Here, I wanted to try using the deepest matte in a way that required blending to see how it would do and use the topper as an actual topper. Both worked out fine. The deepest matte had plenty of pigmentation, applied evenly and blended out well. I’m happy to report the topper doesn’t have a ton of fallout but it does shorten wear time and cause creasing earlier in the day.

Unlimited Mauve

The Unlimited Mauve palette is focused on purples and is the only one that has an actual shifty shade. The topper is a duochrome that shifts between pink and orange depending on the angle of light. The toppers in the rest of the palettes don’t appear to shift at all. The matte purples are more muted than I was expecting, looking a bit more grayish purple on the eye. The deepest matte has good color payoff but doesn’t adhere super well so I had to keep building it up during application. The shimmery purple definitely shows up well as a lavender on the lid but has a good amount of larger sparkle and fallout.

For this one, I used all three mattes on the upper lid and crease. The lightest one is used highest up, just below the brow bone. I didn’t use it as a highlight because it is a little darker than my skin tone. The lighter purple matte is used broadly in the crease and the deepest matte is used on the outer corner. I applied the lavender shimmer to the inner half of the lid and used the topper all along the lower lashline.

I started by applying the lighter matte purple all over the lid and blended it into the crease. I attempted to add depth with the deeper matte on the outer lid and lower lashline and it sort of worked but this shade was somewhat dry and didn’t adhere as well as I would’ve liked. It took me some time to build it up and get it evenly applied. The shimmery lavender is used as an inner corner and brow bone highlight and the topper is used on the lower lashline. If you scroll between this look and the last you may be able to see the difference in color from the topper shade. It’s more pink here and closer to a coral-orange above.

Khaki Illusion

The Khaki Illusion palette has some orange and muted olive shades. The orange shades stand out much more than the greens, which are very grungy so they end up looking brown and grey on me. The deepest matte was my least favorite but it was still pretty decent. Despite that, it’s still a nice little palette. The shimmer on the bottom right is probably one of the best shimmers of all that are available in these palettes with a smoother finish and more opaque color payoff. The orange shades blend out very nicely and the topper is a unique pale gold.

This look mainly features the two orange shades with a hint of the other shades as accents. To form the base of the look, I used the lighter orange shade as a transition and the deeper one all over the lid and along the lower lashline. Then, I smudged the matte greyish green into the upper lashline and used the topper on the center of the lid and on the inner corner. There is just a small pop of the shimmery olive green on the outer lower lashline.

This time I wanted to use the shimmery olive more heavily on the upper lid and focus less on the orange shades in the palette. I used the lighter orange as a transition just for some warmth and applied the deeper matte all over the lid and along the lower lashline. The shimmer is layered over it, focused more on the inner 2/3 of the lid. The topper is used on the inner lower lashline. Maybe you can see how the gold in the topper is a little stronger than the gold in the shimmery olive the way it is layered here.

Bronze Vision

The Bronze Vision palette is perhaps a little intimidating but I really liked the quality of most of the shades and what I was able to do with it. I did some looks I wouldn’t normally do because they are shades I usually don’t wear often. The weakest shade is the gold shimmer on the top right. It has a mixture of fine shimmer and large sparkle and goes on a bit sheer. The rest of the shades are very nice though. The two deeper mattes have strong, even pigmentation and blend out easily. The topper has somewhat of a pink tone to it which was unexpected but I ended up liking that about it.

I started this out with the lightest matte as a transition and used the deeper orange all over the lid and on the lower lashline. Then, I used the gold shimmer on the inner 2/3 of the lid. The matte black is used as liner and I layered the topper over the orange along the lower lashline.

For this last look, I used the black as the main focus which I rarely do but I found it was a very nice quality matte black. I had no issues getting it to apply quickly, blending was not difficult around the edges, and fallout was minimal. No patchiness here. The topper is used on the center of the lid, slightly overlapping the black.

I’m finally getting around to posting my review of the Milani Luminoso Eyeshadow Palette. I feel like this has been taking so long to get through. This palette came out late December (I think) and after a shipping delay, other products I was reviewing, work, etc., it’s finally here. LOL. Anyway, this is a warm neutrals palette inspired by their blush of the same name that has been around forever. I have the original blush and I think they did a really nice job capturing the essence of it in this color selection.

It comes in a small square-ish cardboard palette similar in size to a ColourPop 9-pan palette. There is no mirror and it has a magnetic closure. The pans are a bit smaller in size than ColourPop eyeshadows and in general the presentation feels a little bit on the cheap side. It retails for around $13 so I can’t really expect that much I guess. After playing with this, I feel like the quality of the shadows exceeds the quality of the packaging though and I was generally happy with the way these performed. There are some cons about certain shades and I will get into that more below.

There are 3 mattes in a good range of shades – nothing too similar, some different tones and depths to work with. And there are 6 shimmers with different finishes. They range from very subtle satins to sparkle/shimmer mixtures. There are only two shades that I feel are unnecessarily similar to each other (Luminoso and Beam), but those two are most similar in color to the Luminoso blush so it kind of makes sense.

Color payoff and blending was good throughout the palette but at times I did run into issues with some of the shades not adhering well, especially some of the more sparkly shimmers. Using a dampened brush made them work and helped them to pop more.

Below I have individual swatches and shade descriptions along with notes about the quality of each shade and further down I share some of the looks I’ve done with this palette.

Despite some drawbacks, I gotta say I’m happy to have this palette. I can get a good range of looks out of it and it’s a fantastic selection of shades in my comfort zone to wear on the daily.

Swatches

Note: All shades are swatched twice. On the left, they are heavily swatched with my finger and on the right I mostly used brushes and sheered the shades out.

Halo – Matte light peach. Finish is more of a luminous matte finish, not dry and flat-looking. Good color payoff, blends easily.

Dusk – Shimmery medium bronze. Mostly fine shimmer with a tiny bit of silver sparkle. Not much fallout, one of the better shimmers.

In The Clouds – Matte light brown. Same finish/feel as Halo. Good color payoff, blends well, could apply a little bit more evenly.

Pink Moon – Warm medium pink with shimmer and lots of sparkle. Has more of a crumbly texture and needs to be smoothed out. Lots of fallout. Using a wet brush was best with this shade.

Luminoso – Pale peach with gold satin sheen. The finish is soft and subtle, does not reflect much light. Nice quality shade.

Sol – Subtly pink-toned gold with shimmer and lots of sparkle. Another somewhat crumbly shade with a decent amount of fallout. Works fine on a dry brush if layered but better with a wet brush.

Beam – Pale pink base with gold satin sheen. Similar color and finish as Luminoso but pink is marginally more visible when seen from an angle. Another nice quality shade.

Sunset – Orangey red shimmer. All fine shimmer. This shade is more complex than it appears on the surface. It is definitely red but it shifts a bit between orange and pink toned depending on the angle. The base appears more orange while the sheen is more pink. This was the most difficult to get to adhere. Definitely needed to use a wet brush with this one.

Horizon – Medium dark warm brown with a matte finish. Tiny amount of fine shimmer but it doesn’t show up much on the lid. Good color payoff, easy to blend. One of my favorite shades in the palette.

Looks

For this look I applied Halo all through the crease with a fluffy brush. I used a dampened flat eyeshadow brush to apply Sol all over the lid. Sol is a somewhat crumbly shade and I still got a little sparkle fallout using it this way. Using a thick eyeliner brush, I applied Luminoso along the entire lower lashline.

I started this out by packing Horizon all over the lid and worked the color up into the crease all with a flat shader brush. The edges are somewhat soft but not as blown out as they’d be if I’d used a fluffy brush. Over top of that shade, I applied Pink Moon with a dampened flat brush all over the lid. Pink Moon is another crumbly/sparkly shade that I get a decent amount of fallout with, even applying it this way. I used a dry liner brush to apply Dusk to the lower lashline – this had very little fallout and adhered easily. On the inner corner and the outer edges of my crease color, I used Beam with a dampened pencil brush. A dry brush would’ve probably worked fine for this shade.

For this look, I applied In The Clouds to the crease with a fluffy brush. I used Dusk all over the lid, applying it with a dry flat shader. It didn’t adhere super easily and I had to build it up to get good color payoff. Horizon is applied to the lower lashline and also a bit on the outer corner for a little extra depth there. On the very center of the lid, I used a touch of Sol, which didn’t adhere well over Dusk or show up well. Could’ve skipped this step.

Here I used Halo in the crease and applied Sunset all over the lid. I started using Sunset on a dry brush and it just would not go on evenly. Parts would show up with full opacity and other parts would be so sheer, I could hardly see it. Also dusted away at the tiniest touch. After that I ended up using a wet brush which was much better but still not easy. Pink Moon is used on the lower lashline and Beam is on the inner corner. Both of these worked just fine.

The “structure” of this look was done by using Horizon on a pencil brush to apply it mainly to the outer crease and lower lashline. It is layered a little more heavily on the upper part of the eye and more sheerly on the lower lashline. Blending and adherence were good. I used Beam all over the inner lid and crease with a dry flat brush. This shade adhered easily as well and ended up having a little more shine than I expected.

In The Clouds is used on the outer half of the crease and lower lashline. Luminoso is applied to the inner half of the lid and on the center of the lower lashline with a dry brush. I also wanted to see how Sol would apply with dry brush so I used that on the inner corner with a pencil brush, applying 3-4 layers to get it to show up well. Fallout was not too bad for layering it that much.

This last one was mainly to see how Luminoso looked on the lid compared to Beam. The finish is a bit drier and flatter looking but the color is similar.

The ColourPop Enchanted Palette is a purple palette with 12 shades of eyeshadows, pressed pigments and one pressed glitter in various finishes. It came out together with the ColourPop Fairy Well Palette and both of these have larger pan sizes than many other ColourPop palettes. Pans are 26mm in diameter and about 1/2 the depth of most of my other single shadows. The shades are magnetic but they won’t fit into some of their other palettes (like the Bare Necessities, Stone Cold Fox, etc.). This goes for $18 and is currently sold out but still listed on ColourPop‘s website.

I liked most of the mattes except for one. They were pigmented, buildable, and blended easily without patchiness. The one exception was New Realm. The color is nice and it helps to add some depth but it is more dry than some other deep shades I’ve used from this brand and doesn’t adhere as well. The two lightest mattes feel like some of ColourPop’s better mattes and the pressed pigments are surprisingly easy to use for how bold and dark they are.

The pressed pigments look different enough in the pans next to each other but when I actually use them in looks, it is very hard to tell them apart. They are marked with stars next to their names on the back of the palette to denote that they are not meant to be used in the immediate eye area. I personally haven’t noticed any irritation from using them on my eyes but they do leave a light reddish stain on the skin which fades by the next day.

I like some of the shimmers more than others. All of them contain varying amounts of larger sparkle and have some level of fallout. Magic Maker is the most sparkly of them all and is more like a topper. The rest have less sparkle, more fine shimmer and a more visible base color. Toad and Mischievous were harder to pick up on a brush and required more building to get a satisfying level of color payoff. I thought Maze was pretty good and Berry Pickin’ was easy to use.

The only matte with sparkle is Fairycore. ColourPop has some matte with sparkle shades that I actually like but this isn’t one of them because the sparkles are quite large and don’t stick or show up well. I would have preferred if they had left this as just a true matte.

Swatches

Note: All shades are swatched twice. On the left, they are heavily swatched with my finger and on the right I mostly used brushes and sheered the shades out.

Magic Maker – Sheer pale pink shimmer with a strong gold sheen and larger sparkles. Mostly comes off as a sparkly topper shade. Feels silky and picks up easily. Lots of fallout.

Fairycore – Light, matte, brownish pink base with LARGE silver sparkles. I really don’t like this shade. The matte base is not bad but the sparkles are super messy and they don’t really show up well on the lid.

Vine – Light muted purple with a matte finish. This has a soft, velvety feel to the touch. Blends very easily.

Shapeshifter (Pressed Glitter) – Multicolored glitter and pale pink shimmer mixed into a sheer waxy base. Applied over just my skin or a lighter shade, it isn’t as easy to see all the different colors of the glitter. They are more visible when applied over a deeper shade.

Maze – Light pinky bronze shimmer with sparkles. Has a fair amount of fallout. It shows up well though even if I apply it with a dry brush. One of the better shimmers in the palette. 

Berry Pickin’ – Bright bubblegum pink shimmer with a good amount of larger sparkle. Picks up decently well on a brush but some building helps for more intense color payoff. Has sparkle fallout.

Toad – Orchid purple shimmer with a bit of small sparkle. One of the sheerer shades in the palette. Needs layering or using a damp brush.

Mischievous – Dusky plum shimmer with a small amount of tiny sparkle. Feels firmer and doesn’t pick up easily on a brush. Needs building to show up well.

Got Wings – Reddish mauve with a matte finish. Soft, velvety texture. Good, even color payoff, easy to blend. Tiny bit of fallout.

Spellcaster (Pressed Pigment) – Deep berry pink with strong purple tones. Feels drier and slightly grittier but goes on evenly and with plenty of color payoff. Not hard to blend out. This one leaves a light stain on the skin.

Fae (Pressed Pigment) – Another deep pink shade but this one has stronger red tones. Very hard to tell this and the previous one apart in practice. Performs about the same as Spellcaster. Stains the skin lightly.

New Realm – Smoky deep purple with a matte finish. Kind of dry and doesn’t adhere well so it comes off like it isn’t pigmented. I can build it up a little bit, but it dusts away easily. Not the easiest thing to blend.

Looks

I started this out by blending Vine broadly through the crease, and added Got Wings in a smaller area on the outer lid and crease for some depth. Magic Maker is applied over the inner half of the lid and crease, slightly overlapping the matte shades underneath. Using an angled brush, I smudged a bit of New Realm on the outer portion of the lower lashline and added Shapeshifter to the inner half for some sparkle. This was a wear test and it lasted for about 7 hours without primer before I noticed light creasing.

To begin, I applied Vine above the crease with a large fluffy brush. Then I used a smaller fluffy brush to apply Fae to the inner and outer lid, blending upward into the crease, leaving the center of the lid bare. On the center of the lid, I applied a small amount of NYX Glitter Primer and then patted Fairycore over top, trying to get as much of the sparkle in it to adhere and reduce fallout. Using a pencil brush, I applied Mischievous to the inner corner and along the outer edge of the lower lashline, sort of like a wing but from the bottom side of the eye. On the center part of the lower lashline, I used a thick eyeliner brush to apply Berry Pickin’. All of the shimmers were used with dry brushes.

In this look, I’m using the other pressed pigment. If you go between both of these looks, it is hard to tell them apart on the eye. I started by pressing Spellcaster all over the lid and blended it upward into the crease. For some shine, I initially applied Maze with a dry brush on the center of the lid but it didn’t adhere super well over the matte, so I later used a damp brush. Mischievous is applied to the lower lashline with a damp brush and ended up looking so much better applied this way. The warm shimmer you see on the inner corner and above the crease is a bit of Lil Orb from the ColourPop Fairy Well Palette. This was also applied using a damp brush.

I wanted to see how well New Realm would blend by itself and how well I could tell Berry Pickin’ and Toad apart on the eye. I used several brushes to apply New Realm – one to apply the initial layer, two to blend in the crease and around the edges, and one to pack on and build up color. This shade took a while to apply and get this level of color payoff. It is kind of dry and could be better at adhering. It sticks noticeably better over ColourPop Party Proof Primer and goes on more evenly. It blends easily over the primer and tends to dust away over just bare lids. By the time I was done with the entire look, it had already faded in the crease. Berry Pickin’ was applied first with a damp brush and then again with just a dry brush. Toad is applied to the lower lashline using a dry brush.

Out of my frustration with Fairycore up to this point, I wanted to find a combo of shades that would actually compliment it within the palette. I decided to try pairing it with almost all of the warmer shades in the palette. On the outer half of the eye, I used a fluffy brush to apply Got Wings mainly to the crease. Without the help of a sticky primer, I applied Fairycore with a flat shader brush to the inner half of the lid. Fallout was really bad and almost none of the sparkle remained on the lid, but the matte base color looked okay. For some depth and shine, I used New Realm along the outer lower lashline and applied Maze with a dry brush to the inner lower lashline.

The ColourPop Fairy Well Palette is a true neutral palette that contains the types of shades that could be used for daily makeup or to use as a neutral pairing palette with other palettes or single eyeshadows. It has a range of textures and depths that make it versatile enough to use for very natural, barely-there looks or you can go super smoky and glam. There are 4 true mattes, 4 shimmers, 2 pressed glitters, and 2 mattes with sparkle. The selection of mattes in here come in different undertones and there is one pretty deep shade to help “complete” looks with depth or definition. As of the post date, this is currently out of stock but still listed on ColourPop’s website for $18.

This palette came out alongside the ColourPop Enchanted palette. Both of these palettes look like the same format as some of ColourPop’s other 12 pan palettes by the layout and shape, however, the pan sizes are larger than the ones in many of their other palettes (like Bare Necessities, Stone Cold Fox, etc.). So, you can’t take shades from this palette and put them into something like one of their 30 pan palettes. The pans fit right in with other 26mm singles I have from ABH, Sydney Grace, etc., but they look like they are about 1/2 as deep and contain less eyeshadow in them. This size does make these better for creating custom palettes with other brands though.

My general feeling about this palette is that I like it but I don’t love it. I like all of the mattes. No complaints there. The shimmers are not bad but they don’t pack as much of a punch as other shimmers I’ve seen from ColourPop, especially the lighter 3 shades. They require more layering, or even using a dampened brush, if you really want them to pop. If you like a subtle wash of sheen, then you might like them as they are. I don’t mind that there are two pressed glitters. I think it adds the ability to play a little and go more glam when you feel like it.

The biggest downside for me are the two matte with sparkle shades. Cozy Cabin is a great light shade to have in addition to the more midtone and deeper shades but the added sparkle makes it so I don’t even want to touch it. The sparkle fallout is terrible and even under the best of circumstances, barely any of that sparkle remains visible on the lid. Hide & Seek has both sparkle and pigment fallout. It can be used over a sticky base to reduce some of that and the sparkle shows up much better in this shade than with Cozy Cabin. It’s just not something I want to deal with though. I’d rather use one of the pressed glitters over top a matte shade for a similar effect.

Note: Below, each shade is swatched twice. Once, just using my finger (on the left) and then again using a brush (on the right) so you can see how they look applied heavily vs lightly. It isn’t always necessary or helpful to see them swatched this way but with some shades it makes it easier for me to see what all is in them. A heavy swatch doesn’t always show if a shimmery shade has large sparkle in it and also frequently makes eyeshadow appear to have more color payoff than you might actually get on the eye. With mattes, I think it helps to give a better idea how the shade might look when blended and sheered out.

Swatches

Pixi Perf – Warm ivory with a soft sheen. Mostly fine shimmer with very few small sparkles mixed in.

Fairykin – Matte cool taupe. Even color payoff, easy to blend and build up.

Cozy Cabin – Light peachy-nude matte base with LARGE silver sparkle. The sparkle in this doesn’t stay put on the lid whatsoever as I’m applying the shade. Hardly any is actually visible in the final result. It also seems to look darker on the skin once it is applied, so it’s not ideal as a highlight on me.

Lil Orb – Light peachy beige shimmer with a scattering of small sparkle. This is somewhat sheer compared to other ColourPop shimmers I have. 

Wood Nymph – Light warm beige shimmer. 99% fine shimmer with a few flecks of small sparkle here and there. Sheerest shade in the palette, requires building unless you want a “no-makeup makeup” look.

Into The Forest (Pressed Glitter) – Mixture of copper and gold glitter in a sheer base of fine shimmer. The waxy base itself doesn’t have much of a color to it but the fine shimmer looks like a pale neutral gold.

Faun Guy (Pressed Glitter) – A lot like Into The Forest except this has gold and silver glitter mixed into the same type of shimmery base. Resulting look is maybe slightly brighter and less warm looking than the other glitter.

Pond – Medium pinky brown with a matte finish. Nice quality, just like Fairykin. Color payoff and blending are good.

Flower Crown – Medium warm brown. Has a subtle olive tone to it. This took slightly more effort to apply and blend out evenly. I still like it though.

Willow – Deeper cool bronze shimmer with some noticeable medium-size sparkle mixed it. This had a bit better color payoff than all the other shimmers. Moderate fallout.

Folklore – Deep chocolate brown with a matte finish. Not super warm. Has good color payoff. This is capable of being used without a transition shade as it blends well by itself.

Hide & Seek – Matte charcoal base with LARGE gold sparkles. There are enough sparkles in this that they show up well on the eye but I get LOTS of sparkle and pigment fallout if I don’t apply it over a tacky base.

Looks

To start this out, I used the two lighter mattes as transition shades, the cooler toned one on the inner part of the eye and the warmer one on the outer part of the eye. Then I used the deepest matte on the outer lid and blended it into the outer half of the crease. As an experiment, I applied NYX Glitter Primer over the outer portion of the lid, on top of the deep matte, and then applied Hide & Seek on top of the glitter glue. Used this way, I didn’t have too much fallout from this shade. For a pop of shine, I added one of the pressed glitters on the inner half of the lid. Along the lower lashline, I used Lil Orb on the inner half and Pixie Perf on the outer half. Finally, I attempted to use Cozy Cabin as an inner corner and brow bone highlight but it ended up being a bit darker than I wanted.

This look and the next are super simple 2-shadow looks. This has more of a pinky vibe and the next is more neutral. All I did was sweep Pond lightly through the crease with a fluffy brush and then topped the lid heavily with Lil Orb using just a dry brush.

Same technique as the last look. I kept the matte shade only in the crease, adding none to the lid, and then applied Wood Nymph to the lid with a dry brush for a bright look.

I started this out by lightly blending Pond above the crease to make it easier for the next few mattes to blend out smoothly. To build up some color and depth, I then used Flower Crown more heavily and lower in the crease. Then I applied Folklore over most of the lid using a few different brushes. I started with a flat shader, adding color mainly to the lid at first and then slowly worked the color upward toward the crease as there was less color on my brush. To get a smooth blend, I then used a small fluffy brush to blend this into the previous shade. I used a pencil brush to fill in any sheer spots on the lid and outer corner. I layered Willow mostly over the same area and in the same way that I applied Folklore. Along the bottom lashline, I have Fairykin on the outer half and Cozy Cabin on the inner half. It isn’t easy to see but Pixie Perf is applied as an inner corner highlight.

One shadow look using only Fairykin mainly on the outer half of the eye.

For this one I wanted to do something bright and give Cozy Cabin the best chance to shine. I started by using Pond lightly as a transition shade above the crease and along the lower lashline. I used Fairykin in a thin section of the outer crease for a slight added depth. Then I used a white creamy eyeshadow base on the lid, topped it with some NYX Glitter Primer and applied Cozy Cabin over that sticky base. I was able to get some of the sparkle in Cozy Cabin to adhere but I do wish more of it was visible.

This look at the next are almost the same but I wanted to see how different the two pressed glitters looked from each other. They are much more similar on the eye than they look in the pan. I used Flower Crown on a fluffy brush all over the lid and blended into the crease and layered Into the Forest over it using a small flat shader.

I used the same matte eyeshadow for this one and applied the glitter the same way as well. There was very little fallout from the glitter and it was relatively easy to apply evenly and move around on the lid to get it placed just right.

The ColourPop Sage The Day Palette, $14 at Ulta and ColourPop, contains 9 nature-inspired shades of green and brown. There are 4 true mattes, 4 shimmers, and 1 matte with sparkle. None of them are pressed pigments or glitters. The palette and pans are the same size as most of ColourPop’s previous 9-pans, like their monochromatic series. It is made of cardboard and the pans are magnetic and removable.

I like that this doesn’t smack you over the head with green but instead includes a wide variety of highly complimentary shades. For only being 9 shades, you can do a lot with this. A while back I decided I wanted to focus on using all my monochromatic 9-pan palettes from ColourPop and quickly realized that was a bad idea. I don’t know what it is about looking at 9 shades of a single color family that paralyzes me. Shade selections like these are much less intimidating.

The three lightest matte shades are all great quality with good pigmentation and easy blending. They feel soft and smooth and they adhere well to the lids without dusting away too easily. Picking up color on a brush is very easy and I don’t have to spend a lot of time building up color. The deepest one is also pretty good. It can be a little more tricky to get to adhere evenly but I feel this is one of ColourPop’s better deep mattes. It surprisingly blends out well without needing a transition shade to look good.

Manifest is the lone matte with sparkle and it has tinier sparkles than some other matte with sparkle shades I’ve used from ColourPop. There is fallout but it isn’t nearly as messy and some of that sparkle actually stays on the lid. It’s actually a usable shade, in other words.

Three of the shimmers have some sparkle mixed in with them. There is some sparkle fallout with Retreat Me having the most. Nature Bae is the only one that has all fine particles. All of them pick up on a brush and transfer to the skin without having to work hard or use tricks to get them to show up.

If you like this selection of shades, go for it, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. This has been one of the more enjoyable eyeshadow palettes I’ve used in a while.

Swatches

Lit Vibes – Pale beige shimmer with a strong, vibrant green sheen and a good amount of gold sparkles.

Retreat Me – Nearly metallic greenish gold with lots of silver sparkles.

Sips Tea – Matte, pastel mint green.

Keep Calm – Light matte green. Leans more yellow than blue.

Tree of Life – Medium olive shimmer. This one has a deeper grayish base color with lots of fine yellow gold shimmer and gold sparkles.

Intuition – Medium, matte orangey brown.

Manifest – Deeper warm brown with tiny sparkles.

Nature Bae – Warm reddish-brown base with strong blue-green sheen. All fine shimmer.

Smudge Me – Deep greenish brown with a matte finish.

Looks

For this one I used Intuition as a transition shade over a large area of the crease and lower lashline to add a soft warm glow. I applied Manifest to the outer lid to add some depth and used Smudge Me close to both upper and lower lashes for definition. Finally, I topped the center of the lid with Tree of Life using a dry brush.

To start this out, I blended both of the pale matte greens in the crease and applied Tree of Life all over the lid with just a dry brush. On the lower lashline, I applied Intuition over a somewhat large area and then used Manifest more tightly against the lower lashline. For pops of light, I applied Retreat Me to the inner corner and Lit Vibes to the brow bone, also using dry brushes. All the shimmers had some fallout but nothing super bothersome.

This is a super easy look that doesn’t look too basic. All I did was sweep Intuition lightly but broadly all over the crease and along the lower lashline for soft warmth and definition. Then I topped the lid with Nature Bae.

Very similar concept as the last look, but this one requires more time to do. I applied Smudge Me heavily all over the lid and blended it carefully through the crease without using a transition shade. The quality of this shade is pretty good but because it’s so dark, it takes longer to apply and blend out evenly. Using a few different types of brushes really helps. Then, I layered Nature Bae over the center of the lid.

For this one, I wanted to use one of the matte greens in a more “wearable”, or not-scary way. This is mainly a neutral eye with a subtle pop of matte green on the lid and an echoing of shimmering green on the lower lashline. Intuition is broadly blended through the crease and Manifest is used for depth on the inner and outer portion of the lid. To blend Keep Calm into the brown shades, I went back and forth between all three shades used on the upper lid, building up intensity and sweeping them into each other along their edges till I was happy with the look. Smudge Me is blended along the lower lashline and taken far enough down to make room for Retreat Me to have some space underneath the lower lashes.

Milani has come out with 5 new mini eyeshadow palettes. These are their Gilded Mini Eyeshadow Palettes and they come in 5 warm and neutral shade variations. They go for around $10 each and contain six shades. So far I have seen these available on Milani’s website and at Ulta.

The mattes and shimmers are all pretty consistent in quality across all of the palettes. In general, the mattes had decent, but not great color payoff. Pigmentation was better for the mattes than the shimmers. They applied mostly evenly except for some of the deepest shades, which needed some extra time and effort. At times, I found some of the mattes didn’t adhere super well over bare lids, but did fine over a primer. Blending was mostly easy.

The shimmers are sheerer than the mattes and aren’t as intense as the ones in the older Milani Most Wanted Palettes in similar packaging. They aren’t terrible or unusable, just kind of lackluster. There wasn’t too much fallout from most of them except for a single shade that had very large chunky sparkle in it (in the Call Me Old Fashioned palette). I preferred to use them with damp brushes to amp up the color and shine.

These are all more neutral and muted than the older Most Wanted palettes. Out of all of them I enjoyed the two pink ones the most and felt they were nice to have in addition to the old palettes.

Milani Whiskey Business Gilded Mini Palette

This is an all-matte palette that is very warm overall and doesn’t look anything like the product photos on Ulta or Milani’s website. Most of the shades worked well with decent color payoff and easy blending. The one that was hardest to use was the last shade on the right. It could be more pigmented and it could sit more evenly on the skin but it’s not terrible. The selection of shades isn’t my favorite in Whiskey Business. I wish there weren’t two midtone oranges and that the purple-brown on the end actually looked on the eye the way it does in the pan. It is far more muted on the skin.

Here, I used both deep shades, one on the upper lid and one on the lower lid and you really can’t tell them apart.

Milani Call Me Old Fashioned Gilded Mini Palette

This is generally a cool toned neutral palette, except for the one bronze shade in the middle. I like how the range of colors feels “complete” in that you can use this palette by itself, BUT I wish that the dark brown in the middle was maybe a little bit lighter. It makes me want to reach for another palette to find more blending shades. The quality is generally okay. The shadows work, they show up, they perform. They just don’t blow me away. The fallout from Shade 5 and the lack of blending shades for my skin tone make this one a pass for me. Wear time seemed good. I wasn’t super careful about noting times but I think I got around 8 hours over primer and at least 6 without.

For this look, I used Shade 5 tapped over the deepest matte. It had a TON of sparkle fallout. This was the only shade in all 5 palettes that was problematic with fallout.

Milani Champagne Problems Gilded Mini Palette

I think the shades chosen for Champagne Problems make sense and are pretty good quality but I’m not inspired by them. The 3 deeper mattes are all kind of close in depth and are not all necessary. One medium orange and one much deeper shade than the one that’s provided would have been better IMO. The whole palette is very similar to the older Milani Burning Desire Most Wanted Palette. If you have that one, this isn’t going to do anything that’s much different. All of the mattes work well, even the darkest one. The orange shimmer has a smooth finish and all fine particles. The metallic gold has a thicker feel, much more color payoff, and larger specks of sparkle in it.

Milani It’s All Rosé Gilded Mini Palette

This palette and the next one are the two I liked best out of the five. All of the shimmers have a mixture of fine shimmer and large sparkle. The last shade is a subtle pink-peach duochrome but the shift isn’t very obvious on the eye. The two mattes are a bit too close in color for my taste and they have some trouble adhering.

I tested this for about 6 hours over bare lids and it didn’t hold up very well. What I could see was significant fading in the crease, but not a whole lot of actual creasing. This is somewhat normal for me though no matter what eyeshadow I use. I haven’t worn this one yet with primer.

Milani The Wine Down Gilded Mini Palette

I think this palette has a solid selection of shades and works fine by itself. Pigmentation is decent. It doesn’t blow me away or wow me but it also doesn’t disappoint me. The shimmers and mattes have a similar level of color payoff. Some building is necessary but it’s not hard to get the color to show up. Even the light matte shade shows up pretty well. Blending is easy for the darker shades. This lasted pretty well. After 7 hours over primer, I could see a little bit of fading in the crease, but no actual creasing yet. I did not test this without primer.

More Looks

And here are some more looks where I used more than one palette together. I definitely enjoyed using these palettes more this way than trying to force myself to use just one at a time.

This was a combo of The Wine Down and It’s All Rosé Palettes. I used the palest matte shade as a matte highlight, the light purple matte all over the lid, and the deeper matte burgundy on the inner/outer parts of the lid. Underneath the brow, I have Shade 4 from It’s All Rosé and Shade 6 from the same palette slightly below that but above the crease. I applied the shimmery burgundy with a wet brush all along the lower lashline. The shimmers aren’t bad but using a wet brush is super helpful to get them to have more impact.

This was another look using a combo of The Wine Down and It’s All Rosé Palettes. I used the lighter matte pink from It’s All Rosé on the upper crease, the darker matte pink on the lower lashline and one of the pale mattes as a highlight and on the upper lid. I used a wet brush to apply Shade 2 from It’s All Rosé to the lower lashline and a wet brush to apply Shade 4 from The Wine Down to the upper lashline. I used some of the matte light purple on the inner/outer part of the crease.

A simpler, all matte eye using a combo of Champagne Problems and Whiskey Business. I used the palest matte as a highlight and on the upper lid, the two matte orange shades from Champagne Problems in the crease, the deepest matte from Whiskey Business on the lower lashline and the second palest matte in Whiskey Business on the inner lower lashline and as a transition above the crease.

Comparisons

I am mainly comparing these to some of the older Milani Most Wanted Palettes. The format is about the same between the old and new palettes except you might notice that the new ones have metal pans in each shade compartment and in the old ones, it seems the eyeshadows are pressed directly into the palette. The formulas are different between the two. If you look at the ingredients lists, the old ones did not contain talc and the new ones do. Here are the lists from one of each line. They vary somewhat from palette to palette but you can get an idea:

In general, I like the quality of the older palettes more, especially in the color payoff of the shimmers. The mattes apply similarly but I get a bit better wear time out of the new ones.

These two are both basic matte palettes that are good to use together with other palettes or just for a simple eye look. I prefer the shades in Partner in Crime because they are more neutral on me. Whiskey Business is both very warm and quite dark, so I don’t find it to be all that useful for pairing. The shades in the older palette are matte but have a tiny bit of pearl that isn’t really noticeable on the eye. The new ones are truly matte.

Here are the new and old orange palettes. I think the shade selection in the new one is better. The two midtone oranges are different enough to tell apart on the eye even though they look kind of similar here. I use the lighter one mainly as a transition but I feel it isn’t super necessary. It would have been nice if the darkest matte shade was a little bit deeper.

And here are all the pink palettes. The two new ones are different enough from the old one, in case you already had the old one.

Product Details

The ABH Nouveau Palette contains 12 shades of mostly neutral eyeshadows and pressed pigments. They are not all your typical neutral browns, though some are, and could compliment an existing collection of neutral shadows. Three of the matte shades are pressed pigments and aren’t intended to be used near the eyes. Those are Paloma, Wisteria, and Metro. The format has been updated and the shades are now larger and contain roughly double the amount of product previous palettes had (like Soft Glam and Modern Renaissance). They are large enough that I was even able to carefully use a blush brush in one of the pans. The palette itself is the same width as older ones and will store nicely along with them. It retails for $55 (ten dollars more than their older palettes) so, if getting more product is important to you, there is an increased value there.

I have to give them kudos on the outer packaging. The green textured fabric and gold detailing are unique, visually beautiful and give it a memorable tactile element

Swatches

Here is an overview of all the shades swatched. To see more detailed, closer up swatches, see this post.

• Wings is a light golden green shimmer with mostly small particles. There are no large sparkles but the shimmer varies in size and gives off more of a sparkling finish. Hardly any fallout, lots of shine.
• Isle is a very warm peachy gold with no large sparkle. Gives off a solid, even reflect but is more subdued and not as metallic as some of the other shimmers. Minimal fallout.
• Belle is a medium neutral bronze with all fine shimmer. Not much fallout.
• Wisteria (pressed pigment) is a pastel lavender with a nearly matte finish. It has the tiniest bit of fine shimmer that I can barely even see on the eye.
• Lili has a base of warm pink fine shimmer with larger flecks of green, blue, and purple sparkle. This has some more fallout than the other shimmers.
• Hope is an olive green shimmer with mostly fine particles.

• Paloma is a pressed pigment. It is a pale nude with a nearly matte finish. The fine shimmer in this barely shows once it is on the eye. It has amazing color payoff, so I use this a lot to cover inner corner darkness and even out the skin tone on my brow bone.
• Fleur is a medium muted rose. Good, even color payoff, blends easily and smoothly.
• Liberty is a grayish green with a matte finish. This is the driest-feeling matte in the palette and the one that needs the most attention. I wouldn’t say it’s a dud or it’s terrible at all, but I have to spend more time layering and buffing with this than the other mattes. Stays mostly true to color when blended along the edges.
• Peacock has a warm reddish base color with a light blue-green sheen and larger pink sparkles. The blue-green sheen shows up pretty well in the swatch above but is not as obvious on the eye unless used over a sticky primer. Good texture and pigmentation but needs some help.
• Metro is a pressed pigment. This is an earthy orange shade with a matte finish. Color payoff and blending are fantastic. I don’t need to use a transition shade at all with this. It blends fast, with little effort and I can stretch it out pretty far. At the same time, it doesn’t blend away too easily.
• Muse is a deep brown with a satin finish. It is one of the least reflective shimmers. This shade had the most fallout out of all of them, and not just shimmer, but dark pigment as well. I can make this work but I need to be *extra* careful about tapping off my brush.

Formula Overview

I love the way both the mattes and the shimmers feel to the touch and how well they apply. Almost everything in here has really good color payoff. I have the original ABH Norvina Palette and one of the large ABH Pro Pigment Palettes. The formula feels different from either of those, especially the mattes. Compared to ABH Norvina, they feel smoother and less dry… but compared to the ABH Pro Pigment Palette, they are thicker and have better color payoff. On the eye, they adhere well both over primer and bare lids without dusting away too easily during blending. I didn’t have any noticeable fallout from any of them.

The shimmers are all equally nice to the touch, almost melting into the skin and giving off a satisfying level of color and shine. Some are composed of all fine shimmer particles and some also have larger sparkle. Fallout was generally minimal except for shades with larger sparkle (Lili & Peacock) and the deepest shade, Muse, had some dark pigment fallout. It was easy to pick up plenty of color on a brush and transfer to the lid with minimal effort. They look, feel, and swatch about the same as the shimmers in my old Norvina palette. The shimmers in the Pro Pigment palette are thinner, and have a slick, almost oily quality to them.

Wear Time

I have to say I did miserably on testing this for wear time. I wore it many times but most of those times, I was way too active and sweat the makeup off my eyelids LOL. I got two good, “normal” wear tests in and from those, it seems like it had average wear time compared to other eyeshadows I have. Over primer, I was able to get at least 8 hours of solid, crease-free wear and saw some fading/creasing midday without primer.

Looks

Note: Pressed pigments used in my looks are denoted with a * below. I feel fine about using pressed pigments, glitters, etc. near my eyes and usually don’t have any issues with them.

Look #1:

• Paloma* – Inner corner
• Wisteria* – Center of lid
• Lili– Inner lid
• Peacock – Outer lid/crease
• Fleur – Slightly above crease
• Wings – Inner lower lashline
• Liberty – Outer lower lashline
• Isle – Brow bone

Look#2:

• Paloma* – Inner corner, brow bone
• Fleur – Crease, lower lashline
• Liberty – Upper part of lid, almost all the way up to the crease
• Peacock – All over lid, layered over Liberty
• Isle –  Inner corner

Look #3:

• Metro* – Crease, lower lashline
• Muse – Outer corner
• Belle – Center of lid
• Wisteria* – Brow bone, inner corner, below Muse

Look #4:

• Liberty – Crease, blended up into transition area, outer lower lashline
• Hope – All over lid
• Belle – Inner lower lashline, inner corner
• Paloma* – Brow bone

Look #5:

• Paloma* – Inner corner, brow bone (covered up later by Wings), also used to clean up outer corner
• Wisteria* – Crease, outer lower lashline
• Peacock – All over lid (over top Too Faced Glitter Glue)
• Wings – Inner corner, brow bone (used with a dampened brush)

Look #6:

• Fleur – All over lid, crease, lower lashline
• Isle – All over lid
• Paloma* – Inner corner, brow bone
• Muse – Lashline

Worth Buying?

I feel like this a pretty “complete” pallete by itself because there is a good range of color, depth, and texture to get balanced looks out of it. However, I still feel the desire to bring in other palettes and singles when I use it. When used alone, the looks I’ve most liked were the ones where I only used 2-4 shades. Even though I feel that way, I’m happy to have this because of the quality of the shades. I have some shades like this already in my collection but I’d reach for these over them because I know they’ll work well for me. Also, there are some less common neutrals in here which I appreciate, like Wings and Isle. Wings and Isle are somewhat unique for neutrals and Peacock is probably one of the better quality shades I have like this.

Comparisons

Above are the three palettes that immediately came to mind to compare to the ABH Nouveau Palette. All of them have some sort of lavender/purple/periwinkle pop in them and contain some warmer pinks/peaches as complements.

The ColourPop So Very Lovely Palette is just as good in terms of quality. The mattes in both have a similar texture and feel to them but the shimmers are definitely more sparkly in the ColourPop palette. The pop of lavender is nearly identical in color but the one in the ColourPop palette is a true matte while I can see a hint of shimmer in the ABH one. The color story is less muted/grungy and “sweeter”. Both of these are fantastic and both have a place in my collection.

The older ABH Norvina Palette that is right below Nouveau is here to show you visually the difference in pan size. These two have pretty different color stories but I also wanted to give you an idea of how the formulas compare. The shimmers feel about the same between the two palettes. They have about the same color payoff and finish and feel equally as buttery-smooth. The mattes feel slightly grittier in the older ABH palette and don’t blend as easily on me as the newer ones do. Both formulas have excellent pigmentation though.

The ABH Norvina Pro Pigment Palette is another one I pulled out for formula comparison. This one has a much wider variety of textures and finishes and a much larger and different selection of shades. In general, though, I find the more matte shades in this palette to have a thinner feel to them and a shorter wear time on my eyes before creasing. But, for being thinner they still pack a punch in terms of color payoff. This one has a mixture of smooth/fine shimmers and ones that are more like washes of sparkle. They are generally sheerer than the ones in the ABH Nouveau Palette. It’s geared more toward someone with a creative/artsy side but can be used as a neutral palette as well.

The Natasha Denona Pastel Palette contains 15 shades of (mostly) pastel eyeshadows in various formulas and finishes. 8 of them are matte (with half being creamy powders and the other half being true powders) and 7 of them are shimmers. Some shimmers are nothing but fine particles and some have larger sparkles mixed in. This is one of their midi-sized palettes which has smaller pan sizes and retails for $65.

Swatches

• Tulle – Creamy powder. This one has a very subtle sheen that the other creamy powders don’t have but it essentially looks matte on the eye. This is the most pigmented of all the creamy powders and looks slightly drier on the lid than some of the others.
• Illusion – All fine shimmer, no large sparkles. This is a sheer pale pink shimmer with a clear base. When swatched heavily, it has a bit of a grayish cast behind the pink shimmer but I don’t notice this the way I use it on the eye.
• Mint Frost – Mixture of fine shimmer and large sparkle. Similar to Adriatic but this one is more of a dulled teal shade and that one is brighter. That one also has a different texture, being all fine shimmer.
• Bora – Creamy powder. This shade is sheer and requires lots of building. I get the most color payoff when using a small dense brush like a pencil brush or a smudge brush. Blends out super easily and smoothly and does not look dry at all on the lid. Fades in the crease during application. Wear time seems inconsistent with this shade. Some looks lasted only a few hours and others lasted all day
• Dainty – Mixture of fine shimmer and large sparkle. Reasonable amount of fallout when applied with a brush but a LOT of fallout if applied with my finger.

• Brisk – Powder matte. This shade has good color payoff but is a bit dry and that can make it not adhere the best. It went on more evenly and looked punchier over a primer.
• Adriatic – All fine shimmer. This type of texture usually has less fallout, or even none, but I got some noticeable fallout with this one. It’s a teensy bit crumbly and I think that may be why. Good color payoff and adhered easily.
• Starlet – The coral base of this seems to be matte with a bunch of large golden sparkle.
• Bellini – Powder matte. Good color payoff, maybe a hair better than Brisk, which is the same type of formula. Shades like this sometimes don’t show up well on me, but the one had plenty of pigmentation.
• Bubble – Creamy powder. This is the sheerest of all the cream shades but I can build it up to what you see here. Just needs many layers.

• Limoncello – Mixture of fine yellow shimmer and larger blue sparkle. There is more fine shimmer in this than sparkle and the blue shows up only sparingly.
• Duet – Pinky base with fine blue shimmer. This is a sheer shade and the blue sheen shows up much better if I apply this over a deep shade. The pink is even pretty sheer though it looks heavy in the swatch.
• Airy – Powder matte. Similar to Bubble but “warmer”.
• Zest – Creamy powder. This looks more green toned in the pan but on the eye it looks more yellow to me. It is slightly dry looking on the skin. Good color payoff.
• Feather – Powder matte. This looks more like a light pink in the pan but comes off more lavender on the eye. Good color payoff and not all that far off in depth compared to Bora once both are on the eye together.

Formula Overview

There are four creamy powders in the palette: Tulle, Zest, Bora, and Bubble. They seemed like the longest lasting of all the finishes and can be used as bases sort of on their own. They aren’t full on cream shadows and don’t have a tacky or sticky feel at all, mainly just a slightly more emollient version of a powder shadow. They generally feel dry to the touch but they don’t have that dusty, kickup-y quality that true powders have. With a primer, they last longer and are much slower to crease completely (takes several hours). I’ll start to notice creasing around 8 hours but it will still look decent several hours after that. Without primer, I they last around 5 hours. These take longer to use than all the other formulas in the palette. They require lots of building (especially Bora and Bubble) so they aren’t the best choice if you are in a rush but they are super easy to blend. Bora and Bubble are very flattering on the lids, good for more mature/textured skin. Tulle and Zest are a little more dry looking.

The powder mattes apply noticeably better over primer with more color payoff and more even adherance. They are kind of dry and when I apply them over bare lids, I’ll sometimes get areas of balding where the shadow just wont stick and this ends up giving a sort of patchy appearance. Compared to other pastels I’ve tried, pigmentation is generally good though with a nice texture that isn’t chalky or difficult to blend.

There are 7 shimmers. 4 of them are a mixture of sparkle and shimmer and 3 are just fine shimmer with a smoother finish. They all pick up and adhere easily. To the touch, they have a slightly thicker feel to them and they require some layering to build them up. The ones with larger sparkles are more shiny, reflect light more and have a reasonable amount of fallout. The ones that just have fine shimmer in them have a bit of a softer, more subdued reflection. Illusion and Duet are the sheerest and Adriatic and Starlet are the most opaque.

Shade Selection

I don’t love the shade selection in this palette as a whole but I do like many of the shades individually. After doing like 12 looks or so, I’ve either gone for very straightforward color combinations or used way too many shades together. I think I may just be sick and tired of pastels LOL.

Some of the shades are very similar to each other:

• Bora and Feather, once applied to the lid. And Tulle really isn’t that far off from these either.
• Bubble and Airy (subtle difference but still lol…)
• Mint Frost and Adriatic (different finishes but very similar hue)

Something to know is that some of the shades are a bit deceiving, not looking as I’d expect on the eye based on how they appear in the pans. These are Bora, Dainty, Duet, and Zest. Both Bora and Dainty are lighter than expected, Duet is much more blue than pink, and Zest is more yellow than neon green to me.

Worth Buying / Do I Recommend It?

I can’t say yes to this. If I were buying this again I’d be doing so for certain shades. Mint Frost, Dainty, Starlet are probably my top picks in this palette. Bubble is beautiful for the color that it is but I think I have some similar shades in a true powder formula that offer more color payoff than this one. Zest seems unique in the pan but it doesn’t seem so once on the eye. That’s not enough reason to spend $65 for the rest of the palette.

It’s not that I think the quality is bad, just that it’s meh, okay, average. If you are looking at pastels in general, I don’t see why this should come in above others unless you are looking for something very specific that this palette has that a competing product doesn’t.

Looks

Look #1:

• Bora – All over lid and blended into crease, part of the lower lashline
• Bubble – Inner crease, outer lower lashline
• Bellini – Transition, inner lower lashline
• Illusion – Inner corner
• Starlet – Center of lid

This was one of the first looks I did so I went for several of the shades that initially intrigued me and ended up with a cross between a sunset and sunrise eye. Both shimmers were applied with brushes and I didn’t get a whole lot of fallout from them. The purple that I used on most of the lid is a cream and that one required lots of building. Even so, the second photo shows that it still looks somewhat sheer in the crease.

Look #2:

• Zest – Crease/transition area (looked a bit dry on the skin)
• Airy – All over lid
• Dainty – Center of lid (applied with finger, lots of fallout, adhered easily though)
• Adriatic – Under inner part of brow
• Feather – Inner corner
• Bellini – Most of lower lashline
• Limoncello – Inner lower lashline (applied with damp brush), brow bone (dry brush)
• Mint Frost – Outer crease

I was still in that excited phase of using a new palette where I want to use ALL the colors so I used a ton of shades in this look. For the most part I was happy with how they all performed but I did get a whole lot of sparkle fallout from all the shimmers I used (4 in total) and I applied the lid shade with my finger on top of that). Here, Zest looks very yellow in the crease compared to how it looks in the pan. In the pan, it looks more green to me.

Look #3:

• Bora – All over lid, crease
• Feather – Transition (more so on inner part of eye), lower lashline
• Dainty – Center of lid (applied with brush, much less fallout this time)

This was meant to be a fast and simple look. It was simple but took me longer than I thought because I had to spend a lot of time building up Bora on the upper lid. The purple on the top lid and the lighter lavender on the lower lashline look fairly close in depth here but in the pans they look much different from each other. Bora is a cream and Feather is a powder. The shimmer used in this look adhered more easily over the creamy shade than it did over a powder in a previous look.

Look #4:

• Tulle – All over lid, crease, lower lashline
• Bora – Outer corner
• Illusion – Inner lid
• Duet – Center of lid
• CPRC Hot Spot – Smudged into lashline
• CPRC 2 Coal 4 U – Winged liner

Another pretty simple and fast look. The main shade used all over the lid is one of the most pigmented of the 4 creams and builds up quickly. Illusion has a pink sheen which is very hard to see against the matte pink background but the blue from Duet shows up a little better on the center of the lid. I used a matte black eyeshadow to darken the lashline and a deep shimmery grey eyeshadow to do the winged liner.

Look #5:

• Brisk – Lid, above crease
• Adriatic – Under the grey on lower lashline
• CPRC So Tuff – Crease
• CPRC 2 Coal 4 U – Lower lashline
• A white liquid liner (Rimmel Colour Precise White Felt Tip Liner) – Outer corner, inner lower lashline near tear duct

This look and the next two were my attempts at using this palette as an accent or pairing palette. I used a matte and shimmery grey from the ColourPop Rock Candy Palette for this one.

Look #6:

• Mint Frost – Center of lid/crease
• Brisk – Lower lashline
• CPRC I Dig You – All over lid and crease
• CPRC So Tuff – Inner lid, outer part of crease
• CPRC Hot Spot – Lashline, used as eyeliner

I paired this again with the ColourPop Rock Candy Palette and went for something more wearable.

Look #7:

• Zest – Above inner crease
• Airy – Above outer crease
• Duet – Center of lid
• Limoncello – Center of lower lashline (applied with damp eyeliner brush)
• CPSVL Topanga Blvd – All over lid/crease
• CPSJ Sapphire – Lower lashline
• CP Swerve Gel Liner – Lower waterline

Third pairing palette look. This time I used the ColourPop So Very Lovely and So Jaded Palettes.

Look #8:

• Bubble – All over lid and inner/outer lower lashline
• Airy – Just a small amount of this above the crease (then stopped and switched to Brisk)
• Brisk – Above inner/outer crease
• Zest – Center part of crease, center of lower lashline
• Limoncello – Center of lid, brow bone, inner corner
• Eyeliner?

Ugh this look. Lol I really don’t like how this came out. Airy is similar enough to Bubble that I would’ve preferred to just have Bubble in the palette. Bubble is cooler (closer to purple) and a bit more unique. Putting the two next to each other makes it really hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. Brisk was much easier to distinguish.

Look #9:

• CPRC Nugget – Transition
• CPRC Crushed – Crease
• Feather – Lower in the crease
• CPRC Dynamic – Lid
• Dainty – Lid (layered over previous shade)
• Zest – Under inner part of brow
• Illusion – Inner corner
• Mint Frost – Outer lower lashline
• Adriatic – Inner lower lashline
• Duet – Brow bone
• Bellini – Transition (applied over CPRC Nugget from ealier)

This look and the next were me just playing with tons of shades and they really had no plan, rhyme or reason to them. On the lower lashline I used both shimmery teals next to each other to see how different they were. The inner corner on this eye is Illusion and in the next look I used a very similar shade from Terra Moons on the inner corner to see how those compared to each other. The Terra Moons shade has a deeper red sheen and just looks warmer overall.

I used a few neutral browns from the ColourPop Rock Candy Palette in this look.

Look #10:

• Terra Moons Red Giant – Inner corner
• Bora – All over lid, blended into crease
• Bubble – Outer crease
• Tulle – Above outer crease
• Bellini – Center of lid
• Limoncello – Inner lid/crease
• Airy – Outer lower lashline
• Brisk – Inner lower lashline
• Starlet – Winged outer corner

Look #11:

• Tulle – All over lid/crease
• Illusion – Applied over top Tulle
• Limoncello – Inner corner, brow bone (dry brush)

Look #12:

• Bellini – All over lid/crease
• Starlet – Center of lid
• Zest – Lower lashline
• CPRC Hot Spot – Smudged against lashes
• CP Swerve Creme Gel Liner
• Matte highlight on the inner corner and brow bone

The Urban Decay Wild Greens Palette is a 12 pan palette mainly focusing on greens and oranges along with a few neutrals. There is an even split of mattes and shimmers and also a pretty good balance in the number of shades per color family. The mattes are all fairly similar in texture, color payoff, and overall quality. The shimmers vary from shade to shade, some being smoother with smaller, uniform particles, and others containing a mixture of shimmer and larger sparkles (and the fallout that results from them). It is available for $44 from several retailers including Ulta, Sephora, Nordstrom, Macy’s, and of course Urban Decay.

The mattes have more opacity than the shimmers, apply evenly, blend very easily, and perform consistently across all the shades. They aren’t super intense on pigment but they show up well enough without a ton of effort to build them up. They are pressed loosely enough to make picking color up on my brushes easy but not enough that I get a bunch of kickback in the palette. They felt smooth but slightly dry to the touch. They likely are somewhat dry by the way the shimmers have trouble adhering over the top of them. But I get good wear time out of this palette with primer so this dry quality is something that I’m perfectly fine with. I can wear these all day, even when I’m pretty active and they still hold on well with minimal creasing by the end of the day. Two of them have a tiny amount of sparkle in them (Turmeric and Kale) that shows up much more in the pan than it does on the eye or in swatches. This does cause a tiny bit of sparkle fallout but it is super sparse and hardly noticeable.

The shimmers are sheerer than the mattes and aren’t all that impressive upon first swatch but they do build nicely. They require some help if applied over the mattes but stick just fine over a primer or over bare lids. I have also used them over glitter glue and that works beautifully as well. I would suggest using the shimmers first and then going in with mattes or just using a glitter glue over the mattes. This is the opposite of how I normally apply eyeshadow it might be a drawback to consider if you don’t want to change the order of application. 4 out of the 6 shimmers have larger sparkles and significant sparkle fallout. I like all of those shades so I am willing to put up with it to wear them. I think the choice of shimmer shades perfectly compliments that mattes in the palette and a few of them are somewhat unique. Fuzz is probably the most unique, having a mostly orange look in the pan but an unexpected sparkly teal shift in the light once applied to the eye. Twist is also a kind of unique shade of pale golden green.

Wear time is about 9 hours with primer and 6 hours without primer. This is a little longer wearing on me than average. I typically get about 4 hours of wear time out of eyeshadow without primer.

The packaging is something different for Urban Decay at least from the things I’ve purchased/seen from them in recent memory. It is all cardboard and the lid flips open from the center like two doors and is held shut magnetically. When I have this palette laying on my desk to use it, it takes up a lot of space, but it is possible to completely fold both sides of the lid over the back of the palette without forcing it. Not such a big deal.

Swatches

Chill is a smooth shimmer with only small particles. None of the times I’ve used it required any kind of help. It showed up easily without having to try too hard and I didn’t notice much (if any) fallout from it.

Lo-fi is a soft light peach. I was a bit nervous that this would not show up well on my skintone but I ended up enjoying the color payoff from this shade.

Kickback is a medium neutral brown. It has just enough depth for what I like and complements the oranges and greens in the palette. Blends out easily.

Fuzz is an orange shimmer with a not so obvious blue-green shift. This is a chunkier shimmer with lots of sparkle. It takes a few layers to build it up to a point where the color of it is easier to see. One layer will give me a sparkly wash of indistinct color. If I build up multiple layers, use a wet brush, or apply it over a glitter glue, I can much more clearly tell that there is a blue green shift to the shade.

Turmeric is a matte orange with a bit of large orange sparkle. If I apply this over large area and pack it on, I can see the sparkle but it is still very subtle. There isn’t enough in there that sparkle fallout is really bothersome (or even noticeable) for me.

Hi-vibe looks a lot like Fuzz in the pan but they are pretty different. This one has more of a pinkish base color with a golden shift. This one also has larger sparkles but they are smaller than the ones in Fuzz. While that one has an almost glittery finish, this one is more sublte and glimmering.

Earthside is a light neutral brown. It is light enough to look different from Kickback when they are used side by side and works well as a transtion.

Supergreens is a pastel green. It is difficult to tell if this is more of a yellow or a blue green. Next to Kale, this looks more blue but by itself, it seems to lean more yellow. Beautiful color payoff (much better than I expected), sits nicely on the skin, not dry-looking or chalky.

Prickly is a light blue-green shimmer with a soft yellow sheen and chunkier blue and green sparkles. Needs some help to really get it to show up in a satisfying way.

Twist is more like an accent shade or topper to me. At some angles, it hardly shows up at all and at others it really reflects the light. It seems to be mostly composed of medium sized golden shimmer with a light grey base color that is more obvious when seen from an angle, rather than from straight ahead. It needs to be layered to help it show up more or the shimmer scatters a bit too much.

Kale is another beautifully smooth, pigmented shade that blends easily. This one has some sparkles in it like Turmeric. Same story with this, they don’t show up all that much and there isn’t much fallout from them. This shade is clearly yellow-leaning.

Stash has one of the softer shimmer finishes in the palette, closer to being a satin. Shows up nicely as an olive next to the other shades. No large sparkles.

Looks

Look #1:

• Supergreens – Inner corner
• Lo-fi – Inner crease
• Turmeric – Outer crease
• Hi-vibe – Inner lid
• Stash – Outer lid
• Kickback – Outer lower lashline
• Earthside – Inner lower lashline
• Twist – Center of lower lashline (applied with damp brush)
• Chill – Brow bone

The mattes I used here all performed well. I applied Hi-Vibe with a dry flat brush but it did need some building to adhere well to the lid. Doesn’t show up as nicely as it swatches. Same with Twist, but because I was applying this shade to such a small area, I decided to wet the brush to have better control of placement. Both of these shades had a decent amount of sparkle fallout.

Look #2:

• Supergreens – Transition, center part of lower lashline
• Kale – Inner/outer crease
• Kickback – All over lid
• Prickly – Center of lid (applied with damp brush)
• Twist – Inner corner (applied with damp brush)
• Earthside + Kickback – Lower lashline, outer corner

The shimmers I used here did the same thing as the previous look. I wet the brush for both and had to clean up sparkle dust under my eyes after. For the green on the lower lashline, I used a bit of concealer underneath to help it pop more.

Look #3:

• Turmeric – All over lid, crease
• Lo-fi – Transition
• Fuzz – Center of lid (applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue)
• Chill – Inner corner
• Kickback – Lower lashline
• Hi-vibe – Center of lower lashline (applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue)

For the mattes, I applied the deeper shade first and then went around the edges with the lighter shade. All of the shadows seem to have issues adhering once at least one matte is placed on the lid. It is easier to blend out the deeper shades first than possibly be unable to build up color if applied after. I also decided to use a glitter glue with most of the shimmers (except for the inner corner shade) just to get them to pop. I could have also wet the brush but I feel like using a glitter glue gets me a slightly different result. Lots of sparkle fallout from the chunkier shimmers.

Look #4:

• Kickback  – All over lid, crease, outer lower lashline
• Earthside – Transition, inner lower lashline
• Stash – Outer 2/3 of lid (applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue)

I did the same thing with the mattes in this look as I did in Look #3. I probably could have skipped the glitter glue for Stash but I do think it helped the subtle shimmer in it stand out a bit more and give it a little bit more depth.

Look #5:

• Turmeric – Outer lid/crease
• Lo-fi – Transition, inner corner
• Prickly – Inner lid/crease
• Kale – Inner lower lashline
• Fuzz – Outer lower lashline

I used all the shimmers without the help of any setting spray or sticky primers but made a conscious effort to avoid putting them over any of the matte shades. I tried as much as possible to only have them over bare skin or my eyeshadow primer. Prickly adhered best on the eye without any primer and had much less fallout. Fuzz still had a lot of fallout but most of the time this happens when I use chunky shimmers on the lower lashline anyway.

Comparisons

Here are a few of my other palettes with greens in them shown next to the Urban Decay Wild Greens Palette. Above I have the ColourPop Just My Luck and Mint To Be palettes, the Smashbox Desert Palette and the Natasha Denona Mini Gold Palette.

I’d say the two on the bottom have a similar idea going where greens are chosen as compliments to the other shades and you can get something that feels more complete with palettes like these. If you have either of these or have been interested in them, you’d probably like the Wild Greens palette. The shimmers in both of the palettes on the bottom are a bit more opaque in one swatch/layer than those from Urban Decay. However, the mattes in the Urban Decay palette are better than the ones in the Smashbox and Natasha Denona palettes (more consistent quality, easy to build up and blend out, not patchy at all).

The two ColourPop palettes, being monochromatic are more challenging to use alone (at least for me), and I like them better to use alongside other palettes. The main reason I pulled these out was so that you can get a better idea of the depth and tone of the greens in the UDWG palette. The ColourPop shimmers are generally good and consistent in quality but the mattes are kind of hit and miss depending on the shade.

Product Details

The ColourPop Rock Candy Palette is one of several 30 pan neutral palettes ColourPop offers. Of the ones they currently have, this one seems to be the most well rounded in terms of color and texture selection. There are 13 mattes, 11 shimmers, 3 mattes with sparkle, and 3 pressed glitters. For a neutral palette it has several tones (besides the usual brown). There are purple and rosy tones, oranges, yellow toned browns, greys, blacks, and for the more shiny shades there are silvers, coppers, and golds. This palette is just like their other large ones – same size, magnetic pans, and cardboard packaging. It is available on their website for $34.

Swatches

Here is an overview of all the shades swatched. To see more detailed, closer up swatches, see this post.

• Solid – Metallic bright silver, all small particles. Excellent color payoff.
• Chemistry – Pale pink shimmer with a mixture of small and large particles.
• True North – Light peachy beige, no large sparkles. Sheerest shade in the row.
• Volcanic – Metallic light copper with larger sparkles. Good color payoff.
• Quarry Queen – Smooth light bronze shimmer, all small particles.
• Friction – Pale golden white shimmer with larger sparkles.

• This Ore That – Matte pale grey with silver sparkles.
• Lava You – Dusty lavender.
• Sedimental – Medium orangey brown.
• Nugget – Neutral light beige.
• Crushed – Medium yellow toned brown.
• I Dig You – Medium taupey grey. Has a slight warmth to it.

• Ring of Fire – Bright silver self-adhering pressed glitter. Fairly small particles for a glitter.
• Magma – Matte dusty rose with larger sparkles.
• Erupt – Warm rosy brown.
• Very Gneiss – Medium yellow toned brown.
• Set Shale – Golden self-adhering pressed glitter. Similar particle size as Ring of Fire.
• No Pressure – Light taupe shimmer with larger sparkles.

• 2 Coal 4 U – Deep grey shimmer with larger sparkles.
• Pep Talk – Warm reddish base with a blueish sheen and lots of larger multicolored sparkles.
• Oh My Geode – Reddish copper shimmer with larger sparkles.
• Metamorphic – Silver, gold, and pink self-adhering pressed glitter. Similar particle size as the other two glitters.
• Get The Schist – Cooler toned bronze shimmer with large silver sparkles.
• So Tuff – Deep neutral grey. Doesn’t really lean warm or cool and doesn’t have a blue tinge.

• Hot Spot – Matte black. Swatches evenly but does require some building for full coverage. Has a bit of a drag to it that the other mattes don’t have.
• Dynamic – Deep reddish brown.
• Strictly Tectonic – Ever so slightly lighter than Dynamic and a bit more orange than red.
• In The Rough – Deep neutral brown.
• Concrete Plans – Slightly cooler toned deep neutral brown.
• Stone’s Throw – Matte black base with lots of multicolored sparkles. The matte base feels different in this shade than Hot Spot and has more color payoff more quickly.

What I Think About It

So I’ve used this palette for a couple weeks and I’ve filmed four looks with it. I’ve used every shade, some more than others, and I feel like I know it well enough to share my thoughts.

The quick version: I like it but I don’t love it.

I like it because it has a lot of useful shades and textures all in one place and for a reasonable price.  For someone that doesn’t have many neutrals already, this can fill that need. Lots of textures help make an otherwise (sort of) boring palette more interesting. I also like that the pans are magnetic and I already have other ColourPop palettes with the same size pans that I can use to customize it for myself. 

The things that I don’t love are fallout from some of the shimmers with larger sparkles, some redundant shades, and the quality of the mattes. The mattes feel luxurious to the touch, have good color payoff and blend easily but they do something I don’t have an issue with usually. Some of them sometimes darken on the skin on areas with more moisture (the line of my crease, mostly) or where they are blended/touched too much or layered a lot. This makes them somewhat unpredictable. When I have issues with them, it’s usually not a major or very obvious problem, but if you are a stickler for quality, it might bother you.

The shades that I find most unique or that add value to my collection are Solid and This Ore That. The whole left row in general stands out for me.

Shades that are too similar are:

• Crushed and Very Gneiss
• Dynamic and Strictly Tectonic
• In the Rough and Concrete Plans
• Sedimental and Erupt look more similar in the pan than they do in swatches

Wear time is average for me, meaning it will last most of the day over primer before creasing but I would not count on these shadows if I was really needing something long wearing. Without primer, I see fading in the crease by lunchtime and by my second break at work, the shadows are very noticeably gathered in the crease. With primer, they wear pretty strongly till my second break and by then I can see them starting to crease. The way some of the mattes applied and darkened in the crease almost immediately makes me feel that they aren’t the longest wearing matte formula and are more sensitive to moisture in the skin than others I have.

Looks

Look #1:

• Nugget – Transition
• I Dig You – Outer crease
• So Tuff – Outer lower lashline, outer corner
• Get the Schist – All over lid
• True North – Inner corner
• Hot Spot – Used as eyeliner

The lid shade I have on here is an example of a shimmer with larger sparkles. They do show up and it’s really up to you to decide whether that is something you like and find worth cleaning up the fallout for. I personally don’t find shades like this to be unique enough to warrant the extra work and would prefer that all the particles just be small.

Look #2:

• Sedimental – Transition (both on the upper and lower part of the eye)
• So Tuff – Outer crease
• Stone’s Throw – Most of the lid
• Oh My Geode – Inner lid/crease
• Metamorphic – Center part of crease/transition area
• Hot Spot – Upper and lower lashline
• Dynamic – Lower lashline
• Volcanic – Inner corner

Look #3:

• This Ore That – All over lid
• Lava You – Outer transition area
• Solid – Outer crease-ish area, between two previous shades
• Hot Spot – Used as eyeliner
• 2 Coal 4 U – Outer lower lashline
• Ring of Fire – Below previous shade
• Pep Talk – Inner corner (applied with damp brush)

I used two of the shades that I find more unique and that add more value to my collection here. Solid is the metallic silver I have on the outer crease area. Silver isn’t terribly unique in general but this one performs so beautifully that it stands out as possibly the best silver I have. I applied it this way using nothing but a dry eyeliner brush. The other unique shade in this look is This Ore That. I complain about sparkle fallout (probably to an annoying degree) but this is a case where I find it worth the cleanup, which isn’t all that bad for this shade btw.

Look #4:

• Nugget – Transition (barely shows)
• Lava You – Inner crease
• Sedimental – Outer crease
• I Dig You – Inner lid
• Strictly Tectonic – Outer lid
• Erupt – Inner lower lashline
• Crushed – Outer lower lashline

This look was an attempt to see how well the different tones in the matte shades could show up against one another. The palette as a whole is pretty muted but I think the different tones still show up well enough.

Comparisons

Some people have pointed out a couple of palettes they were curious how this compared to, like the Huda Beauty Rose Quartz Palette (some similar shades), and the Tati Beauty Textured Neutrals Palette (for the wide variety of textures).

I wore this side by with the Huda palette and I was able to get a look that was similar enough to wear without feeling the difference was obvious enough to other people. So there is a little bit of overlap but I think they are pretty different overall. I like the quality of the Huda palette better and the shades seem more thoughtfully chosen. I don’t feel there is anything redundant in that palette. It wears longer too. The ColourPop palette does offer things you can’t get in the Huda palette though, like the glitter, some of the more brown toned neutrals, a different selection of transition shades, and a pretty good black.

Comparing this to the Tati Beauty palette, the glitters in both have smaller particles than other pressed glitters I’ve tried from ColourPop. There is one glitter that looks like a true dupe (Set Shale and Soothe). The color selection is very different though, again, with some overlap but less than with Huda’s palette. The black in Tati’s palette is a VERY good one, I like it better than the ColourPop one, but the ColourPop one is quite good too.

Essence recently came out with these little monochromatic six pan palettes. It looks like there are currently 8 of them, all of them with 3 mattes and 3 shimmers. The plastic snap-shut compact is small enough to fit in the palm of my hand and has a nice sized mirror inside the lid. The pans are small but I can still comfortably fit my brushes into them. On the back of the palette, there is a small picture with an overlay of the shade names.

When I first became aware of them I was intrigued. The marketing images were pretty appealing so I went to see them in person at a local Ulta. I was a little bit disappointed once I saw them in real life. The textures and contrast between shades seemed more dull than what it looked like online but I decided to pick up one to try out. The Taupe It Up one having lots of grey in it seemed most interesting. Initially it looked like it had a pretty good selection of shades but after using it, I’m not as thrilled with the options in here. The mid-tone matte is much lighter than I expected and I wish there was a bit more of an obvious difference between the two shimmery greys.

Quality-wise, I would say this is one of those things where you get what you pay for. This was not terrible by any means but I have much nicer quality shadows. Some shades are sheerer than others but color payoff in general is lackluster, especially the lighter ones. The only shade I need to have some patience blending is the matte grey and fallout is very minor from the shimmers.

The mattes have a smooth, fine, even texture. They are not grainy and they do not feel dry or drag on the skin but the two lighter ones are kind of dusty. They adhere okay on their own but it does help to use a primer. The shimmers have a softer, smoother, shimmer finish and small, uniformly sized particles. They are not sparkly or metallic but not subtle enough that I’d call them satin. I have to spend some time building them up to get a satisfying level of shine/opacity or use a tacky base underneath.

Wear time was between 5 and 9.5 hours, depending on if I used a primer or not. Using the mattes underneath the shimmers and/or just packing a lot of color onto the lid seemed to help extend wear time a bit.

Other monochromatic palettes I have are ones from ColourPop and Elf. I like the ones from those other brands better but I’m not mad to have this grey one since I didn’t already have one like that elsewhere in my collection.

Where to buy: Essence, Ulta, Target

Swatches

Sing Along is a pale off white matte. I have used this so far on my inner corner and brow bone. It is very sheer. If you have veins, redness, or discoloration on your lids, this does not have enough color payoff to really do much to even that out. It does work okay to create a bit of brightness on the brow bone and serves as a texture contrast for the shimmers. If you focus more on the bottom half of the swatches, you might see that the shadow kind of “balls up”. It does this on the eye as well and easily flies off the brush into the air during application.

Saturday Night is the most taupe shade in the palette. It is a semi sheer warm grey with a soft shimmer finish – not quite satin but not very reflective or sparkly either. In the look I did, it comes across silvery but in a swatch it looks more taupey. This is more of a pretty, gentle shade, good for easy quick makeup. It’s not one I would go to for something ultra glam.

Feel So Good is a pinkish greyish light nude. I guess it was supposed to be a transition shade? It sort of works on me but it’s too close to my skintone to really show up much. I have used this on my inner corner and the shade works pretty well to cancel out the green veins there. Used as an all-over-the-lid shade, it gives my lids kind of a dead look lol. Just an odd color. It has a tiny bit more color payoff than the lightest matte shade.

Hands Up High is like Saturday Night in texture and finish but it’s lighter and slightly warmer. It is the sheerest of the 3 shimmers. I have used it on the lid to add brightness and on the inner corner. It really helps to use some sort of tacky base underneath to help it adhere and give it some more shine.

I have used Groove On most out of all the shades. If I was the kind of person that used the same eyeshadow everyday, this would probably be the one I’d hit pan on first. I have mainly used this in the crease and all over the lid as a base for the shimmers. When packed/pressed on with a shader it goes on evenly with good color payoff but I have issues with patchiness when I try to use a fluffier brush or blend the edges. The patchiness seems to be mostly because it easily moves if I touch it (doesn’t adhere super well). Will have to try again, but if I remember correctly using a primer makes this look less evenly applied but did help to make the color a bit more intense and made the areas where I blend less prone to patchiness. It is a very neutral grey, not really leaning blue but also has no warmth to it.

Party’s Jumping is deeper than Groove On and I’ve ended up taking this up into the crease to add more depth. Like the other two shimmers, it isn’t all that shiny so it works just fine that way. Of all the shades in the palette I like this one best and have used it almost as much as Groove On. It is the only one I get noticeable (but still very minor) fallout from.

Looks

This is how I have used this palette nearly every time I have worn it so far. I used all the shades except for the “transition” shade. I have the matte grey in the crease, the deepest shimmer on the outer lid, the lightest shimmer on the inner lid, the medium shimmer along the lower lashline, and the matte highlight on the inner corner and brow bone. Both shimmers are applied using a combo of brushes and my fingers. The fallout you see is mainly from deepest shimmer. I started to see fading in the crease without primer at 6.5 hours and with primer at 9.5 hours.

This is a simple (almost) single shadow look. It’s actually two but only one is really noticeable. In this one I pressed the middle shade from the top row all over the lid with my finger and blended out the edges with a brush. What you see is how it looks built up as much as I can. On the brow bone and inner corner I used the matte highlight. It does brighten a little but it does not have much color payoff. What it is more useful for is creating a contrast in texture against the shimmer. Shimmer fallout was super minor and happened mostly when blending with a brush. I noticed slight creasing at 5 hours without primer and 8 hours with primer.

This look is to demonstrate how the “transition” shade looks used in the crease. I added the matte highlight to the brow bone and inner corner and pressed the lightest shimmer onto the center of the lid with my finger. In the first three photos, I used a dab of a creamy white base on the very center of the lid underneath the shimmer to help it to adhere and pop a bit more. If you scroll all the way to the end, the last photo is of the other eye where I just applied it straight over the matte shadow. I got the tiniest bit of fallout from the shimmer. This look wore a bit better than the previous one. After 7 hours the unprimed eye was barely showing creasing, partly because the colors are very light on me so creasing was just less obvious in general. The primed eye was not creased at all.

What caught my eye about the Huda Beauty Rose Quartz Palette is that it’s sort of like a neutral palette but with a little more color and some fun textures. It’s more rosy than neutral but if you are the type to gravitate toward mauvey tones on a daily basis, it could be used for everyday makeup. I like that it goes beyond basics with several different finishes and brings in a couple pops of color with shades like Cosmic Love, Happiness, Joy, Moon Magic, and Blissful. You can do basic, easy, safe looks but you can also have a little fun with the same palette.

Formula Overview

There are 18 shades in total. 8 of them are matte, 1 is a pearly gloss, and 9 are varying types of shimmer finishes. You’ll have to see my swatches post for more detail about the shimmers as there are too many differences to categorize them. They all have an emollient, creamy quality to them but are still very much powder shadows. Some have mostly smaller particles (Quartz, Joy, Abundance, Energized, Self Love) and some are mostly made up of larger sparkles and are highly reflective (Cosmic Love, Blissful, Moon Magic). These are the only shades I get significant fallout from. Energized is also very reflective but only has smaller particles. Empowered is a mixture of small shimmer and larger sparkle.

The mattes feel smooth and finely milled, apply evenly and blend with not much effort. I haven’t gotten much kick back from them when picking up color with my brushes. Over primer, they go on a bit darker and more evenly, and take a little more time to blend. I get almost no fallout from them.

The gloss (Love Stone) feels like a lip balm to me and has pigment “pebbles” underneath the surface. It took me several swatches and uses to get far enough down to finally mix the shimmer into the gloss. What I get is a very subtle sheen from the gloss and a sheer rosy shimmer from the pigment. There are some medium sized pink, blue, and gold sparkles in it too. I’ve tried using it by itself on the lids, as a highlighter on the cheeks, on the lips, over top the powders, and underneath them as a base. So far my favorite way to use it is just by itself for a natural-with-something-extra kind of look. I think it looks nice on the lips as well.

Here’s what it looks like being worn (the second eye photo is there to show how it creases after a few minutes):

Shade Selection

The color scheme is mostly cool toned but there are a few shades that are a bit warmer like Quartz, Aura, and Gratitude. Blissful has a warmer brown base color to it. There is a LOT of midtone in here with a couple shades to add depth (Mantra, Empowered). I like that they included at least one very light shade (Cherished). Personally I would have liked maybe one more light shade and one less midtone. The kinds of looks I’ve gotten have all been either cool toned or just neutral.

Packaging

The palette itself feels like nice quality. Good sturdy plastic. The hinge has a bit of tension and so I can leave the palette open at a 90 degree angle and it will stay that way or I can open it all the way flat. The mirror is large and takes up the entire inside of the lid and has no distortions. To close the palette, it snaps shut (no magnets). I don’t find it difficult to open it but it’s a large enough palette that I do need both hands.

Wear Time

Out of the three times I tested this for wear time I got about 4 hours without primer before I started to notice creasing or fading in the crease. One day I got 11 hours with almost no creasing (probably a fluke), the other two days, I got more like 8-9 hours with primer.

Looks

Look #1:

• Precious – Outer transition area
• Mantra – Crease
• Cherished – Inner transition area
• Serenity – Inner lid, lower lashline
• Aura – Outer lid, outer lower lashine
• Energized – Center of lid
• Quartz – Inner corner

Look #2:

Look #3:

Look #4:

• Radiate – Inner transition area
• Cherished – Under inner part of brow, inner/outer lower lashline
• Precious – Inner crease
• Aura – Outer crease, center of lower lashline
• Gratitude – Outer transition area
• Empowered – Outer lid

Look #5:

• Self Love – ALL over the lid, all the way up to the brow bone. Applied with finger.
• Serenity – Lightly applied in outer crease and mixed with Self Love on outer lower lashline.
• Energized – Inner corner. Applied with eyeliner brush.
• Mantra – Applied as eyeliner and used to fill in brows.

Look #6:

• Cherished – Inner corner, outer corner
• Love Stone – Inner corner (used as base for next shade)
• Blissful – Inner corner (smaller area), layered over Mantra in crease
• Serenity – Crease, center part of lower lashline
• Abundance – All over lid (kept close to lashes), lower lashline (kept close to lashes)
• Mantra – Crease

I started doing looks with the ColourPop So Jaded Palette in November and at that time it was still (surprisingly) available on the ColourPop website. As far as I can tell, it seems to be discontinued now.

There are a total of 30 shades. 27 of them are your standard matte and shimmer shadows, 2 are self-adhering pressed glitters, and 1 is a super shock shadow (kind of like a cream shadow). I’d describe the color selection as warm neutrals plus jewel tones. None of the shades are too similar to each other. It’s versatile and works well on its own but it is not all encompassing. You’ll have to look elsewhere if you are into cool-neutrals, pastels, and primary brights. The neutrals that are in here are also limited.

For the most part, color payoff and ease of use was excellent across all the finishes. I was able to pick up color on my brushes without digging into the pans and transfer color easily to the lid. They blended as I would expect and fallout was minimal for most shades. None of them were duds. Only a few were a bit patchy (Jade, Stoned, and Turquoise) but I was still able to make them work. I noted things that stood out to me about individual shades in the swatch descriptions below, if you’re looking for more detail.

This has decent wear time for me. I can go about 8 hours with it looking about as good as is  it did when I first applied the shades but they do start to quickly crease after that.

After 8 looks, I don’t feel that I’ve hit anywhere near the limit of what I can do with this palette but I think I’ve used it enough to know whether I like it or not. The quality of this palette is more consistent than some other palettes I’ve tried from ColourPop and the color selection is more well thought out. If it were still available at full price (was around $40, I think), I’d say it would be worth the purchase. 

• Diamond – Super shock shadow (cream formula). Sheer pinky beige with pale green shimmer flecks. Compared to the other shimmery shades, this one wasn’t as easy to apply with a brush. It doesn’t transfer as easily or as quickly as the powders do. The finish of this is more sparkling than the shimmers but the particles are smaller than the pressed glitters.
• Rose Quartz – Medium rosy mauve with a matte finish.
• Ruby – Pinkish red shimmer.
• Royal Jewels – Light peachy nude with a matte finish. Least opaque of the mattes but still shows up with some building.
• Flourite – Lavender base with green shimmer. Sheerer than most other shimmers in the palette.
• Moonstone – Metallic light peach base with blue sparkles.

• My Precious – Ultra pale pinky peach with a matte finish.
• Sunstone – Copper shimmer.
• Pearl – Warm pale nude with a shimmer finish.
• Citrine – Orange yellow with a matte finish.
• Garnet – Burgundy with a matte finish.
• Ametrine – Medium dusty purple matte base with silver sparkles. There are enough sparkles in this to show up on the eye. They will cause some fallout, especially if you attempt to blend this shade. Pressing it on, rather than sweeping, will reduce the fallout.

• Peridot – Bright yellow green shimmer. One of the more opaque and reflective shimmers in the palette.
• You’re A Gem – Medium peach with a matte finish.
• Topaz – Pressed glitter. Varying sizes and colors of glitter that shift colors depending on the angle of the light. Shifts from intense yellow bronze to beetle green.
• Tiger Eye – Medium brown shimmer with a very subtle hint of green. This is less reflective and closer to a satin finish.
• Opal – Pressed glitter. Multi-colored and multi-sized glitter with an overall cool-toned, unicorn vibe. This one felt drier than Topaz and didn’t adhere as easily.
• Aquamarine – Sky blue shimmer. One of the sheerest shades in the palette.

• Geo Dude – Medium yellowy tan with a matte finish.
• Carnelian – Rich rusty orange with a matte finish. This was a very pigmented shade and was also somewhat powdery in the pan. You only need a small amount of this at a time.
• Stoned – Medium-deep warm grey with a matte finish. Looks warmer along blended edges than in areas where it is applied with more opacity. This one could be patchy if I applied it with a fluffy brush in the crease (see Look 5). It worked well applied on the lid with a flat shader brush, though.
• Jasper – Cooler purplish brown with a nearly matte finish. Has the tiniest hint of shimmer but looks matte on the eye.
• Turquoise – Intense opaque teal with a matte finish. Slightly patchy but still usable.
• Onyx – Deep grey with tiny silver-blue sparkles.

• Emerald – Green shimmer.
• Jade – Matte olive green. This was the most difficult to work with shade in the palette. It has a lot of pigmentation and it can “stick” where it is initially applied. Requires patience and lots of blending.
• Alexandrite – Medium purple with blue and green shimmer.
• Smoky Quartz – Metallic pinky beige shimmer. One of the more opaque and reflective shimmers in the palette.
• Amethyst – Deep cool toned purple shimmer. Has a pinkish “glow” to it in direct light.
• Sapphire – Ocean blue with a matte finish.

Looks

Look #1:

• Jasper – Used as eyeliner
• Tiger Eye – Inner lid
• Peridot – Inner lower lashline
• Geo Dude – Outer crease
• Citrine – Outer lid
• Jade – Inner crease
• Royal Jewels – Blended edges of Jade with this
• Pearl – Inner corner
• Garnet – Center of lid

Look #2:

• My Precious – Inner corner, brow bone
• Rose Quartz – Transition
• Citrine – Crease
• Jade – Lower in the crease
• Sapphire – Outer lid
• Turquoise – Center of lid
• Aquamarine – Layered over Turquoise
• Geo Dude – Lower lashline
• Diamond – Lower inner lashline

Look #3:

• You’re A Gem – Inner lid/crease
• Rose Quartz – Center part of crease
• Garnet – Outer lid/crease
• Stoned – Outer lower lashline
• Citrine – Inner lower lashline
• Diamond – Center of lid
• Topaz – Layered over Garnet on outer lid/crease

Look #4:

• Sapphire – Outer lid/crease
• Geo Dude – Inner lid/crease
• Jade – Center of lower lashline
• Jasper – Outer part of lower lashline
• Smoky Quartz – Center of lid
• My Precious – Inner corner, brow bone
• Royal Jewels – Transition
• Tiger Eye – Inner part of lower lashline

Look #5:

• Stoned – Crease
• Sapphire – Outer lid
• Alexandrite – Center of lid
• Flourite – Inner lid
• Rose Quartz – Inner crease
• Onyx – Outer lower lashline
• Amethyst – Center of lower lashline
• Aquamarine – Inner corner, brow bone

Look #6:

• You’re A Gem – Transition
• Carnelian – Crease
• Garnet – Inner/outer lid, inner/outer lower lashline
• Ametrine – Center of lid, center of lower lashline
• Sunstone – Inner corner, brow bone

Look #7:

• My Precious – Inner corner, brow bone
• Geo Dude – Transition for both crease and lower lashline
• Jade – Outer crease
• Stoned – All over lid
• Emerald – Center of lid, center part of crease
• Tiger Eye – Inner/outer part of lower lashline
• Peridot – Center part of lower lashline
• Pearl – Inner corner, layered over My Precious
• Opal – Center of lid, layered over Emerald

Look #8:

• My Precious – Inner corner, brow bone
• Royal Jewels – Transition
• You’re A Gem – Lower lashline
• Carnelian – Outer crease
• Ruby – Inner/outer lid and crease
• Citrine – Center of lid
• Moonstone – Center of lid, layered over Citrine
• Peridot – Inner corner

Disclaimer: This post features a product that was gifted to me. I am under no obligation to post and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Product Details

The Alter Ego Artemis Palette is supposed to be a dupe of Natasha Denona’s Metropolis Palette, not only in the color selection but also in the formulation of some of the cream/powder hybrid shades. There are 28 shades and it retails for $22.

The palette is larger in size than the Aurora and Goddess palettes but the pan sizes are the same and they are magnetic. You can rearrange the shades however you want or change the color story completely if you have multiple palettes. The mirror in the lid is good quality but it is pretty heavy and causes the lid to fall flat (in case you are someone that uses the mirror inside palettes). On the flip side, the weight, combined with the velvety/glossy textures used on the outer packaging give the product a higher end feel in the hand than you would expect for the price.

Formula Overview

The cream/powder hybrid shades aren’t really creams nor are they true dry powders. When swatching, they formed a little bit of hard pan but never to the point of becoming unusable. The swatches for these shades seemed to almost “set” on the skin and were harder to remove than the other textures. Using my normal makeup remover, I didn’t find them any more difficult to remove from the eye, though. They were much sheerer than the true powder shades and took longer to build up but sat nicely on the skin and surprisingly were almost as long-wearing as the true powder shades. The deeper shades in this texture look different in the pan that they do on the eye. The deepest ones (Bow, Ambush, and Stealth) end up looking brighter, almost jewel toned, once applied to the eye. I will note which shades these are underneath the swatch photos below.

There are only 3 true powder matte shades (Hunt, Entice, and Snare). They had the same quality as the matte shades in the previous two Alter Ego palettes I reviewed. Easy to blend but still pigmented enough to build up color quickly.

Shimmers range from a standard shimmer finish with a slightly more muted sheen to more reflective shimmers that have larger sparkles mixed in. They all picked up easily with a brush. The ones with larger sparkles had noticeable fallout which I could reduce by dampening my brush (after picking up color). Using something like Too Faced Glitter Glue can also help. I noticed that when applying these sparkly shades over some of the cream/powder shades, the shadow would adhere better than over primer alone.

Shade Selection

For being a 28 pan palette, I found this less versatile than I think it could have been. Several shades had dupes within the palette:

• Catch, Provoke, and Camouflage
• Thrill and Prowl (possibly exact dupes)
• Quest and Chase
• Bow and Ambush (look slightly different in the pan but swatch nearly identical)
• Ravage and Pounce
• Trap and Captivate
• Quiver and Lure (possibly exact dupes)
• Hunt and Entice

That’s 9 shades that could have been different. I like versatility in a palette so, for me, this affects value. If you happen to like the shades that are dupes and think you’ll use them a lot, well, it might not be an issue.

Wear Time

Wear time hovered right around 8 hours before I started to see creasing. The cream/powder shades creased slightly earlier and more than the true powders but wore much longer than I expected them to.

This is the last palette I have to review from Alter Ego and I want to say that I am pleasantly surprised with the quality of their products. I would love to see them create something that is unique to them and not based on an existing product. I think their formulas are good and could support an interesting color story.

• Provoke – Light bronze-y gold shimmer with larger golden sparkles mixed in.
• Entice – Slightly deeper and more muted orangey brown with a matte finish.
• Obscure – Pale gold with a standard shimmer finish. No large sparkles.
• Ravage – Coral-y orange shimmer with larger golden sparkles.
• Catch – Nearly identical in color to Provoke but this is a standard shimmer with no chunky sparkles.
• Trap – Cream/powder. More coral toned than Hunt and Entice and has a small amount of shimmer that doesn’t translate on the lid. This looks matte on the lid.

• Silent – Cream/powder. This is an interesting vintage avocado green shade. Being a cream/powder somehow enhances the color in a way I don’t think we’d see in a true powder. Looks matte on the eye.
• Scent – Looks more opaque in the swatch but this is very sparkly and doesn’t have much base color to it. Large, bright, multi-colored sparkles in a sheer champagne shimmer base.
• Camouflage – This looks exactly the same as Catch in the row above. Same color, same finish.
• Victory – Medium blue shimmer with larger blue sparkles.
• Stalk – Reddish orange shimmer with a standard shimmer finish.
• Quiver – Cream/powder. Red-based brown. This has a bit more of a sheen to it than the other cream/powder shades but it still comes off as mostly matte on the eye.
• Snare – Vibrant orange with a matte finish.

• Thrill – Cream/powder. Greenish taupe. Looks matte on the eye.
• Spear – Gold with a hint of green. On the eye, the green tint is hardly noticeable. Sparkling shimmer finish. The sparkles in this are smaller than in some of the other shades.
• Chase – Shimmery taupe. Not as reflective as some of the other shimmers.
• Pursuit – Shimmery green base with larger blue sparkles.
• Captivate – Cream/powder. Similar to Trap in the first row but more toned down, less vibrant.
• Pluck – Deeper rose gold with a standard shimmer finish.
• Bow – Cream/powder. Medium blue. Looks matte on the eye.

• Ambush – Cream/powder. Extremely similar to Bow but maybe a bit easier to build up.
• Prowl – Cream/powder. Looks nearly identical to Thrill.
• Stealth – Cream/powder. Depending on how much you build this up it can go anywhere from a lighter emerald green to a deeper forest green. Looks matte on the eye.
• Pounce – Copper shimmer with larger sparkles.
• Lure – Cream/powder. Medium warm brown with a matte finish.
• Conquer – Deep true red with a standard shimmer finish.
• Quest – Looks the same as Chase in row 3.

Looks

Look #1:

• Silent – Crease, center part of lower lashline
• Thrill – Outer lid and crease
• Lure – Outer lid, outer lower lashine
• Pounce – Center of lid
• Scent – Inner corner, applied with dampened brush

Look #2:

• Prowl – Outer transition area
• Ambush – Outer lid/crease
• Trap – Under the inner part of my brow
• Pursuit – Outer lid
• Conquer –  Inner lower lashline
• Victory – Outer crease, applied with an angled brush
• Ravage – Center of brow bone area
• Spear – Outer brow bone area
• Entice – Outer lower lashline
• Snare – Center of lid and crease

Look #3:

• Stealth – Inner lid/crease
• Bow – Outer crease
• Quest – Inner lid
• Victory – Outer lid
• Quiver – Lower lashline
• Obscure – Inner corner
• Provoke – Center of lid

Disclaimer: This post features a product that was gifted to me. I am under no obligation to post and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Product Details

The Alter Ego Aurora Palette contains 15 pans in the yellow, orange, red, and pink color families. It is supposed to be a dupe, or at least a very similar version of the Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette. There is a total of 13.5 grams / 0.48 oz of product.

Alter Ego sent me three of their palettes, none of them being dupes of Natasha Denona palettes I already had, so I really can’t compare the colors themselves. I talked about formula differences in the review for the Goddess palette, if that is something you are curious about.

The palette itself is made of cardboard and feels like higher quality than you might expect. It is heavy, sturdy, and has a distortion-free mirror inside. When I was swatching this I noticed the pans moving around easily and found out they are removable and magnetic. Not something you usually see with a budget/affordable brand.

Formula Overview

The mattes are easy to blend, a lot like the ones in the Goddess palette. They have plenty of color payoff but if you are used to formulas like Natasha Denona’s that pack a punch immediately, know that this is different. You can build the color up to get intensity if you want. It is possible to go in with one of the deepest shades and blend it out well enough without the need to use a transition shade. This isn’t something I would attempt with Natasha Denona’s formula. I had very little fallout from the mattes. 

The shimmers had less sparkle fallout to deal with compared to the ones in the Goddess palette. Quite a few in the Goddess palette were chunkier types of of shimmers whereas most of the ones in this palette are closer to what you would think of as a typical shimmer. Dawn was the only one that had that chunkier texture to it. It can be super helpful to use something like Too Faced Glitter Glue and be extra careful to tap any excess shadow off your brush before applying this type of shade.

The more standard shimmers initially seemed like they didn’t want to adhere to the lid but I think that was because of how I primed my lids and also because I usually apply matte shades first. If you apply them straight over a primed lid (that isn’t set with any type of powder), they adhere perfectly fine. This texture had almost no fallout.

Shade Selection

I am much happier with the shade selection of the mattes in this palette than the Goddess palette. Only the two yellows are similar, but even then I can tell them apart on the eye. The shimmers could have been a little more varied and, this is just a personal preference, I would have liked more mattes and fewer shimmers. 

Wear Time

I tested 2 of my looks for wear time. One wore for 8 hours with hardly noticeable creasing and another lasted 8.5 hours with moderate creasing.

• Radiance – Pinkish champagne with blue sparkles.
• Stellar – Pale pinkish gold with a standard shimmer finish.
• Spark – Medium reddish pink shimmer with larger sparkles.
• Sunburst – Bright matte yellow.
• Dawn – Light purple shimmer with large blue sparkles. This shade had a lot of fallout if used dry. Glitter glue or a damp brush helped a lot. 

• Shine – Peachy yellow with a matte finish.
• Luminary – Rose gold shimmer. This had a flakier texture similar to a pressed pigment but could be smoothed out to look metallic. 
• Ray – True red with a standard shimmer finish.
• Nova – Rich raspberry pink with a matte finish.
• Cosmic – Deeper reddish pink with a standard shimmer finish.

• Star – Peachy coral with a matte finish.
• Brilliance – Pale gold with a standard shimmer finish.
• Flare – Rich reddish orange with a matte finish.
• Sol – Deeper yellow with a matte finish. 
• Twilight – Burgundy with a matte finish.

Looks

Look #1:

• Shine – Inner crease
• Star – Center of crease, outer transition area, lower inner lashline
• Nova – Outer crease
• Flare – Outer lid
• Sol – Inner lid
• Twilight – Outer lower lashline
• Dawn – Center of lid, applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue

Look #2:

• Star – Upper crease, faded downward onto upper lid
• Shine – Lower lashline
• Brilliance – Inner corner
• Ray – Used as eyeliner, applied with dampened brush

Look #3:

• Twilight – Slightly above crease
• Star – Outer transition area, inner lid
• Flare – Outer lid/crease
• Cosmic – Lower lashline, applied with dampened brush

Look #4:

• Sunburst – Above center part of crease, inner/outer lower lashline
• Flare – Inner/outer lid and crease
• Luminary – Center of lid, applied with dampened brush
• Stellar – Brow bone

Disclaimer: This post features a product that was gifted to me. I am under no obligation to post and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Product Details

The Alter Ego Goddess Palette is a 15 pan eyeshadow palette that was created as a “dupe” for the well known Natasha Denona Gold Palette. It contains 13.5 grams / 0.48 oz of product.

The packaging feels heavier than you would expect for a more affordable/budget product and actually contains removable magnetic pans! Inside the lid is a decent sized, good quality mirror.

Formula Overview

The mattes feel much more readily blendable and require more building up than the Natasha formula to get a similar level of color payoff. They remind me of the mattes from Lorac, Maybelline, and Covergirl. I did find myself occasionally dusting away color where I didn’t intend to but it wasn’t too problematic. I would rather have a formula like this where I have to reapply a shade at times rather than a formula that sticks to the skin and refuses to blend.

There are a variety of different types of shimmers, some with pretty big sparkle particles and some that are very fine and smooth. They have a good amount of shine to them. I wouldn’t describe them as being foiled but they reflect light nicely. The ones with larger particles seem to have less binder in them than Natasha’s do. I got A LOT of fallout from some of these shades and ended up using a glitter adhesive along with careful tapping off of the excess to keep it to a minimum. The ones with more of a fine/uniform texture have much less fallout.

Shade Selection

I got a bit frustrated with the matte to shimmer ratio partly because three of the mattes are SOO similar to each other once applied to the eye. There are several gold-tone shimmers but I thought they all looked sufficiently different from each other, even to wear together in the same look. Because the mattes are super bendable, I didn’t find it was necessary to use lighter transition shades or brow bone (skin tone) shades. I used them but I could have easily gotten away without them.

Wear Time

I tested 3 of my looks and got consistent wear of about 9-10 hours with very minor creasing. I used both Alter Ego’s eyeshadow primer and Nars Pro Prime to test. Both primers work well but I found Alter Ego’s to hold up slightly better.

• Artemis – This is an interesting shade that has what looks like 3 levels to it. Large sparkles within finer green shimmer within a deep matte grey base. Lots of fallout if used dry. Dampen your brush or use a glitter adhesive. 
• Athena – Light brown with strong yellow undertones and a matte finish.
• Pandora – Light gold shimmer with large silver and gold sparkles. Lots of fallout if used dry.
• Iris – Medium warm brown with a matte finish.
• Lyssa – Light bronze-y gold shimmer with larger golden sparkles. 

• Aura – Cooler brown with standard shimmer finish. Not as reflective as some of the other shimmers.
• Hera – Similar to Iris but more pink-toned. On the eye, you can hardly tell them apart.
• Valkyrie – Pale greenish gold. This can have anywhere from a metallic to an iridescent finish depending on how heavily you apply it.
• Gaia – Blueish green with a matte finish. Can be built up but not as deep and rich as you might expect based on how it looks in the pan.
• Venus – Yellow gold with a standard shimmer finish.

• Freya – Chunky, sparkly white with a subtle golden sheen. Lots of fallout.
• Juno – Similar to Hera but slightly deeper and redder. Just as with the other medium browns, this looks almost the same on the eye.
• Luna – Pale bronze with a standard shimmer finish.
• Avalon – Deep brown with a matte finish.
• Cassandra – Mostly large light green sparkles in a sheer base. Lots of fallout. Looks gold here but the green is more visible in Look #3.

Looks

Look #1:

• Hera – Transition, outer lower lashline
• Gaia – Crease, inner lower lashline
• Avalon – All over lid
• Artemis – Layered over Avalon
• Freya – Inner corner, applied with dampened brush
• Venus – Near tear duct, outer upper lashline, applied with dampened brush

Look #2:

Describing where the colors go gets more tricky when they aren’t placed in the usual way lol. The yellowy brown is Athena, the teal is Gaia, the dark brown is Avalon, and the shimmery shade is Valkyrie. I applied Valkyrie with a dampened angled brush to get a more controlled application. For the sharp outer edges, I also used an angled brush (not dampened, though).

Look #3:

• Juno – Crease, lower lashline
• Avalon – Outer lid
• Cassandra – Center of lid

Look #4:

• Iris – Crease, lower lashline
• Aura – Inner and outer lid
• Luna – Center of lid
• Lyssa – Outer-ish lower lashline
• Pandora – Inner corner, applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue
• Avalon – Added this to outer lid at the end

Look #5:

• Athena – Crease
• Gaia – All over lid
• Artemis – Layered over Gaia, applied over Too Faced Glitter Glue
• Avalon – Inner/outer lower lashline
• Venus – Center of lower lashline, applied with dampened brush

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission when you make purchases through them.

Product Details

The NYX Ultimate Utopia Palette contains 40 shades of eyeshadows and pressed pigments in a wide range of colors and finishes. Each shade is 1 gram / 0.03 oz. It retails for $35 and can be purchased from NYX Cosmetics or Ulta.

I will note which ones are pressed pigments as I describe each shade below. Pressed pigments are not considered eye safe because they can cause staining and sometimes irritation. Regardless of this, many people still use them as eyeshadows, including myself. If I ever encounter shades that cause irritation I will always let you know.

Formula Overview

The mattes vary in quality and ease of use but, all in all, there is nothing terrible or unusable in this palette. The trend seems to be that the deeper shades tend to be a bit more resistant to blending. Some of the lighter shades are also on the sheer side but can be built up. They generally feel on the thinner and drier side (compared to something like ColourPop’s formula) but at the same time they are very smooth and finely milled.

The shimmers come in several finishes. Many of them contain larger sparkle particles and some of them have moderate fallout. Most pick up decently with a brush. The lighter shades are sheerer. Some of the deeper shades are more pigmented and contain a base color with more opacity.

Shade Selection

This palette has a very well rounded color story with a good balance between warm and cool tones and plenty of range in depth. You can do a lot with this palette. If you like the price point of something like ColourPop’s larger palettes but aren’t a fan of the thicker formula, you might enjoy this.

Wear Time

I got some really long wearing looks out of this, and some that creased earlier in the day. I tested 5 of my looks for wear time and 3 out of the 5 wore for 13 hours with minor creasing. One wore for 11 hours with heavy creasing. Yet another wore for 8 hours with very minor creasing. I think it just depends on the shades you choose to use.

• Shade 1 – Pale yellow matte base with fine golden sparkles.
• Shade 2 – Pressed pigment. Pale peach shimmer.
• Shade 3 – Pale matte peach.
• Shade 4 – Pressed pigment. Pale matte pink.

• Shade 5 – Pressed pigment. Medium coral-pink with a matte finish.
• Shade 6 – Clear base with mixture of larger gold and silver sparkles.
• Shade 7 – Pressed pigment. Pale cool toned lavender with a matte finish.
• Shade 8 – Pressed pigment. Pale grey with slight purple undertones and a matte finish.

• Shade 9 – Pale iridescent mint green with a sparkling shimmer finish. There are some larger flecks of sparkle in this.
• Shade 10 – Cool greyish green with a matte finish.
• Shade 11 – Pale gold with green undertones and a sparkling shimmer finish. There are some larger flecks of sparkle in this.
• Shade 12 – Pressed pigment. Warm reddish brown with a matte finish.

• Shade 13 – Intense yellow gold sparkles in a clear base. The sparkles are on the larger side.
• Shade 14 – Pressed pigment. Medium pinky purple with a matte finish.
• Shade 15 – Pressed pigment. Pale grey with blue undertones and a matte finish.
• Shade 16 – Light taupe with a subtle bluish grey flip.

• Shade 17 – Medium peach with a matte finish.
• Shade 18 – Pressed pigment. Medium peachy brown with golden shimmer finish.
• Shade 19 – Warm terra-cotta brown with a matte finish.
• Shade 20 – Vibrant chartreuse with a sparkling shimmer finish. There are some larger sparkles in this.

• Shade 21 – Pressed pigment. Medium peachy shimmer with some larger gold sparkles.
• Shade 22 – Pressed pigment. Deep reddish brown with a matte finish.
• Shade 23 – Pressed pigment. Subtle multi chrome. Shimmery light blue with sheen that flips between light teal, light green, and gold. When the light hits at an extreme angle, I can see that this has a lavender-grey base color.
• Shade 24 – Medium-deep muted teal with a matte finish.

• Shade 25 – Mustard yellow with a matte finish.
• Shade 26 – Clear base with larger flecks of golden sparkle.
• Shade 27 – Pressed pigment. Medium-deep brick red with a matte finish.
• Shade 28 – Pressed pigment. Medium coral with a matte finish.

• Shade 29 – Charcoal with a matte finish.
• Shade 30 – Pressed pigment. Purple-toned deep grey with a matte finish.
• Shade 31 – Deep grey matte base infused with multi color shimmer and sparkles. The shimmer has a muted plum color. Among the sparkles, cobalt blue stands out to me.
• Shade 32 – Pressed pigment. Very muted deep purple with a matte finish.

• Shade 33 – Pressed pigment. Eggplant with a matte finish.
• Shade 34 – Pressed pigment. Medium orangey brown with a matte finish.
• Shade 35 – Medium olive green with yellow undertones and matte finish.
• Shade 36 – Pressed pigment. Deep grey, almost black, matte base with larger golden sparkles. This mixture of colors reads as olive green when you look at the effect as a whole vs looking at what it’s composed of.

• Shade 37 – Pressed pigment. Medium reddish orange shimmer.
• Shade 38 – Pressed pigment. Light reddish peach shimmer.
• Shade 39 – Medium warm brown with a matte finish.
• Shade 40 – Pressed pigment. Deep purplish grey base with lots of cobalt blue sparkles and smaller amount of pink sparkles.

Looks

Look #1:

• Shade 3 – Brow bone and inner corner
• Shade 10 – Outer crease
• Shade 5 – Inner crease
• Shade 17 – Transition
• Shade 24 – Outer lid
• Shade 14 – Inner lid
• Shade 9 – Inner corner
• Shade 7 – Inner lower lashline
• Shade 33 – Outer lower lashline
• Shade 40 – Center of lid

Look #2:

• Shade 1 – Inner corner, brow bone
• Shade 25 – Crease, lower inner lashline
• Shade 34 – Outer lid, lower outer lashline
• Shade 35 – Center of lid
• Shade 26 – Center of lid, layered over previous shade

Look #3:

• Shade 24 – Outer and inner lid blended into crease, lower outer lashline
• Shade 8 – Transition, inner lower lashline
• Shade 23 – Center of lid
• Shade 11 – Inner corner and I used the residual left on the brush to add some sparkle to the brow bone area

Look #4:

• Shade 39 – Crease, inner lower lashline
• Shade 38 – All over lid
• Shade 34 – Outer crease, outer lower lashline
• Shade 3 – Brow bone
• Shade 2 – Inner corner

Look #5:

• Shade 12 – Outer crease, outer lower lashline
• Shade 8 – Inner crease
• Shade 15 – Inner lid
• Shade 16 – Center of lid
• Shade 30 – Outer lid, outer lower lashline
• Shade 3 – Brow bone, also used this to clean up around the edges on the outer part of my eye

Look #6:

• Shade 28 – Crease, blended pretty high up into the transition area
• Shade 27 – Outer lid, crease
• Shade 21 – Center of lid
• Shade 3 – Inner corner and brow bone

Look #7:

• Shade 4 – Brow bone, inner corner
• Shade 15 – Transition
• Shade 30 – Crease
• Shade 29 – Deepen outer corner
• Shade 31 – Center of lid
• Shade 6 – Inner lid

Look #8:

• Shade 25 – Inner crease/transition area, outer lower lashline
• Shade 24 – Crease, outer transition area, inner lower lashline

The shimmer in this look is Callisto from Terra Moons Cosmetics.

Look #9:

• Shade 3 – Brow bone
• Shade 7 – Under inner part of brow, outer lower lashline
• Shade 10 – Outer crease/transition area, inner lower lashline
• Shade 33 – Outer lid/crease
• Shade 24 – Inner lid
• Shade 20 – Center of lid
• Shade 9 – Inner corner

Look #10:

• Shade 3 – Brow bone, inner corner
• Shade 25 – Transition
• Shade 27 – Crease
• Shade 29 – All over lid
• Shade 23 – Center of lid
• Shade 24 – Lower lashline

Look #11:

• Shade 4 – Brow bone, inner corner, inner lower lashline
• Shade 15 – Inner crease, transition
• Shade 22 – Outer lid, outer crease
• Shade 20 – Center of lid
• Shade 10 – Outer lower lashline

Look #12:

• Shade 3 – Brow bone, set lids
• Shade 19 – Outer crease/transition area
• Shade 32 – Outer lid, inner lid blended all the way up to the brow
• Shade 37 – Center of lid
• Shade 18 – Lower lashline, more diffused application
• Shade 36 – Outer lower lashline, applied with dampened brush
• Shade 13 – Inner corner, applied with dampened brush