The day has finally come! I first heard about this palette when I saw one of my fellow makeup-lovers post about it on Instagram. I remember gawking at La Palette Nude 2 (shop it at Ulta here), screenshotting it for further use, and then telling myself I would pick it up asap. Knowing I would be moving soon, I didn't want to order it online lest it arrive a little late and be a nice gift for the new residents, and living in a small area, I couldn't find this palette in stores anywhere.
Well, the other day, while out and about in the city, I stopped at the drugstore with a girl friend to pick up a few necessities, and I saw this beauty sitting loud and proud in the centre aisle. I picked it up immediately.
L'Oréal came out with two Nude palettes: One with neutral, brown-toned shades, and one geared more towards cool purples and browns. Honestly, I think there are more than enough nude palettes around and I had no interest in checking out the first one, but the second one. Oh my.
Picking up this palette cost me $29.99, first of all, and I didn't think anything of it when I was at the counter because I had been lusting after this palette for so long that I didn't care, but thirty dollars seemed a little too pricey for drugstore after I thought about it. When I map it out, though, I compare it to other palettes, and I can justify the price.
The Maybelline Nudes palette that came out semi-recently retails for approximately $10-15, depending on your location. Half the price of the L'Oréal palette, two more shades than the L'Oréal palette. The quality of the two differs tremendously, however, and not to throw shade at Maybelline's palette, but every time I went to go check it out in store, I felt like at least one of the shadows was broken or popped out of the casing.
Then I compare to a high end nude palette like Urban Decay's Naked. Retails for $55-65, depending on your location, yet the quality is impeccable and people have no problem shelling out the money for any of the Nakeds.
So where does La Palette Nude fit in? Somewhere in the middle in terms of price, and somewhere more toward high end in terms of quality. So, all in all, I wouldn't hesitate to pay $30 for this palette again.
La Palette Nude 2 comes in this thick, black, plastic rectangular casing with a clear strip on the face of the palette where you can see all the shades inside. It's got gold lettering underneath the window.
On the back of the palette, you get digital imagery of the ten shades that come in the palette, and four different eye looks L'Oréal says you can make using only the colours in the palette. They digitized and presented four different looks and gave a little "how-to" for each one. They also provide a source for 1,001 other ways to wear this palette, which is kind of ridiculous and kind of cool.
Inside the casing, there's a decent sized mirror lining the inside top of the palette, your ten eyeshadow shades, and a dual-ended brush. The brush they give you has one end as a flat shadow brush (not great for blending, which is weird, but great for putting shadow on the bottom lash line? I don't hate it) and the other end as one of those little spade-shaped sponge tip applicators. The ones no one really uses. So, the brush we can essentially ignore, although I don't hate the bottom-lash-line usefulness aspect. I suppose.
My favourite part! The eyeshadows themselves! The palette features five matte shades and five more shimmery shades. The matte shades are: 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10. Shimmery shadows are 1, 2, 5, 7, 8. A little weird how they organized the mattes and the shimmers, but I feel like it works. I feel like they organized the shades somewhat lightest to darkest, or rather started out with your basic highlights and cream shades, and then dove in to the purples and dark browns. Either way, I think it looks great.
I actually used these shadows on a friend twice before I tried them out on me. I picked up the palette when a girl friend and I were out on a girls day/night, and I used it to do her makeup that night, and then again the following day. It's one thing to use shadows on yourself, knowing your eyelids and how they work best with what primers/products/brushes, but another to test out shadows on another person because you really get a feel for how well they apply, blend, and hold up. I was impressed with these shadows and I found them absolutely beautiful. My favourite shades ever are 9 and 10. The two purples at the end of the palette.
As a first impression, I did find them to be a bit chalky, if I'm being honest, and I found that when I blended them, a decent bit of the colour would come off with the blending brush. That being said, once you get a feel for the shades, those two negatives become quite nonexistent. A lot of people seem to be comparing this palette to the Naked palettes, and in my opinion, in terms of formula, there's just no comparison. That's not a bad thing, but the Naked palettes' eyeshadows are always very creamy and blendable (in my experience) and La Palette Nude's shadows are much drier. Again, not a bad thing, just a vast difference in formulation.
If I could walk around with these swatches on my arm all day without weird looks, I would. They make lovely temporary arm-tattoos. Okay so, doing these swatches was the first time I really got a feel of all of the colours in the palette. I had done a few looks with maybe half the shadows but I got to feel all the shades in the palette while doing these swatches.
When I mentioned before that the matte shadows are chalky, I meant it. I was able to work around that factor while doing both mine and a friend's makeup with them, but when I did the swatches for this review, I honestly had to blend and swipe the colour so many times to get a good swatch. The shimmery shades swatched a lot more easily and beautifully. I hate that I need to mention the chalkiness of the mattes, because I truly am in love with this palette, but it takes a good couple swipes of the finger or brush to get a good colour/consistency.
I took the photo of the swatches outside, in natural light, to properly show both the colour and the shimmer in natural daylight. Sun is the best light you could ask for! The swatches go in the order of the shades in the palette, one through ten from left to right. Click on the photo to enlarge it for better quality.
I really hope you found this review helpful, and if you purchased this palette, I'd like to know what your thoughts on it are. Let me know!
Have a wonderful day, and as always,
until next time, sunshine!
C
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