Maybe it’s just my old age (YOU DON’T HAVE TO AGREE WITH ME) but I have quietly shoved my beloved acid greens and luminous neon blues into the bottom drawer and rediscovered a love for all things neutral, warm, flattering.
There are so many nice neutral eyeshadow palettes out there to choose from these days, the Urban Decay Naked palettes are a good place to start but I also have a Wet ‘n’ Wild set which is just gorgeous and so cheap and cheerful too (alas, it was sent to me from a friend in the US so not so easy to get in the UK).
I bought 2 more in the past few months, Illamasqua’s Neutral Palette and Sleek’s Au Naturel.
Illamasqua’s palette contains the shades: Vintage, Stealth, Wolf, Obsidian.
I haven’t bought an Illamasqua quad for quite a while – sometimes the combinations are just a bit strange. This palette is right up my street – a neutral cream, a matte rich black, a rich chocolate and a gorgeous antique gold. It works really nicely together – I don’t know if you can really call this a *cough* neutral palette cos dark black, dark chocolate, rich gold are hardly natural to your average lady who just wants a soft look for work but the tones are certainly very earthy.
The pigmentation is gorgeous. LOVE this palette.
This palette costs £30. Not exactly cheap but a really nice palette.
I also picked up the Sleek i-Divine Au Naturel Palette in the Superdrug 3 for 2. I used to collect these but I can’t keep up with them as they’re released and they’re hard to locate – I’m really not going to 4 different Superdrug stores just to locate a palette.
I had high hopes for this palette – Sleek palettes generally are really good quality for the price:
The thing about Sleek’s palette because there are 12 pans to fill I am not sure how considered the shade choices are. The entire top row is meh – matte base shades with little variation and poor pigmentation. Even the second row lacks pigment:
The black shade and the rich bronze are both nice the rest of the palette is meh. It’s not even boring, it’s just not that nice or interesting and lacking in pigment.
Sleek Palettes are around £5.99 and from Superdrug where you will be lucky to find one that hasn’t been smashed on the floor by some unruly teens.
What neutral palettes have you used recently? Any that you would recommend?
*Purchased by me
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
…Shocked. Never seen such terrible Sleek palette swatches! I hope they aren’t declining in quality – I love Sleek.
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I haven’t tried Sleek make up yet as my local superdrug don’t stock it… I think I may have been slightly put off! the Illamasqua palette looks gorgeous but definitely not neutrals! I would like to try MUA’s undressed when it comes out!
Rachel from http://www.whatabeauty.co.uk x
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MUA’s Heaven & Earth and the new Undressed palette!
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I just bought the sleek palette after hearing good reviews – and I noticed that it looks different than the other photos I’ve seen! I think they changed it! mine is the same as yours, very disappointing! Other swatches I’ve found online are much better. It makes no sense!
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For a budget buy, MUA Heaven & Earth or Undressed are outstanding.
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