Look 1
a mix of  all the matte shades with black liner smudged onto the upper and lower lash line to create a heavy, smokey look



Look 2
for a dramatic mixed metals look, i added the gold (center eye lid 3) into the inner corner, the silver (center eye lid 2) into the lash line and the deeper grey into the lower lash line (outer eye lid 3)




The Eyeshadows

 


 


Move over warm tones because Natasha Denona has just dropped her Glam Palette cool - toned eyeshadow of dreams!


The palette is a 15 pan 'cool toned' eyeshadow palette consisting of 5 mattes and 10 shimmers. There are a mix of cool, neutral and a few warm shades in this palette.


Natasha Denona has a smooth and highly pigmented formula. The mattes in this palette are very soft so blend effortlessly however they take a little building up for real depth and pigmentation. I find they are more pigmented when applied with a primer, especially on my medium olive skin tone. However, if you want real depth, I recommend using a smoked out eyeliner to add more definition and glam.  The shimmer in particular are excellent and perform well dry, wet, applied with a brush or a finger. There are slight nuances in the shimmer formulas within this palette that gives it more texture - these I'll point out further down the blog post. But overall, all shades are very high performing in this palette.


Swatches from left-right, top row, centre row to bottom row. Photographed in indirect sunlight, without flash. Colours are very true to real life however the textures aren't as nuanced in this photo. This is more of a colour representation.


In these swatches you can see the effect and textures of the shadows more to get an idea of how they differ and may look on the eye.

The first three shades are the most "textured" eyeshadows, they have a very pigmented base colour but have beautiful micro-glitters throughout this and have true colour pay off with  a metallic/sparkly finish on the eyelid.



The mattes are very soft and smooth, as you can see they aren't the very heavy or dense in pigment but this creates a very soft-glam/diffused and smokey effect on the eyelids. If you are looking for real depth and intensity or have a deeper skin tone then these mattes will be quite disappointing and you might prefer a Juvias Place Eyeshadow or something like the Natasha Denona Metropolis Palette or (warm toned) Bronze Palette.




The next 6 shimmers are a classic "shimmer" formula, they have good pigmentation but are less metallic and more on the satin-shimmer side (with the exception of the gold shade which is very metallic and denser like the initial three shimmers in the palette). Finally the "brow bone" shade is the thinnest in formula and is a semi-sheer shimmer that can look like a beautiful satin sheen when applied.


So, overall this is a really consistent and smooth palette - if you enjoy more neutral-cool tones and want a high quality palette, I would definitely recommend this palette.

However, it isn't without it's faults. The naming convention of this palette isn't very user friendly as "smoke" isn't much of a descriptor and you can sometimes follow the instructions of "center eye lid", "crease" etc too literally where applying looks becomes less intuitive. I would still recommend breaking the palette into quads, rows and columns to help create looks with more variety. But the worst part about this naming is that the pale "transition" and "blend" shades make it incredibly obvious that this palette has been created for lighter skin tones. On Tan+ shades, the transition shade would be ashy, if it even shows up at all. There are many other Natasha Denona palettes that provide create variety and depth for deeper skin tones and whilst these shades are softer, I find that reinforcing the intention of these shadows to be quite alienating. It is a similar vein to a "universal" bronzer or a "nude" lipstick which is actually a pale pink-beige. For 2020, we need to expect more from brands, and this eyeshadow palette release has disappointed me, especially when the Bronze Palette was such a beautiful collection of warm shades for Medium-Tan skin tones. Hopefully Natasha Denona will do more to improve this issue in future releases.




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