Maybelline The Nudes Eyeshadow Palette Review

I know that a lot of people will immediately liken this to Urban Decay’s Naked palettes because of its 12 shades, and because of the fact that all 12 shades are neutral shades that cover the whole spectrum. It’s actually not a surprise to me, because Urban Decay and Maybelline are both owned by L’Oréal. From a business perspective, it’s not uncommon to create similar products for different brands that cater to different needs and budgets.

The palette, in general, leans more toward the cool tones. Not a lot of pinkish hues to be seen here, but there are a lot of gold based and taupe based colors to be seen here.

I feel really sad that this doesn’t come with a mirror! Admit it, you’ve used your Maybelline powder mirrors for all your mirror needs since the dawn of time hahaha. I’ve always loved their powders not only for the powders themselves but because they give humanity the gift of large mirrors.

The cover is wide enough that they could have put a mirror on the black panel, or lessened the window cathedral plastic and made more space for a mirror. But I guess they didn’t throw one in because a mirror would make the eyeshadow palette heavier… Or maybe it’s because they’re confident about their powder sales (they sell one White Superfresh compact every 10 seconds! cray cray!) that they know that you’ll look to your powder compact for a mirror instead (?)

And well, if you’re the kind of person who really likes to share your makeup looks right down to the nitty grittiest details, you’ll probably have to coordinate with whoever you’re talking to because the shades don’t have names (which is hard for a 12 shade palette!).

You can be saying oh go for shade 3 thinking that it’s the third shade from the top left, but your friend could be thinking shade 3 as in the second one from the left because she counts the first one on the left as the second shade.

But, if you’re going to use this yourself, or show this in a video or tutorial or whatnot, I don’t think these problems will be prevalent. To be fair, the instructions are so cool because they did not arrange the palette from light to dark, but instead arranged the eyeshadows such that you can “harvest” 6 duo, 4 trio, and 3 quad combinations from the palette! I will surely have fun following the directions on how to pair up the colors in this palette.

For the concerned folks, here are the ingredients and the indications for the product.

So here’s shade 1 (this is the top left shade). This is a very light, satiny, pearl hologram eyeshadow. My swatch is exaggerated because I already layered on a lot of it. In real life, it will end up as a sheer color for highlighting purposes. There is no glitter in this one, so I think this will be good for the face.

I also tried another look, this time using shade 8 as a shadow color, and then feathering it out with shade 2. I like how these eyeshadows are buildable and blendable. I was able to achieve a feathered out effect without having to smudge so much. In fact, I was only using a fluffy blending brush with swift, light strokes, to blend it in.

I am happy to announce that these are also long lasting, because after I took these photos, I went on to watch Return of Superman without removing my makeup. Episode 95 was just too funny that I was crying in laughter after watching it, and to my surprise, the eyeshadow stayed intact even without a primer! Whew!