Maybelline The Blushed Nudes Swatches

Hello lovelies!

For those of you who aren't subscribed to my YouTube channel I posted a video today with my first impression of the Maybelline The Blushed Nudes palette. This particular palette isn't available in stores yet here in New Zealand, but I bought mine from this lovely woman here for $18, which I think is a very good price. The original Nudes palette from Maybelline got very mixed reviews on YouTube, some people loved it, some people hated it. I personally thought it was fine, nothing amazing but not terrible either. I also own the Smokes palette but that will pop up in a different post. I've been lusting after the Blushed Nudes since I saw it on the official Maybelline Instagram and I grabbed it the second I saw it was available on this Facebook group.

It's a very rosy toned palette, similar to the Naked 3 palette by Urban Decay. The packaging is a beautiful rose gold plastic with a clear window on the top that lets you see the shades inside. Exactly the same layout and design as the other palettes in Maybelline's range. Inside are 12 stunning shades that are overall more pigmented and blendable than the ones in the original palette. The plastic packaging is a bit flimsy and looks somewhat cheap but this is a drugstore palette and we're not paying for packaging. We're paying for pretty eyeshadows.

One downside to this palette is that there is only ONE matte shadow, that is the fourth shadow in the top row. It's a good crease or transition shade, but I would have liked to see some more mattes mixed in, because of that it can be hard to create many different looks unless you are okay with putting satin finish shadows into your crease.

The shades starting at the top row from left to right are: A satin white, a satin pale pink (gorgeous in my opinion), a satin peachy champagne, a matte mid toned brown with a pink undertone, a shimmer bronze gold and an extremely unique shimmery raspberry shade that seems to be the most popular colour in the palette. And who can blame people for loving it? I own many eyeshadows and I have absolutely nothing like it in my collection. A favourite for a good reason.

The shades in the bottom row are: A really pretty taupe-ish silver colour that I wish was more pigmented, a pretty cool toned, medium, shimmery brown, a more chocolatey shimmery brown, a grey-ish satin taupe, a cool toned, deep satin brown and finally a stunning deep brown with sparkly maroon flecks in it, another absolute favourite of mine. Unfortunately while opening it I did dig my nail into it. Oops!

Something I would like to touch base on very briefly is that on the back of these palettes, Maybelline have put down how you can use these shades as duos, trios and quads. While I think this is an absolutely fantastic idea, especially considering these are the kinds of things beginners are going to want to pick up, I feel like with the Blushed Nudes they didn't do a very good job of setting these shadows up together. Mostly I think the problem is the lack of matte shades, but truly I think the way these shadows are done it would be impossible to use them in the ways that are suggested here. For example how can I do a full eye look with the 2 shades at the right end of the top row? That would just be shimmer central all up in my eyelids. With the other palettes I think they did a very good job of laying out the shades in a way that they could be used as suggested, but this one I think they would have been better to leave that part out, if they weren't willing to change any shadows.

Swatches without primer: 

 Swatches with primer: 

I just want to mention that I did build up that pale pink shade, not because it's not pigmented, but because it doesn't show up very well on my fair skin tone. The shimmery shades definitely have the most pigment but when putting the matte shade on my eyes I found it quite easy to blend out. Also as you can (well, can't see unfortunately) that first shade on the bottom row has very little pigment to it. A let down for sure, but not something that deters me from loving this palette. I think Maybelline did a much better job with this palette than the first one and personally I think the raspberry shade is so unique that I'd buy the entire thing just for that one shade. If you have something like the Naked 3 palette I wouldn't say this one is a must have. However if you're looking for a pretty, rose gold toned palette from the drugstore I think it's very good and for the price I feel like you're getting quite a decent range of colours. Again, the only real problem I have with it is the fact that there is only a single matte shade. If you have this palette, or want to buy it, let me know your thoughts! Also I'd love to hear what you think of Maybelline's palettes in general.

Thanks so much for reading,

WannabeMUA (Enya) xx