Tag Archives: Natasha Denona 28 Purple Blue

Natasha Denona Palette Ranking

Posted on by

I took a long break from the Natasha Denona brand (since December 2022), but after purchasing the Yucca palette for half off, I wanted to continue my series of ranking all the eyeshadows from the brands whose palettes I own the most of in my collection. I’ve covered Pat Mcgrath Palettes, Huda Beauty Palettes, Oden’s Eye Palettes, and Viseart Palettes so far. Just like with Viseart, I’ve rearranged most of the palettes with removable eyeshadow pans. However, I’m familiar enough with them to be able to remember what they were like and rank them as they were originally intended.

Ranking List of All the Natasha Denona Palettes I Ever Owned:

  1. Mini Gold Palette (also HERE)
  2. Metropolis Palette (also HERE)
  3. Glam Face Palette
  4. Gold Palette
  5. Bronze Palette
  6. My Dream Palette (cream to powders vs Lisa Eldridge HERE)
  7. Love Palette
  8. Yucca Palette
  9. Lila Palette
  10. 28 Purple Blue Palette (also HERE)
  11. Mini Lila Palette (also HERE)
  12. #04 5-pan Palette

Before we get into the rankings, I wanted to show the eyeshadow singles I got as gift-with-purchase freebies I got from Sephora. I wish they weren’t glued down so I could put them in a custom magnetic palette to save some space when I moved. Because I couldn’t without using my Z-Potter, I left them behind.

I didn’t own any of these shades already because they all come from palettes I was uninterested in buying.

Mini Gold Palette

This is very much my type of color story! The beige shade doesn’t show very well on my skin tone, but I still use it along the brow bone. This palette is cohesive and the look I created in the photo above is my default combination for daytime. For night-time, I use a lot more of the deep brown. For so few shades in this small palette, I don’t feel limited by the available choices. They all still perform beautifully, even though this is five years old. The mattes blend well, Dark Sepia and Antheia are very smooth, and D’or pumps up the intensity from satin to sparkly when added to the look. I don’t need to apply any of them with a damp brush. The Natasha Denona formula has gone through its changes over the years, and the ones used in this palette is my favorite performing type from the brand. I also love that it’s small because it makes me feel like I could actually use this up one day. It doesn’t take up much space and is easy to travel with, which I have done several times. Other than making Lodge slightly lighter, the fact that I wouldn’t want to change this palette is why it’s number one!

Metropolis Palette

The first picture has all the Metropolis shades, just not in the right order. The second picture is how I keep this palette with Metropolis and Bronze palette colors.

Other than Mini Gold, this is my next favorite color story from the brand. I have so many options, but I do end up with my favorite go-to looks as well. Although I replaced six of the shadows with ones from the Bronze palette, all that really did was give myself deeper orange and red shades. I essentially turned the Metropolis palette into something better suited for my skin tone.

This was the palette that ND seemed to have perfected the cream-to-powder shadows and my love for them really took off. They’re a few months short of five years old and still haven’t fully dried out. My lighter green and a brown shade require me to use my finger to get them out of the pan since they don’t pick up as well on most of my brushes, and one of the blues is nearly dry, but I still love this formula. I love the way it blends and looks on the eyes. It has a satin effect from sheen and not shimmer. The mattes and shimmers are perfect performers for my style. They’re pigmented, but still blendable. They’re smooth and nearly buttery feeling. They layer well on each other. The shimmers are impactful. They last all day. I don’t have creasing issues. To me, this is Natasha Denona’s best performing palette. The fact that I replaced some shades, and it doesn’t have something like Dark Sepia and Antheia (two of my all-time favorite colors from the brand), are the only reasons this ranks number 2. Realistically, it’s tied for the top spot.

Glam Face Palette

Even though this isn’t strictly an eyeshadow palette, I had to include this in the rankings because I really enjoy these eyeshadows. The only reason I left this behind in the US, which I regret, is the fact that the pans are glued in so I couldn’t have the eyeshadows without the blush and highlighter. I don’t mind the blush, but I hate that highlighter, and I kept forgetting to use this because I didn’t keep this palette with the rest of my eyeshadows. If the eyeshadows were in their own separate palette, it would probably look as used as Mini Gold considering how much more often I’m reaching for neutral eyeshadows.

The formula of these is good, but different from Metropolis and Mini Gold. There are no cream to powders. The shimmers are intense, but slightly less smooth with larger size shimmer particles. They’ve got more slip, so I get a little bit of creasing, but not too much. The mattes are pigmented, but a little less easy to blend. They don’t require a lot of effort, just more than their best performing ones. The end result though is gorgeous, which is why I still consider this a favorite.

Gold Palette

The shades I kept with me from the Gold palette are Dijon, Varis, Log, Lime Chrome, and Brass. I liked more colors from the Gold palette, but I had similar enough yellows, golds, and browns from other ND palettes that they felt less necessary to bring along. Lime Chrome is another of my absolute favorite shades from Natasha Denona, Log was used on my wedding day, plus Dijon and Varis are shadows I use at least once a month. So, it’s not surprising that I hold the Gold palette in high regard. The brand’s new Golden Palette is meant to replace this one and has 9 repeat shades, yet only Varis and Log out of the ones I saved are in there. I clearly didn’t mind going without the blues, but Lime Chrome was the single most important shade for me in that palette and it’s not in the new one. So, even if I hadn’t pumped the brakes on buying new things from the brand, I would have skipped getting it (even though it’s admittedly pretty to look at).

I believe Python, the deep blue, was the brand’s first creamy-matte or cream to powder eyeshadow. It still needed some work, as I felt it remained too wet. It didn’t blend as easily or smoothly either. The ones from Metropolis were such a step up.

The Gold Palette colors were a bit repetitive, but condensing it down to favorites made it worth having in my collection.

Bronze Palette

I was using this palette quite a bit, until I decided to swap around six shadows into the Metropolis palette. I feel like my changes still improved upon the Bronze palette, but it could have benefited from being condensed down. Unlike purples and greens which I could own plenty of in a single palette and be content with the various nuances, the subtleties of bronze and oranges and everything in-between couldn’t hold my attention. This palette is so visually appealing that I couldn’t bear to leave it behind, but I don’t love it enough to actually use it as often as I should.

The mattes are less creamy/buttery and more along the lines of smooth, soft, and powdery. I like the cream to powder, though the slight purplish color of it is an interesting choice. The shimmers are impactful, smooth, and opaque though, just how I like them. So, the quality overall isn’t perfect, but quite good.

My Dream Palette

Shortly after I bought this palette, I went on my brand strike. So, I didn’t have the chance to review it. Considering I took 8 of the 15 shades with me, one could assume I really love this palette. However, I mostly just wanted to be able to continue testing the palette with shades I might actually reach for when doing my makeup.

What drew me to this palette in the first place were the additional cream to powders, the purple heavy color story, Vision as a multichrome, and Invention as the stunning fiery orange. I like having smoky options like Blackest Black and Familia, although I left Familia behind since I was taking Log. Some of the colors I abandoned were because even though they looked different in the pan, they looked too similar to each other on my skin. The mattes performed similarly to Bronze’s mattes (so good, but not the ultimate from ND), and the shimmers were either the same or in some cases even more sparkly. Vision is pretty, but doesn’t has as strong of a color shift as I’m used to from indie brands. Blackest Black takes a bit more effort to avoid overapplying or not sticking to the skin well enough and looking patchy. Invention also didn’t look the way on my eyes that I envisioned. This doesn’t count against it, but I have to point out that the misspelling of spontaneous as Spontaneuos is a bit comical.

The pros for this palette put it slightly ahead of Bronze, put the cons count slightly more against this palette as well. The overall performance is most important, and because of slightly more technical flaws, this palette got nudged out of the top five.

Love Palette

The palette has a cohesive color story, but I took my top favorite shades with me, and unfortunately that combination doesn’t look nice together all in one look. The cream to powder in this one is on the drier side now, which is interesting since it’s one of the second to last ND palettes I bought. It’s always been on the sheerer side, but getting product out is tougher now. The mattes feel similar to the ones from the Bronze palette. The shimmers are beautiful as always. Based on the amount of eyeshadows I saved and how much I liked the Love palette as a whole, I couldn’t put this palette any lower. However, I have a lot of pink and purple palettes I prefer over this one (from other brands). Some of those were custom palettes I made myself using individual eyeshadow singles from other brands. So, I couldn’t put this higher either. Considering how pink and red heavy this palette is, it’s shocking enough that I decided to place it above Natasha’s other purple palettes. Purples are among my favorite eyeshadow colors, but the quality differences were too big to overlook.

My disinterest in most pink palettes is the reason I am not planning to buy the Roxa palette. I would love to try the new matte formula in that one, but there are too many light shades and pinks for my taste. The palette would have to go on sale for nearly 50% off for it to be worth it for me to purchase (beyond financial reasons is the lack of space in my home and not wanting to be wasteful).

Yucca Palette

My first thought when I saw this palette was that the color story was pretty, but I didn’t need it since I still owned the Colored Raine Safari palette (which is honestly even prettier). I also said if I ever was to buy it, it should not be at full price since I was unsure how much this could bring to the table over Metropolis, which I assert has a better color story and formula, over this one.

At some point the mattes from Natasha Denona strayed further away from the creamy ones I loved, to a silky drier one. It’s similar to the mattes in the Bronze, Love, and My Dream palettes except these don’t spread as easily. If we look back at my past posts, ND’s eyeshadows used to go on and on in a long pigmented opaque swatch. These mattes are still pigmented, but when I was trying to swatch them, they kept having gaps of no color. I had to swipe at least three times for all of them to get a complete line to show across my arm from left to right. Willow still looks terrible. The swatches don’t look that great in general even though I built them up a lot more than usual. Of course, swatches don’t tell the whole story, and it’s more important how the performance is on the eyes. Honestly, they blended fine, but it was far from effortless. They’re not bad, but something is just off in comparison to the quality from the brand I’m used to.

There are two cream-powder mattes in here. For some reason, Fushi is thicker in texture and Calathea has more slip. I prefer Fushi because it’s much easier to get the product onto my brush and smoothed onto my eyes. Calathea required more packing and effort. It’s also a different color on my skin than I expected by looking at it in the pan. I wanted a deeper and less muted shade, but I admittedly already have that in the Metropolis palette. So, I understand the brand wanting to offer something different.

The shimmers are the best aspects of this palette, aside from Fushi. They give impact. They have sparkle to them. They don’t fade. They have minimal fallout and don’t require being applied dampened. However, I noticed that these are sheerer than I’m also used to. I can see my skin underneath, which makes them not look the same way as I envisioned. For example, Plantasia looks like an orange-reddish-bronze in the pan, but I see more golden-yellow on my lids. In order to get a warmer tone, I have to fake it by putting an orange matte underneath so that color is what shows instead of the brown of my skin. The same goes for Makia that I expected to be antique gold-olive, but looks more lemon-lime. For more green, I have to put a green shadow underneath. Those two were the shadows I was most excited to have, besides the cream-powder ones, so I was admittedly a bit disappointed.

A surprise favorite ended up being Camu Camu for its near neon brightness. On the flip side, one of the biggest disappointments was Flax because it just isn’t deep enough to give me the depth level I require for my skin tone.

Despite this palette consisting of colors I typically enjoy, this ranked much lower because it’s as I feared. It doesn’t give me much different than I could get from Metropolis, plus the formula is less to my liking. It’s further away from my preference, which doesn’t make it necessarily a bad palette. Or at least, it wouldn’t be considered that bad if the blending time wasn’t longer.

I expect to continue using Ixia (it’s a wonderful orange), Fushi, Makia, Citrine, Camu Camu, Plantasia, and perhaps even Calathea. That’s slightly less than half of the palette, so the 24 Euros I paid via Selfridges is still alright with me.

Lila Palette

From this point and onward, I don’t have any of the palettes with me.

I thought for certain that this was going to be my most beloved palette. The shades on my skin didn’t look how I expected them to though, which is ultimately when I had the idea to swap some colors around. That unfortunately didn’t cause me to use this palette any more often because the matte quality was not as great back then. The older ND formula had some that blended quite well, some that were slow builders, and some that were straight up duds. They were rougher in texture too. The shimmers were more like satins because they weren’t as reflective as I prefer. I think this was more of a makeup artist driven formula than consumer-friendly one where shadows were easier to blend with color stories that were more intuitive for putting together.

This palette holds a place in my heart for nostalgic reasons and appealing to my purple lover side, but it wasn’t the brand’s best by far.

28 Purple Blue Palette

This palette is also nostalgic because I got it in one of Beautylish’s Lucky Bags. The euphoric feeling I got from taking the chance on spending a lot of money and “winning big” on such an expensive palette was quite the rush. The reality is that I’m really not a fan of blues, so this palette was half wasted on me.
Influencers really hyped up this palette when the brand first came to Sephora US, and it was very good at the time, but not $200+ good. The mattes had that stiffer formula I mentioned in the Lila section. They were pigmented and required some effort to blend, though they were still fairly good. The shimmers were crazy pigmented, but didn’t have the sparkle intensity I love. It wasn’t bad, just not to my preference. I basically turned this into the “discard” palette of all the larger pan Natasha Denona eyeshadows I would never use (mainly cool tones, blues, and unneeded browns). By the time I decided I should probably sell it or give it away, the shadow quality just wasn’t good enough. So, I only kept it for nostalgia reasons.

Mini Lila Palette

I got this in August 2018. It’s definitely one of the weakest performing ND palettes of all time compared to the rest of the brand’s eyeshadows. However, it was still a decent performing palette compared to everything on the market. Even when I felt like I outgrew the palette, I couldn’t fathom giving it up because of that Blue Dahlia shade, which was such an uncommon color at the time. I have to give this brand credit for having specific colors that stand out to the point that I know them by name. Even among my favorites out of my entire eyeshadow collection, I have some palettes I love for the quality and color combinations available. Some of my favorites I still reach for a Clionadh shadow to add something special on top. However, Natasha Denona’s brand does have some special shades within their palettes.

For quality reasons and the one direction this palette can take me, it’s nearly at the bottom of this ranking.

04 Five Pan Palette

This was my first ever Natasha Denona palette, back in February 2016. I don’t know how many people even remember when she used to put her large sized eyeshadows in these 5-pan palettes for nearly $50. This was so similar to Viseart’s Minx palette, but Viseart did it better which is why I ended up selling mine on Mercari. I basically just wanted to try the formula and see what the hype was about. The only matte shade in here was an absolute dud. In fact, it was supposed to be a satin like the others, but mine had not a single bit of shimmer in there and trying to get it on a brush and get it to not look patchy was too great a task. The other colors performed the way all her older shimmers did, which was nice, but not my cup of tea. I think the brand made a much smarter choice when they switched to minis. People could talk about crushed pearls and diamond powder all they wanted, but if the customer isn’t over the moon about the end result, the price tag still won’t be worth it.

So, that is every palette I owned from Natasha Denona ranked! The way it currently is today, I consider this brand a maker of one of my favorite formulas for both mattes (older formula and cream powder ones) and shimmers, which is not something I can say often about the brands I use. Metropolis and Mini Gold would for sure in the top 20 eyeshadow palettes in my collection (if a list were to exist) out of the several hundred I’ve owned.

Thank you for reading!

-Lili ❤

Natasha Denona Collection Review

Posted on by

I forgot to include my Natasha Denona cheek products in my initial photo, but this post will cover everything I own from the brand!

Bloom Blush and Glow Palette

I use the Glow Cream Base as a subtle wet looking highlighter. I also mix it with the dark red Cream Blush to create a medium pink shade, since I don’t like the tone of the blush on its own. Because of the texture and how quickly it sets/stops being as blendable on the skin, I apply a layer of the Cream Base first to my cheek, then I add one tap of the blush on top and swirl it around with my finger until the adequate amount is laid down. I wipe the excess blush off my finger before continuing to blend until I’m satisfied with the look. I’ve tried the Glow Extreme several times but the sparkle level is too glittery for my taste. On the flip side, the Duo Glow is stunning! I imagine this could be a blush on some people but it is a stunning duochromatic highlighter. Being able to utilize so much of a face palette is uncommon for me, so I’m very happy I bought this. Also, I’ve had this for ten months and the creams haven’t dried out. This palette is meant to last 18 months, so that’s also a pleasant surprise!

Blush Duo

I bought this from a Boxycharm subscriber. The main blush shade is called Golden Coral and is described as a, “champagne peach shimmer and warm pink with slight champagne sheen.” This is not to be confused with the Duo Glow shade in the Bloom palette which is a combination of a, “vibrant coral with golden champagne.” The TouTou shade is meant to blend out the edges. On my skin tone, it’s too stark and just makes the edges look ashy. When I look forward, Golden Coral is a bit too bubblegum pink, and when I turn my face to the light it looks like I applied highlighter all over my cheek instead of a glowy blush. I think if I had a different shade, I would still not be a fan of the way it looks on my skin or its satin texture. MAC and Nabla are the two brands I trust to make a shimmer blush I will like. I haven’t had quite as much luck with shimmer blushes from other brands.

I think I will be decluttering this one from my collection since I doubt I will use it again. It looks pretty in the photo, but in person there’s just something about this color that I don’t care for. Despite the warmth from the gold shimmer, the base color of the blush itself is too cool toned for my liking.

The Mini Lila Palette

I purchased this palette when it was on sale and being discontinued about two and a half years ago. I haven’t noticed any changes in the quality because these shades were always very pigmented, but not the easiest to blend. Although Poison Berry (the dark red-toned purple) and Raisin (warm reddish-brown purple) are pretty colors, they look nearly interchangeable on the eye and I have plenty of shades like them. I wanted this palette for the Blue Dahlia shade, which was more unique in my collection when I originally bought it, but I have many duochrome blue-purples in my collection now, such as Nocturnal from Clionadh and Fierce from Sydney Grace. Linen is pretty, but I typically only use that kind of shade to highlight the inner corner of the eye and under the brow arch. Flint is only good for highlighting under my brow (though it barely shows) and blending out the edges of Poison Berry and Raisin.

I’ve tried to use this many times and to love it, but I think it’s best if I declutter it to allow other palettes I’m more excited by to get my attention.

My Revised Lila Palette

The Lila palette is an older one from Natasha Denona’s brand, but I purchased mine from Beautylish in November 2019. Some of these shades from the original palette are so beautiful, but I felt it wasn’t purple enough, which is why I rearranged this palette using six additional purples from the 28 Purple-Blue palette: Calypso Blue, Nina’s Orchid, Aubergine, Electric Violet, Smoky Plum, and Maroon. I am much happier with the results! The colors are mainly midtones and darker shades, so I don’t have anything to give a true pop of brightness in this one, but I tend to just use whatever highlighter I have for inner corner and brow arch highlights anyway.

As a purple lover, if I didn’t have the ability to add more purples to this palette, I honestly think I would have been more disappointed with this purchase and felt it wasn’t worth buying, even though I got it during one Beautylish’s infrequent sales. I still don’t use this palette as much as I should, but it’s aesthetically pleasing to me and I get joy from knowing it’s there in my collection.

The Mini Gold Palette

I purchased this shortly after it was released, which is rare for me to buy anything at full price. However, the color story was calling to me so strongly that I didn’t have the self control to wait for a sale. Lodge hardly shows on my eyes, but I love all the other shades! Dark Sepia is a much needed deepening up shade, even though I typically reserve that task for mattes. I found that it looks great in the outer corner but I can also use it in the crease with Bia on top to give that grungy olive green depth that I need if I want it to look like more than just a soft wash of green. I originally didn’t like the flaky texture of D’OR, but now that I’ve worked with many different glittery shadows for the past year, my experience makes using this shade much easier now. I thought the green would be my favorite shade, but D’or really elevates the eye looks I create with this palette. Antheia is a beautiful duochrome olive-brown with gold and green shimmer. That shadow’s tone doesn’t pop as much on my eyelid as I think it would on someone else, but it’s still pretty and I prefer how it looks as an inner corner highlight.

If I ranked my Natasha Denona palettes in their non-revised forms, this would be tied with the Bronze palette for second place. It’s also a favorite palette in my eyeshadow collection overall.

My Revised Gold Palette

This is another palette that is older, but I purchased it late in 2019. Although I liked the blue shades, I wanted to have all my blues in the 28 Purple-Blue Palette instead. I kept 8 of the original shades and added 4 from Lila (Magnolia, Layla, Helio, Cyclone) and 3 from the Purple-Blue (Rosewood, Golden Rose, and Oxide). This palette holds one of the most amazing nearly-glowing greenish gold shades called Lime Chrome. It’s possibly my favorite eyeshadow color from Natasha Denona! It’s hard to justify the price when I got this palette for a few specific shades, but I can at least attest to the shimmer quality being amazing! The mattes weren’t very well suited for me.

When it comes to doing eye looks, my version of the Gold palette is better for simpler eye looks if used alone or as a companion palette. If I wore Brass one day and Oro the next, I doubt anyone would notice I was wearing a more yellow-toned gold shade that day. Or if I wore Brass one day and Alchemist the next, I don’t think anyone would wonder if the eyeshadow suddenly became less glittery than the previous day. So, really, the differences in gold shades is for the wearer’s knowledge and benefit. Although I don’t mind repetitive golds, there were quite a few light shades that were going to look pretty much the same on my eyes, so that’s why I removed most of those.

For the eye looks, I added Python, Sparks, and Aria back, although I had to use the very pale Anastasia Beverly Hills primer in order for Aria to show at all on my eyes. The last two eye looks were created using the pink shades in my revised palette, which were not part of the original Gold palette, but I included them in this section anyway.

My Revised 28 Purple-Blue Palette

This is the oldest ND palette in my collection, as I received it from my 2018 Lucky Bag. These have under performed for a while now, but I am not ready to put them on the shelf of retired makeup products kept purely for collector purposes. Although this palette has been rearranged, the majority of the shadows are still here. I mainly removed the purple shades to spruce up the Lila palette. This one currently holds all the colors I like the least or would seldom use in my ND collection, which are mainly cool tone shades. Some of the yellows and golds are beautiful, but I wanted to minimize the amount of similarly toned shadows in the other palettes, which is how those ended up here. 19 are from the original palette, 2 are from Lila (Juneau and Per Se), and 7 are from Gold (Cava, Sandstone, Sparks,Aria, Teak, Aurora, Python).

The Metropolis Palette

I love the greens and blues, plus I enjoy enjoy orange shades, so this palette has a lot to offer me. On a lighter skin tone, the subtle nuances and differences in texture and undertone is enough to keep this palette from being repetitive, but I acknowledge a lot of these colors look similar on me. My favorite shimmer from Metropolis is Orium, a duochromatic “coral with light greenish reflects,” which goes well with everything in this palette. That being said, I still haven’t used Metropolis as much as I wanted. I know the shades are arranged in a way that can be complimentary if used in adjacent quads or by rows and columns, but I am unused to these color combinations, so I tend to not know what to do and I reach for something else instead. I was happy to discover that the pans in Metropolis are the same size as the medium 15-pan $65 palettes, so I decided to swap some of my least use shades and replace them with Suntan, Magma, High Degree, Alloy, Gloaming, and Bliss from the Bronze palette. Then I organized them in a way that makes it easier for me to visualize how to pair the colors together on my eyes!

Metropolis launched in September 2019, but I’ve only had this palette for 13 months. I can happily say that the cream shadows have not dried out, although Symbol did feel less creamy than Enigma from the very start. They’re all still blendable and such a pleasure to use. This palette is labelled to be good for 2 years after opening, which is fantastic.

I already reviewed this palette, mini Lila, and mini Gold in my 2020 Eyeshadow Tag post, which included eyeshadow looks, so I wanted to expand on that by creating new looks using different shades for this one.

This is my favorite Natasha Denona palette and a favorite in my collection overall!

The Bronze Palette

This is the newest addition to my collection. I kept telling myself I didn’t need this and that the color story is repetitive, but I caved and bought it. When I looked at this next to Metropolis and saw all the neutral browns and oranges, I was reminded even more how much I didn’t need this palette. It’s so pretty though! Bliss is an amazing dark pink shadow with gold and green sparkle. Deep Dive has the cream to powder formula that’s present in the Metropolis palette which works well to smoke out any look or add a unique twist to any shadow that’s patted on top of it. Gloaming is a stunning, “burnt umber with a light bronze reflect.” Magma is the perfect crease shade for all these bronze and orange tones. The shadow quality is fantastic. They are all pigmented, even if most of the lighter mattes are the same depth as my natural lid shade and they just blend into my skin and become hard to see. The other shadows more than make up for it. Even Rhodium, my least favorite shade because it doesn’t have enough sparkle to stand out on my eye, looks amazing when paired with the more sparkly shades in this palette. What helps differentiate this palette from Metropolis is the fact that the similar orange shades lean more on the pink and brown side of bronze. The oranges in Metropolis lean more yellow and gold. Although I removed the most fun six shades and put them in Metropolis, I’m happy to say that what I have leftover in my revised Bronze palette still looks pretty and I can see myself reaching for it to use True Copper, True Bronze, Sundown, Deep Dive, and possibly even Rhodium again.

I left Bronze as a workable and still cohesive palette, unlike my revised 28 pan Blue-Purple one filled with shades I wouldn’t miss. Although I wanted to put Deep Dive in my Metropolis palette, I needed to keep it here as my main deepening up shade.

COMPARISONS

When it comes to specific categories like inner corner shades, browns, golds, bronzes, and blues, Natasha Denona’s shades are without question very similar. At the same time, I thought a lot of shades were more similar than they ended up being. For example, in my mind I thought Bia and Lethal were similar because they’re both light greens. However, Bia is on the grassy pastel side and Lethal is a more grungy yellow-green. I also thought about the fact that Golden Rose is a duochrome pink shadow with gold shimmer, and the same can be said of Bliss. In swatching them, I realized Bliss is more of a coral than a true pink. So, Natasha Denona’s use of different undertones and levels of glitter really helps shades that would ordinarily be similar look quite different when swatched.

That’s everything! I’ve been wanting to do a post like this for a long time, so I’m happy it’s complete now. Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog!

-Lili ❤

XL Beautylish Lucky Bag 2018 Comprehensive Review

Posted on by

What is it?

This is the annual New Year mystery boxes modeled after the fukubukuro tradition from the online retailer Beautylish. The purchasing options have changed since my previous post on this topic. In 2017, they introduced the XL bags which are $165 (shipping included) for $350+ of products. The price of the regular bags are the same $82 (including shipping) for $150+ of products, however they’ve added two complexion choices: Fair-Medium and Dark-Deep. Customers have been asking for this change for years since products like bronzers, contour powders, blushes, and even lipstick shades can be unflattering depending on the skin tone. Beautylish does not put foundations or concealers in the bags, so if properly executed it could increase the likelihood of getting usable products.

How do you get one?

The 2018 Lucky Bags are no longer available but the 2019 notification list can be found here.

On December 23rd, Beautylish sent an email explaining that customers who spent $1,000+ in 2017 would get priority access on December 26th 9am PST. Everyone else who signed up for early access would get the sale page link on that same day at 11am PST and everyone else could order at 3pm PST.

What actually happened was that early access began at 10:00 am instead of 11:00 am. I clicked my email link at 10:04 and saw that no XL bags were available, so I think those bags sold out during the priority access time slot.

I remembered that in my earliest experiences with Beautylish I had a beauty rep, so I decided to reach out to them and was informed that the XL bags would be restocked in limited quantities at the original early access start time (11 PST). The restock sold out just as quickly, so huge thanks to the Beautylish customer service team! I would not have been able to get the XL bag otherwise.

Regular bags were delivered to those closest to Beautylish (San Francisco) on January 11th so there were already posts popping up on IG, Twitter, and Youtube but none of the XL bags shipped until the next day. My package was delayed due to weather conditions and arrived January 19th.

What did you get?

Sulwhasoo First Care Activating Mask  – $12, if priced individually.

I’ve looked at hundreds of photos of unboxed lucky bags via #luckybag2018 and #beautylishluckybag2018 on Instagram and 90% of the regular and XL bags I saw contained 1 of 2 possible Sulwhasoo masks.

Wayne Goss #19 Precision Blending Brush – $23.

This brush has been on my wishlist for months! Funny thing is that now that I have it, I realized I’ve had an identical brush all along: the Hakuhodo J146.

With this in mind, I’m still very happy to have what is essentially a backup of my Hakuhodo brush. I’ve been wanting to get additional smaller sized eye brushes so this is perfect.

Oribe Travel Essentials Collection– $98 ($124 if each item was purchased individually).

This set contains the travel size Gold Lust Dry Shampoo, travel sized Gold Lust Shampoo and Conditioner, the Rollerball Perfume, and the full size Balmessence Lip Treatment. The balm was another thing I wanted to try but not for full price, especially since I’ve learned how to make them myself. In fact, the texture is very similar to the first one I ever made. Mine contains yellow beeswax so it’s the slightly yellow one on the left and the Oribe balm is on the right.

I’ve had the chance to test the balm over the past 24 hours and I can say it has a hard wax-like texture that takes a little warming up with the finger to become usable. It feels like a lightweight and less greasy version of Vaseline. It doesn’t have much of a smell, which is fine by me. It creates a thin moisturizing barrier that I can feel when I touch my lips but I wouldn’t call it tacky/sticky. It helped soothe my dry lips but it has an average wear time. I wouldn’t spend $35 on it when my less expensive jar of Nuxe Reve de Miel works better. I intend to try the shampoo and conditioner at a later date and I’ll give the dry shampoo and perfume to a friend. For anyone who wants to try a set like this but not spend $100, just know that there’s an Oribe Gold Lust Set from Birchbox that’s $55 and contains the same size shampoo, conditioner, and lip balm. It doesn’t have the perfume or dry shampoo but it does have the Gold Lust Transformative Masque instead. *The links in this blog post are not affiliate links and not sponsored.

Skindinavia Makeup Finishing Spray – $29.

I haven’t tried this yet but I’m looking forward to comparing it to the Urban Decay All Nighter. Since Skindinavia produces both products, I’d love to see for myself if there’s a noticeable difference between the two.

Jouer Skinny Dip Lip Topper – St. Tropez $16.

This looks really pretty in the tube but I’m not going to swatch it. I’ll be giving it to a friend. I like shiny lips but not shimmer/glitter on myself.

Bioderma Cleanser – $6.90.

I’m keeping it in the bubble wrap because I’ll be giving it to a friend as well. I love bioderma, and they sent me the version that I can actually use, but I already have the full size.

Natasha Denona 28 Pan Eyeshadow Palette – Purple Blue $239.

This was the last item I pulled out of my box and I was ecstatic! I had an NP 5 Pan Palette in the past but I gave it up (which I regretted shortly after) because I barely used it. I’m so happy to have ND eyeshadows again! I’d forgotten how smooth the metallic shades were and the color selection of this palette is amazing! For the past few months I’ve been experimenting with different formulas/color combinations for making my own pressed eyeshadows. The purples and blues in this palette are exactly what I’ve been trying to create for myself because so few palettes have the colors I want!

Here’s an example of some of my works in progress for anyone curious.

The photo below depicts finger swatches without primer and in different lighting.

Creating my own eyeshadows has given me a bigger appreciation for the work that goes into a palette like this. Purples truly are a pain to get right, so seeing completed purples that work this well is #goals!

I’ll do a swatch post in a few months (I’m being realistic with my posting schedule, haha) and an updated review, but swatching these reminded me how much the metallics are above reproach but some of the pearls and mattes are problematic.

Final Thoughts

Maximum (individual pricing) Retail Value – $450

Actual Retail Value – $423.90

Actual Savings – $258.90

Practical Savings (price of items I like minus what I paid) –  $161

Even without the monetary aspect, I feel like my bag was a winner! I technically didn’t get anything that I already own. As far as I know, none of the items in my bag have been heavily discounted at other retailers, unlike the ABH, Becca, Kevyn Aucoin, By Terry products that were among the most common items in the boxes. I didn’t get anything complexion based, which was a fear of mine, and I also didn’t get products from controversial brands. That seems pretty lucky to me!

I did notice several changes between this year and past boxes. There were more skincare products this time. There were also more duplicates. About 10% of the boxes I saw didn’t come with an eyeshadow palette, which was quite shocking to see since so many of us expected that to be a guarantee. There were quite a number of items from last year that popped up again this year. Every XL bag last year had one of the ND 28 palettes so most customers were expecting a different large eyeshadow palette as the “big ticket item.”

With the deep-dark boxes, I was shocked to see so many Jeffree Star liquid lipsticks. Yes, it was in a flattering orange color and JS did apologize for his past racist remarks, but that doesn’t mean everyone has forgiven him and to have so many JS products in the deep-dark regular boxes was hugely disappointing to quite a few people. I was also surprised to see the By Terry Sun Designer Palettes and Charlotte Tilbury Face in a Look palettes which are advertised as being able to work for a wide range of skin tones but come now… how do you sculpt with a powder that’s lighter than your skin tone or smoke with a shade that is practically invisible?

Whether a bag is “good” or “bad” is subjective, but I saw a deep-dark bag that had a natasha denona body glow in medium. It’s the equivalent of giving someone with chronically dry lips a very drying ultra matte liquid lipstick. Anyone can literally put any makeup product on but it doesn’t mean it will look good.

I still think Beautylish’s lucky bags are by far the best mystery boxes on the US market (XL bags only ship to the US but regular bags are open internationally). However, I think I’ll continue the pattern of purchasing a bag every other year. 2020, here I come!

Thanks for reading.

– Lili ❤