I was so excited to receive this as a valentine's day gift from my incredible boyfriend this year. At first glance this is the perfect palette to have in your collection. It has a great assortment of 15 natural earthy colors that come in a variety of finishes from matte, to a satin shimmer. But although there were many qualities about this palette that I did like, I found that in the end it wasn't worth keeping.
Lets start off with the pro's -
That packaging for this palette is great. It has the classic Nars matte rubber texture with a huge mirror inside. The shadows are laid out nicely going from light nude shades to more dark crease shades. There are 5 matte shades, and the other 10 have a shimmer finish to them. The color assortment is absolutely gorgeous and is great for everyday day and night looks.
Some of the shimmer shadows, for example the bronze color (third on in from the left on the top row) and the lilac color (second one in from the left on the bottom row) are beautifully pigmented colors.
Now for the con's -
To start off, this palette retails for about $80 which is a very high price for an eyeshadow palette, especially one that has a lot of colors that you can find in other cheaper palettes. Also keep in mind that Nars carries many of these colors, if not all of them, in single shadows or duos.
When swatched, I noticed that many of the shadows had very little color pay off, especially the three colors in the first row. The ashy black color on the bottom right, seemed to be very chalky and didn't have a fluid color consistency. I figured I wouldn't judge the colors by the swatches and instead would try out a few looks. It was during application that I became very disappointed with this palette. Dired several layers in order for it to show as it's true color.
Overall - Leave It
Personally I felt that for the price, this palette was not worth it. Don't get me wrong it is still a beautiful palette but the colors were extremely hard to blend, and required several layers in order for it to show as it's true color. The quality of these colors is significantly better in the single and duo forms. I think Nars could've done much better than what they did which really disappoints me as I was so excited to get my hands on this palette. You can get much more affordable palettes with similar colors that have better pigmentation and blend-ability.
