Too Faced Born This Way Natural Nudes Mini Eye Shadow Palettes come in two different shades, Cold Smoulder Nudes and Warm Ember Nudes. As the name would suggest, both are nude shades though one leans more cool toned and the other more warm toned. I decided to go ahead with the cooler toned palette as I tend to gravitate towards those type of shades on a daily basis. These palettes were inspired by the cult favourite Born This Way The Natural Nudes Eye Shadow Palette, however it’s important to note these are not mini versions of the palette. Therefore if you’re already a big fan of the original palette, and are looking for a travel friendly identical version then this is not it! The shade range is similar but still different. The Too Faced Born This Way Natural Nudes Min Eye Shadow Palette is available for $45AUD or $29USD.
Colours
The palette comes with six individual shades with different finishes, three that are matte and the rest have a variation of shimmer to them.
- Moonstone – Cool Shimmering Champagne
- Driftwood – Cool Taupe Grey
- Sparkle & Chill – Metallic Gunmetal
- Urthy – Cool Cream Nude
- Show Off – Shimmering Silver
- Cold Smoulder – Deep Heather Grey
Love the variety of colours here, the palette has the perfect range for a soft neutral work appropriate colours, and shades that can take you into the evening for a night out. Driftwood is a great transition shade that when lightly used creates a beautiful elegant soft look and can deepen with a heavier hand. It just means essentially the same shade can have multiple uses without needing two distinct shades that just take up more space.
Packaging
The packaging is amazing to me, I’m simply not a fan of bulky impractical packaging so this was a win! It’s only about 7.5cm by 7.5cm and it’s super slim, plus it comes with a mirror! Mirrors aren’t completely mandatory for me since I’m usually doing my makeup at home where I have many mirrors around me. But I definitely appreciate palettes that come with mirrors, it just makes general makeup application so much easier and means I’m more likely to take the palette on travels with me where mirrors are absolutely necessary. A+ for the amazing practical packaging!
Wear & Colour Payoff
Generally the wear was great, especially the matte shades. I did find probably after about 6 hrs or so, the more shimmery shades especially Moonstone was not as bright and vibrant as it was at the start of the day which was a slight bummer. But it could also be the fault of my eye primer (which for reference is the Morphe Eyelid Primer). Either way I wasn’t completely disappointed as I haven’t met a shimmery shade that remained as pristine as it did for 15 hrs, but happy to say the matte shades lasted me from 8am till 11pm.
As with most Too Faced eyeshadows, colour pay off was great. Super pigmented, blended so well and very easy to apply. It’s one of the main reasons I keep going back to their palettes even though I own more than any human should!
Scent
So it may seem strange to have a section for scent for an eyeshadow palette, but this was a major issue with the palette that I had to call out and it is the terrible smell of this palette. I don’t quite know why, and I’ve never had a Too Faced palette smell like this before (in fact some of the previous palettes have been amazing in sense, peach palette anyone?). The palette is brand new, I smelt this way the day I got it so I have no idea if it’s just a defective palette or whether Mecca (where I purchased this palette) sold me an old palette? Either way it has a really strong floral perfume smell which might not seem bad, but imagine if someone accidentally dumped the entire bottle all over your palette and left it there to soak and sour over time. That’s what it smells like to me, the second I open the palette it’s like a punch to the face.
I will admit though, I am generally not the biggest fan of scented products. I don’t ever wear perfume (the few bottles I own are more for scenting objects and never me) and so I tend to be very sensitive to smells and this palette really stood out to me as being too strongly scented.
Final Thoughts
That said, what are my final thoughts? Look if you aren’t phased by strong smells and love a good neutral cool tone palette, this is amazing for that! If it wasn’t for the awful smell, I would give this a 10/10 and happily use it everyday. Now I keep it close because I want to use it up so I’m not having to smell it everyday, probably would just make sense to pass it on or throw it out, but the shade range and quality is simply too good for me to throw out (also I spent $45 on this!). So I do plan to finish it, but I definitely won’t be repurchasing it if I ever do finish it!
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