Swatches & Comparisons: Wet n Wild Spring 2014 Limited Edition 8-Pan Eyeshadow Palettes

Press Sample 

NOTE: If you're looking for this collection, take a look at the interactive sightings map here to see if it's been spotted in your area. To see my swatches of the Spring 2014 Megalast Nail Colors that are also part of this collection, click here. Also, there are makeup brushes that have been launched for Spring 2014, which you can see here. 

Today I'm going to be swatching the two Wet n Wild Spring 2014 Limited Edition palettes for you, which I received for review recently. I'll also be showing you some comparisons with various Urban Decay, MAC and NARS eyeshadows. This is quite a long post, so let's not waste any time!

 Wet n Wild Limited Edition 8-Pan Eyeshadow Palettes

from the Spring 2014 The Style Award Goes To... Collection

(retail: $4.99 each, 0.3 oz)

Let's start with the Flirting At The After Party palette:

Flirting At The After Party

All shades swatched over Wet n Wild Fergie Take On The Day Eyeshadow Primer:

First four shades:

• First shade: A very pale lavender shimmer/frost.
• Second shade: A light pink shimmer with a slight violet flash (much prettier in person).
• Third shade: A deep lavender matte with fine silver sparkle.
• Fourth shade: A warm-toned orchid matte.

Second four shades:

• First shade: A medium lavender matte.
• Second shade: A cool-toned orchid matte.
• Third shade: A deep grape shimmer with pink sparkle.
• Fourth shade: A deep berry-wine shimmer with fine pink sparkle.

As I was playing around with the shades in this palette, I decided to bust out my Urban Decay Vice 2 palette, just to see if there were any lookalikes. I didn't find any dupes, but here are some similar shades:

 Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay X-Rated

Urban Decay Voodoo vs. Wet n Wild

• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay X-Rated: Not dupes. The WnW shade is more matte and has a slight violet flash to it, where Urban Decay X-Rated is an opaque bubblegum pink with shimmer.
• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Voodoo: Not dupes. The WnW shade lacks the violet-purple sparkle that runs through UD Voodoo (the WnW shade has pink sparkle). 

Next up, the Walking The Red Carpet palette:

Walking The Red Carpet 

All shades swatched over Wet n Wild Fergie Take On The Day Eyeshadow Primer:

• First shade: A pale pink matte that is more like a creme with pink undertones on my skin.
• Second shade: A white shimmer/frost.
• Third shade: A deep beige shimmer. This shade is very much in the same vein as MAC Shroom/Stila Wheat. I thought it was going to be a tan matte when I first saw it in the pan, but it's lighter than tan on my skin and it has some lovely shimmer to it. It's the shade I've been reaching for the most in this palette. Great for the lid and also as a highlight shade.
• Fourth shade: A golden shimmer with gold flakes. It's on the sheer side, but not nearly as sheer or flaky as NARS Silent Night (which you'll see later in this post). 

• First shade: A warm taupe-leaning brown shimmer. 
• Second shade: A medium gold shimmer.
• Third shade: A dark brown matte base with fine pink shimmer/sparkle. 
• Fourth shade: A warm, rich chocolate brown with yellow-gold sparkle. I have never seen a shade quite like this from Wet n Wild before, including in previous limited edition palettes.

Since the Wet n Wild Spring 2013 8-pan, Spring Forward, had several Urban Decay Naked Palette1 lookalikes (click here to see), I was curious if this year's palette might contain some Urban Decay Naked Palette 3 lookalikes. After much swatching, I found three similar shades:

Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette vs. Wet n Wild Walking The Red Carpet Palette

• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Strange: The WnW shade is slightly more pink, but on the eye I can barely tell the difference.
• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Mugshot: In the pan they look quite similar but as you can see, there's obviously a lot more pink in the Urban Decay shade.
• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Blackheart: The base colors are quite similar, but you can see that Blackheart contains a lot of pink glitter, so it makes the overall color look a lot more pink than the WnW shade. There is actually some fine pink glitter/shimmer in the Wet n Wild shade as well, but it's not as pronounced as in Blackheart.

After playing around with the shades in Walking The Red Carpet, I noticed a few additional similarities, so here are some more comparisons:

 Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Half Baked

 MAC Satin Taupe vs. Wet n Wild

Wet n Wild vs. NARS Silent Night

• Wet n Wild vs. Urban Decay Half Baked: You can see that the WnW shade has more gold to it, whereas the UD shade is more of a bronze-y gold. 
• Wet n Wild vs. MAC Satin Taupe: Clearly there's more pink in Satin Taupe.
• Wet n Wild vs. NARS Silent Night: Color-wise, these are quite similar. The WnW shade is not as sheer as the NARS shade. Also, for those of you who have said that the WnW shade is flaky and has a lot of fallout, I would like to refer you to my pic above of NARS Silent Night. The NARS shade is so much worse in terms of fallout and flakes--it makes the WnW shade seem like a dream to me.

Additional thoughts...

Overall, I think that this year's Spring 8-pans are better than last year's (and I loved that Spring Forward palette from last year). I think the colors in this year's 8-pans offer a few more unique shades, and I love that there are no black shades in either palette (if you're a longtime WnW fan, you know that there's usually at least one black shade in most of their limited edition palettes). I have enough black WnW shadows to last a lifetime, so I really appreciate that they omitted black shadows from this collection.  Also, I think the overall quality level seems better with these palettes as opposed to last spring's palettes Yes, there are some sheer shades here that you can't really wear without primer (I highly suggest using the Wet n Wild Fergie primer, or any other primer that you love, with these shadows), and a few of the matte purples are a bit patchy but overall, I find the quality of these shadows to be good-to-fantastic, and even better than some of the shades in the new-for-2014 5-pans.

If you get these palettes and you have issues with the pigmentation, try playing around with your application method a bit. Use a dense eyeshadow brush and try packing (aka pressing) the color onto your lid vs. brushing the color on. And if that does't work, try a sponge-tip applicator. I love sponge-tip applicators for applying matte shadows (I just use a blender brush to blend them after I apply them with a sponge applicator). But just don't forget to apply primer first--I can't stress that enough. A few of these shades are fine without, but the majority really benefit from a good primer.

Again, if you're looking for these palettes, check the interactive sightings map here to see if they've been spotted in your area. And if you've found these in your area, I would be so grateful if you left a marker on the map to help other readers. There are also some limited edition Megalast Nail Colors in this collection, and you can view my swatches of those here.

A sample of this product was given to Nouveau Cheap for editorial purposes, either directly from the manufacturer or from the agency that works on behalf of the manufacturer. All reviews on NouveauCheap.Blogspot.com are the honest opinion of its author and editorial samples do not, in any way, affect the outcome of product reviews. For more information, click here.