Swatches & Comparisons: NEW Maybelline The Nudes Palette

Purchased by Me 

This isn't an official "review" since I've only had this new palette from Maybelline for a few days now. But I wanted to share with you some swatches and first impressions (and some dupe comparisons!) as soon as possible since I know we have all been quite curious about this one. So let's get right to it!

Maybelline The Nudes Palette 

(retail: between $9.99 and $12.99 depending on the retailer, 0.34 oz)

I purchased this palette at Rite Aid, where it was $12.99 (I believe it's $12.99 at CVS and Walgreens too). I have heard from readers who have purchased it at Walmart for $9.99. The best deal of all would be to wait for a 40% off Maybelline sale at Rite Aid, CVS, Ulta, etc. and then use a $1 off Maybelline coupon. In that case you could snag it for around $6.75. And if you had store rewards, you could get it for even less.

For those of you who haven't seen this palette in person yet, it is NOT the same size as the old Maybelline 12 pans--it's bigger. I grabbed a Wet n Wild trio and snapped the above pic to give you some perspective. 

Looking at the back of the palette above (you can click to enlarge that photo if you want a closer look at the ingredients), you can see that the way that Maybelline has configured the shadows in this palette is quite helpful. I don't know about you, but sometimes when I get a palette that has a lot of colors in it, I don't even know where to start, or which shades to use together. So Maybelline tells you that these shadows are arranged in quads, trios as well as duos, depending on how you look it it.

I LOVE THIS because it helps you figure out which shades to use together depending how much time and effort you have to devote to your eyeshadow that day! Only want to use two colors? Refer to the Duos diagram. Have a bit more time and want to use four colors? Just look at the Quads diagram. You obviously don't have use these shadows together, but it's nice to have a guideline on those days when you don't really want to think about it.

I'm going to tackle this palette by breaking it up into quads, as suggested on the label. NOTE: all of the shadows below were swatched using the accompanying sponge-tip applicator and no primer was used beforehand. I swiped each shadow two to three times for each swatch.

The first quad in this palette contains neutral shades:

The neutral quad above is not my favorite, but there are some noteworthy things here. First, the shade that appears to be white/cream when you're looking at it in the pan is actually a cream shade with a very pretty peach flash to it, as well as iridescent glitter. It's a lot prettier than what you see above and would make a gorgeous brow bone shade. Another noteworthy shade in the quad above is the brown matte on the far right. It doesn't look like much in this swatch, but on the eye, it has some excellent pigmentation and I absolutely loved it as a crease shade when I wore it that way yesterday. It's smooth, easy to pick up with your brush and it's not powdery. The other two shades are a little sheer for me, but they do get better with primer.

The second quad in this palette contains warm shades:

The warm shades in this palette are the true stars of the show. For me, these are the standouts that totally make this palette. The nude matte on the far left is so close to my skintone that it feels sheer to me (but it could just be that it's blending in with my skin). But those other three shades? OH YES. They are all beautifully pigmented. The bronze and brown shades have a nice, smooth texture, but the gold shade is a bit flaky in the pan (like many other golds of this nature). I've been wearing the bronze shade all day, without primer, and it has only faded a little bit so far. Love, love, love it.

The third quad in this palette contains cool shades:

As you can see, the cool-toned shades above aren't as knock-your-socks-off fabulous as the warm shades. But the dark taupe shade (second from the left) is actually much nicer on the eye and it's more cool-toned than how it's translating in my picture. It's a matte with a teeny tiny bit of fine sparkle, and the texture is quite nice--very smooth and creamy. The major dud in this palette is the matte black on the far right--to me it's quite dry and it goes on sheer and streaky. I would probably only use this shade to line my eyes for a smoky look, and only on top of primer.

Comparisons:

The moment I saw this palette, there were three shades that stood out to me as possible dupes for shades in the Urban Decay Naked 1 palette. so here are some side-by-sides.

Three shades from the Maybelline The Nudes Palette

vs.

Urban Decay Smog, Hustle and Half Baked

As you can see, there are no true dupes in these shades, but the three Maybelline shades definitely provide the same "feel" as these three shades from the UD Naked 1 palette. By the way, none of these shades were swatches with primer--they were all swatched on bare skin.

PRELIMINARY VERDICT: Do you "need" this palette? No. I think that the shadows in this palette are not consistent enough across the board for me to say, "Run and get this NOW." But that's not to say that there aren't some  gems here. The three shimmers in the warm quad are fantastic to me, and there are a few mattes in this palette that are also quite lovely. But there are also some shades here that are sheer, powdery, dry and/or not as pigmented as I would like them to be. Overall, I think this would be a wonderful palette for someone who is just starting their makeup journey, or perhaps does not own many eyeshadows or hasn't experimented with nude shades before. For the rest of us, I do not think it's worth $12.99, but it's certainly worth $6.75 or so, if you wait for a 40% off sale and have coupons. I can see this being a nice travel palette (I would personally consider taking this with me on vacation) but I would definitely wear an eyeshadow primer with these shadows. As I mentioned above, there are a few shades here that you can wear without primer (such as the shimmery bronze), but overall, these shadows all seem to perform much better over eyeshadow primer.

Do you already own the new Maybelline The Nudes Palette? If so, how is it working for YOU?

The products featured in this post were purchased with personal funds. For more information, click here.