When I travel, I try to pare down my makeup bag to the bare essentials. Foundation, blush, concealer, mascara and one eye palette. That’s it.
On my recent trip to Miami, I decided to take Too Faced’s Boudoir Eyes Palette ($36). The mix of neutrals, purples and soft greys is really a fantastic combo. I also love that the palette contains a highlighter and a dark shadow that can be mixed with a little water and applied like an eyeliner.
The top row is for daytime with matte shadows. The middle row–the “classic” line–is my favorite with slight shimmer and muted tones. And the bottom row has lots of shimmer and dramatic “night on the town” hues.
This eye palette is great for travel because it goes from day-to-night, and when you’re not on-the-go, it’s perfect for creating smoky eyes and dramatic evening looks.
And if you like the idea of a neutral palette, but you aren’t sold on the shimmer in this one, try Urban Decay’s Naked Basics Palette (the lower maintenance cousin to the popular Naked 2 palette), which is all matte, all the time. Or give Benefit’s “World’s Sexiest Neutrals” collection, which comes with both powder and cream eye shadows, a try.
Do you have a favorite eye makeup palette? Or do you prefer to buy shadows in single sizes?
I also have a Too Faced palette that I love. Their eye shadow primer is also fabulous.
i snagged up a bunch of single eyeshadows from Urban Decay when they were moving out their old formula stuff. The eyeshadows were $6 each so it was difficult to not go overboard!
My two favorite palettes are both by theBalm – I have Nude’Tude and theBalmJovie. Both are super cute, great colors and great pigments. I find all of the colors in both to be very wearable. I usually prefer single shadows since I dont feel like I’d use every single one in a palette — but that is not the case with the Balm things I picked up.
I have a friend who highly recommends Dior eyeshadows as her holy grail and her eyes always look amazing. Based on her endorsement, I recently bought the Dior 3-color smokey eye pallette in smokey nude and it is fantastic. I have the Nakted 2 pallet, and several individual Bobbi Brown eyeshadows and Laura Mercier shadows and I haven’t touched them in weeks. The Dior eyeshadow is more finely milled, has excellent pigmentation, and has great staying power. The ivory cream color is soft and pearlized, rather than sparkly and it deposits a glow that really brightens up the eye area.
I always bought cheaper shadows but recently got the NARS “Douceurs de Paris” palette (with shades similar to the Too Faced “Boudoir Eyes”) and love it. I’m not sure they make that particular combination any more as it was a special edition, but the NARS shadow duos and trios are matched really well and suit a lot of different skin tones.
I LOVE Naked and Naked 2 (but especially Naked 2, more wearable in my opinion). I don’t think I will ever need to buy another eyeshadow. They are rather large though so not ideal for travel, also a little lacking in the mattes department but the mattes they do have are beautiful.
Just bought the Naked Basics and I am very happy. The lightest color does have some shimmer to it although not a lot which makes it effective as a highlighter. I was worried the colors would be too “blah” but the darker brown shades pack a lot of pigment and can definitely be used for night looks at well. Over all, very good value for the $.
Naked Basics is quite good. Naked 1 is too night-glamour for me in my normal life. I like the colors of the Too Faced palette here.
I hack my own custom palettes, using the cheapie e.l.f. custom eyeshadow palettes, superglue and a roll of magnet tape. I think I learned it from MakeupAlley and YouTube–especially how to remove cosmetics from their packaging without breaking them.
I also bought the Urban Decay Nakes 2 palette and I love it! It has a nice range of basics and the shadow stays on very well…totally worth the money. It is all I use now.
I’m very fair-skinned, and the Dior Incognito palette is one of my very favorites. Some of the Almay i-color sets are nice, too.
The original Naked palette is best, with single pot of eyeshadows (neutrals) in colours like Creme Brulee and other matte neutrals.