The Balm Nude’Tude Eyeshadow Palette Review

The Balm Nude'Tude Eyeshadow Palette

I really couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I opened up my September Cohorted box and saw The Balm Nude’Tude Eyeshadow Palette there waiting for me. I’ve oggled over this palette for months but have always managed to talk myself out of it, “another neutrals palette?” I would say, ” no you don’t need another!” my conscious bank balance would say. I’ve pretty much used this every day for the past 10 days or so to see my thoughts on the shades, and I’ve managed to use every shade in here at least once to tell you my thoughts now it’s had a proper test.

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I know the Balm’s palettes have had their fair bit of online criticism over the naming of the shades in their Nude palette line up. I’ll start by saying – I really don’t care, for more it’s no different to NARS’ orgasm or deep throat. Sex sells, and I love the packaging and retro sexy pin up girls on the packaging.

The packaging is made of cardboard and is lightweight, although being quite wide, the packaging is quite thin. It could easily be made less wide if you look at the spacing of the product inside – as mine doesn’t quite fit into my Victoria’s Secret makeup bag. But it’s slimline and light enough to not be completely travel unfriendly. The large packaging does make way for a decent sized mirror, I know people always say, ooh it has a good sized mirror, but I never use them!

In terms of the price/product I did feel like there wasn’t a lot here for your money when you compare to Urban Decay’s naked palettes for example. Nude’Tude retails at £35 which gets you 12 shades and 11.08grams of product. Urban Decay Naked palettes are £38, again have 12 shades but 15.6g of product. So if you’re comparing side by side of how much product you receive – Urban Decay’s win on value at £2.43 per gram vs £3.15 for the Balm’s similar line.

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The Balm Nude’Tude Eyeshadow Palette comes with a dinky little brush, as always it’s not good brilliant quality. It’s very stiff and isn’t very comfortable for trying to pat eyeshadow all over the lid or do any blending. It is quite handy for using the light metallic shades on the inner corner to get a defined and precise edge.

Onto the shadows…


MATTES

Left To Right: Serious. Sexy, Seductive, Sleek
Left To Right: Serious. Sexy, Seductive, Sleek

Not my favourite matte formulation, swatching with my finger they’re not super pigmented and come off a little patch and chalky, and look as if they would be difficult to blend. They do however work better when it comes to using a brush, and whilst they’re not my favourite, they do work and last all day. I like that there is different shades and tones in this, it could do with one more matte shade which is lighter and cooler toned in my opinion.

Sexy – interesting shade, looks plum in the pan but pays off more red/brown which shifts to different colours in different lights
Serious – black not super pigmented but easy to work with
Sultry – warm mid toned brown
Sleek – deep brown leans quite cool toned


Frosts

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Left to Right: Sassy, Snobby & Stubborn

These ones fall somewhere between being frosts and metallics. They don’t have that same multicoloured hue that a frost tends to have, but aren’t quite as obvious a metallic. All of these are quite pale and look lovely in the inner corner of the eye. Snobby and Stubborn are a little paler on the pigmentation front – whilst they swatch really well with finger they become much more difficult to get opaque colour with a brush. Sassy however is great, it can be sheered out or the colour built up for a bright opaque white.

Sassy – White with silver frost sheen
Snobby – Pale gold, slight shimmer sheen
Stubborn – Cool toned pale peachy pink, with silvery frost effect.


Metallic/Microglitter

Left to Right: Stand-Offish, Seductive, Silly, Sophisticated, Selfish
Left to Right: Stand-Offish, Seductive, Silly, Sophisticated, Selfish

Probably my favourite formulation from the palette is the metallic shades. Some of these have micro glitters running through them – some are packed with chunkier glitter. All of these have amazing pigmentation and are really easy to blend. There is a little fall out with the 3 which have micro-glitters from blending, but they don’t tend to fall out through the rest of the day and settle under your eyes in an obvious glitter ball style. My two favourites from the entire palette are Seductive which is an unusual warm golden bronze colour and Selfish which is a taupe brown.

Stand-offish – Pale Champagne Pink with champagne microglitter
Seductive – Bright golden bronze – AMAZING pigmentation
Silly – Matte warm brown base with gold and red glitter
Sophisticated – Matte chocolate brown base with gold glitter
Selfish – Taupe with metallic sheen


Evening Look using nude’tude

nars-walkyrie-velvet-matt-lip-pencil-swatch
Using Sassy in the inner corner, Snobby across the lid, A little bit of seductive in the middle, and smoked with serious in the outer corner.

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Overall I really like The Balm Nude’Tude Eyeshadow Palette, I used this exclusively do do my makeup with for a week and found that the eyeshadows lasted all day long. I like that there is a mix of browns, pinks, golds and a black – it makes it very easy to create any kind of look from day time to evening.

After my experience with this palette – I’m keen to try out more from The Balm (probably not eyeshadows though, I seriously don’t need more palettes). Mary-Loumaniser highlighter has been on my hitlist to try for a while (just trying to use up a few others first before getting a new highlighter. But if you’re a fan of any Balm products, please let me know what I should try out.

rachael

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22 Comments

  1. lexieckert
    September 23, 2015 / 6:47 am

    Wow, thanks for that! I think i may have saw this palette on Hautelook so I may check it out when it comes back this Friday. I got my The Balm Cosmetics lip and cheek palette from Hautelook and i absolutely love it! Some colors more than others but overall it’s an awesome product! I actually talked about it in my latest post!

    https://wordpress.com/read/post/feed/37703755/814511285

    • September 23, 2015 / 7:49 am

      Ooh sounds good i’lol take a look – I did find another eye and blush palette in tk Marc yesterday and it was beautiful, other people had just got their mitts on the eyeshadows and swatched them which was a shame! Xx

  2. September 23, 2015 / 6:38 am

    I am in love with the frosts swatches! So pretty!!

  3. September 23, 2015 / 7:53 am

    This is such an in-depth review and it was lovely to see not only swatches, but how you create a look using the shadows. I’m not going to getting this palette as I lean towards preferring matte eyeshadows but thanks for such a helpful review!

    • September 23, 2015 / 2:00 pm

      I’ve been leaning to mattes a lot more since getting my naked basics 2 – I wish it was more balanced in this pallete with shade or 2 more on the matte side especially in paler colours, but along with my naked basics I can pretty much do everything with the 2 together! x

  4. September 23, 2015 / 1:40 pm

    This looks amazing! I absolutely love theBalm and recommend their eye makeup remover balm. I have a review on it, if you’d like to know more! I find it hilarious that anyone would be offended by the names of eyeshadows… there are people starving in the street and animals being hunted to extinction and *that’s* what offends them?! *eye roll* Great review and it looks stunning on you! Avril X

    http://www.mirrorthelove.wordpress.com

    • September 23, 2015 / 1:58 pm

      Thanks Avril, I know – it’s bonkers isn’t it, I’m not easily offended and the little feminist side in me even finds this ridiculous! I’ve just read the original articles I remember seeing on this when they came out and it said the balm should swap the word ‘stubborn’ for ‘strong’ – how ridiculous! I’m stubborn and happy to shout that from the rooftops! People need to get a grip! xx

  5. September 23, 2015 / 3:41 pm

    I love the cheekiness of theBalm products and this palette design is no exception! I’m with you, the metallic shades look to be the best formulated ones in this palette. If you’re interested in trying more theBalm products, I HIGHLY recommend their InStain blushes – one of the longest wearing and PIGMENTED blush formulas I’ve ever come across. Great stuff – I have 4 colours and may eventually buy all 6 of them.
    I’ve not tried them but heard their matte liquid lipsticks are quite good. Also on my wish list is their tinted moisturizer, BalmShelter. πŸ™‚

  6. September 23, 2015 / 6:40 pm

    Mary loumanizer is the best! Defo get that none. It’s worth it! Xxx

    Https:// whatglitterglosglosays.wordpress.com/

  7. celinatalk
    September 28, 2015 / 8:47 am

    Love the make up look!

  8. February 27, 2017 / 5:02 am

    Sexy looks like such an interesting shade – to be honest, I’m eyeing this palette only for that color!

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