Maybelline Blushed Nudes Palette

Jumping on the rose-toned eyeshadow palette trend, a la Urban Decay, Maybelline has started offering up the Expert Wear Shadow Palette in the Blushed Nudes. It has a whopping twelve colors, but how do they stand up?

These shadows are pretty in the pan. There’s a good variety of greys, greens, taupes, and the rose-toned cranberries and pinks. I love the array of shades that are available all for less than $10. This makes it really usable. I don’t particularly enjoy rose shades on their own, but this gives enough variety to make just about any eye look, day or night.

The packaging is also not cheap-feeling at all. The plastic is thick and weighty, not flimsy. It does come with two sponge applicators that I immediately tossed. It seems like it should have a brush…it has a space big enough for one, but it just doesn’t. Only crappy sponges.

There are mattes, as well as satin colors in this palette. It’s a pretty good array of shimmers and mattes, again making it, once again, exceptionally useful. The shades are on the dry side. It’s not super fantastic, but pretty good for drugstore. I swatched these below on my arm, no primer, two swipes only. 

Top row, as you can see the light ones just disappear

So let’s talk pigmentation. The light colors are nothing special. You can see that they just disappear. Very little pigmentation to them at all. I like the darker ones though. There was only one of these that I couldn't see myself using very much. They go on creamy and delightful and stay on. Unfortunately, the light colors fade away and go on chalky. So there we go. Hit and miss on all counts.

Bottom row, the one farthest left is the only one I found patchy and sad

So, if you’re looking for a dupe of the Naked3, this is not your best bet. If you are looking for some nicer dark-rose shades at a drugstore price, this a fairly okay choice.