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Product Details and Packaging
Too Faced Born This Way The Natural Nudes Eyeshadow Palette is a 16-pan neutral eyeshadow palette that was inspired by their foundation range of the same name. The mattes are supposed to “enhance your unique and beautiful undertones” while the rest of the shades are said to have a variety of finishes including “metallic, shimmer, and sparkle.” There is a total of 12 grams / 0.48 oz of product. The smaller pans are 0.5 gram/0.02oz and the larger pans are 1.0 gram/0.04oz. It retails for $45 and can be purchased from Too Faced, Sephora, Ulta, Macy’s, and Nordstrom.
The packaging is made of heavy-duty cardboard with a magnetic closure and is weightier than it looks. It is covered in a slick, shiny paper coating that is easy to wipe off should it get dirty. The palette is very slim and the size and shape are similar to other palettes I have from Anastasia Beverly Hills, Urban Decay’s Naked Palettes, the Lorac Pro Palettes, etc. The mirror inside is large enough to see both eyes at the same time and has no distortion.
They designed it so that the matte shades are twice as big as the shimmer shades which makes sense for the way most people wear eyeshadow. In a “typical” neutral eye look, I will apply more matte eyeshadow to a larger area of my lids than shimmer eyeshadow. They have also coordinated shades that could go together in columns, but of course you can mix and match as you please.
Inside the box, a “How-To Glamour Guide” is included with some look ideas. Photos of those are a little further down the page.
Shade Range
The swatches below give you a general overview of the range of shades and the finishes in this palette. The shades are pretty much warm toned overall which is fine if that is what you want. However, if you are somebody that wears mostly cool tones, like taupes, greys, and dusty mauves, then this might not be the palette for you. In the pans, some of the shades look deceptively cool toned but actually come off as warm once swatched. This is especially true for the shades Petal and Warm Rose.
There is minimal overlap in shades. I feel that there is a purpose for each matte shade and there are none that are too significantly similar to each other. There are only 2 shimmers that I’d say are too similar and those are Rose Gold and Sparkling Sand but they do have slightly different finishes and undertones.
Formula
The matte formula is very smooth, finely milled, and highly pigmented. The lighter mattes from Swan to Warm Rose all apply beautifully with good color payoff and easy blending. From Maple on to Truffle it gets harder to apply the shadow evenly and blend it out nicely but it is possible. I found having smaller brushes was a saving grace. Standard size fluffy brushes didn’t work as well with these deeper shades.
All the shimmers are a thicker, almost waxy-feeling formula. That waxiness can help the shimmer stick to the lid but it can also make it trickier to actually get it on the lid in the first place. It can also sometimes make the shimmers apply in a way that looks thick and textured on the lids if you apply them too heavily. I would describe the shimmer formula as being more like iridescent topper shades rather than your standard shimmer. They have a really pretty multicolored sparkle that can be seen in certain lighting conditions. They don’t apply opaque right away. You have to spend some time building them up if you apply them with brushes. Using your finger will apply the color much more quickly but less precisely.
Wear Time
On days when I remembered to write down how long I wore the shadows, the wear time was all over the place. One day I began to notice slight creasing at 6 hours. Another day I had barely any creasing at 9 hours. On yet a third day I wore a look for 11 hours with no creasing. It’s hard for me to come to a conclusion about this LOL. It could just be my skin was oilier on some days than others. If I look at the lowest wear time, 6 hours, that is not too bad for me. There are plenty of eyeshadows that last even less time than that. The 11 hour wear time was on a day when I applied a shimmer shade quite thick all over my lid, including in my crease. I believe the thickness/waxiness of the shimmer contributed to the look wearing longer that day.
Individual Shades
- Swan is a pale neutral cream that works well to brighten the inner corner and brow bone on my skin tone (Mac NW20, for reference). I also use it to set my eyeshadow base before going in with other shades to help the look wear longer throughout the day.
- Seashell is pale peach that works well as a transition shade for Maple.
- Nude is a yellow toned light brown that gives my crease a very natural looking contour.
- Petal looks like a light cool-toned pink in the pan but it’s actually closer to a pale pinky-coral once applied to the eye. It seems to darken a bit on the skin.
Warm Rose
Maple
Cocoa
Truffle
- Warm Rose is pretty much as easy to blend as the lighter mattes and looks warmer and rosier on the eye than it does in the pan.
- Maple is where the blending starts to require more effort but this shade wasn’t too much trouble.
- Cocoa was significantly harder to blend out, even if I used lighter transition shades beforehand. As I blended, it kind of looked uneven so I kept having to add more and by the end of it, the shade was applied to a larger portion of my eye than I had originally intended. I can make it work but I’d think twice about using this if I was in a rush.
- Truffle was the most difficult to blend. By some miracle it actually looked pretty good in the look I did below but I used this shade many times before I got it to apply nicely.
Glistening Snow
Shimmering Pearl
Sparkling Sand
Rose Gold
- Glistening Snow is the most unique shade in the palette. It’s kind of a duo-chrome-y shade but the shift is very subtle. It is an ultra pale gold in direct light but has a silvery base color that shows up more when the light hits at an extreme angle. The texture of this is chunky and the effect is more sparkly/glittery than smooth and metallic.
- Shimmering Pearl is similar in texture and finish to Glistening Snow.
- Sparkling Sand is less chunky in texture and gives off a more subdued shine than the previous two shades. It has smaller particles that are more uniform in size. The finish of this one is closer to what I consider a standard shimmer finish.
- Rose Gold is similar in color to Sparkling Sand but has a rosier tone and a more intense reflect than Sparkling Sand. The texture of this shade seems to be a hybrid of the chunkier formula of Glistening Snow and the slightly smoother formula of Sparkling Sand.
Sparkling Rum
Golden Light
Sugared Chestnut
Sparkling Sable
- Sparkling Rum is the shade my eye was most drawn to because it has a plummy shift to it. I think this shade looks prettier in the pan than on the eye personally. On the eye, it looks lighter and less dimensional. It was also a pain in the butt to apply, requiring a lot of layers and resulting in quite a bit of sparkly fallout. This one goes on sheer and sparkly but can be built up to a nearly metallic finish with a lot of effort. There is more larger sparkle than fine shimmer in this and the larger sparkles are fairly dark against my pale skin.
- Golden Light was really pretty. Very bright and vibrant with lots of shine.
- Sugared Chestnut is another shade that looks prettier in the pan than on the eye. I tried using this shade on it’s own but it is sheerer than I thought and really needs the help of a matte shade in the background to help the shimmer stand out more.
- Sparkling Sable is similar in it’s need for a base color to help the shimmer stand out. I did find it worked well on it’s own when used on the lower lashline, though.
Worth Buying?
You have to like the type of shimmer formula used in this palette to make this a worthwhile purchase. For me, I prefer a smoother shimmer with more slip to it than a thicker, sparkly formula. I like the majority of the matte shades and will likely reach for them frequently. The deepest matte shades were not the easiest to work with but with some patience they got the job done. Also if you prefer cool toned neutrals, this isn’t going to give you that. The pinky, purple-y mattes in here look deceptively cool toned in the pan but actually look much warmer once applied to the eye. Overall I don’t super love this palette but I do like it and I think it’s decent.