B E A U T Y | T H E B A L M – N U D E ‘T U D E*

theBalm Nude'tude Palette Review w/swatches

A week or so ago I caved in and ordered myself a cult beauty favourite, the NUDE’tude palette from theBalm. Feel Unique were offering 20% off of theBalm plus an extra 10% off of all sale items with a coupon code as well as free delivery on orders over £10. This brought the palette down from £26 to £19.08. That means, individually each shade went down from £2.16 to £1.59. Like, are you kidding me?! Plus, in addition to that, not only is this palette a favourite of nude shadow lovers, but it’s also 100% paraben and cruelty free YAAAAAAAY!

"This amazing palette consists of 12 beautiful shadows that make wearing nudes sexy! These satiny smooth colors can be applied naturally, i.e. “let me slip into something more comfortable” or beautifully layered. The wide range gives you light highlighters as well as brazen bold shades that work to add definition and emphasis to your lids. Nude`tude allows you to dramatically dress up your eyes—if nothing else!"

So, in terms of packaging, the shadows come in a very pretty and very slim palette that’s made of a very sturdy cardboard with a magnetic closure that snaps shut firmly. The palette comes in a sleeve which has the same design as the lid. It is a little bit annoying taking the sleeve off everytime you use the palette but I refuse to throw it away for collection purposes.

You also get a huge rectangular mirror. It doesn’t stand alone but is still nice to be included.

I bought the ‘naughty’ version of the palette which has teeny tiny little pin up ladies in an blatant state of undress with one shade covering their lady lumps and another covering up the other pink bits. The ‘nice’ version of the palette simply repeats the cover art from the outer packaging. At first I thought it would really annoy the OCD part of me to have the shadows not line up neatly in straight lines but after a couple of days the annoyance went away. (However, now I’m writing this, it’s starting to bug me again).

Inluded, a little double ended brush which is absolutely rubbish for applying the shadows and don’t even attempt any blending. The only thing that you can use this for is filling in your brows, which is what I use it for but only if I can’t be bothered to get up and get my angled brush, which is a lot as of late! The fatter side is useless in all honesty….

Swatches:

All of the shadows feel velvety to the touch and I keep finding myself touching them just to rub them between my thumb and forefinger for no other reason than because I can. It’s a shame to waste them though so I should probably stop doing that!

Sassy| Snobby

I’m a big fan of Snobby for any and all types of highlighting be it under the eyebrow, inner corner, cupids bow or even swept over the top of the cheek with a fa brush. The amount of gold/yellow in it isn’t brassy looking at all and is one of those colours that would look amazing on olive skin tones or darker. – I’m yet to find any real use for Sassy but that’s more because I haven’t been using white during the summer but sticking to natural browns and bronzes. The formula however is fantastic and isn’t one of those weirdly metallic frosty shades but it isn’t quite matte either.

Stubborn | Stand-Offish

Again, Stubborn isn’t a shade I’ve had much use with recently. I’ve used it maybe two times but in no significant way as it’s a little too pale for me and again, wasn’t in the summer time bronze look I’ve been sporting lately. It is probably the butteriest shade in the palette though aside from Sleek. It’s so soft and smooth and would be perfect when blending…. if I had ever used it to blend! – Stand-Offish is a surprising favourite for me. As it doesn’t really show up as pink as it looks but more of a champagne shade, I’m really enjoying it. When you pack it on it’s more or less the same thing as Burnout from the Naked3 palette which is awesome because it’s a cracking shade.

Selfish | Sultry

Selfish looks a lot like a metallic grey in the pan but is more of a soft brown/taupe when sheered out on the skin or used on the eye. What I like is that I can use this everyday if I want just a little bit of added something or I can use it smoked on the lower lash line with a bare lid and a bit of mascara for a simple ‘done up’ day time type deal. – I’ve seen Sultry used as a crease or transition colour on lighter skinned girls and it looks perfect on them, but on me, this is a nothing colour. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though. If I just want to even out the colour of my eyelid I can literally take a big fluffy brush and dust this liberally over the entire eye, up to the brow bone or pack it on the mobile lid with a bit of Sleek in the crease to smoke out. So simple but so effective.

Sophisticated | Seductive

Sophisticated is a deeper version of Selfish and can be used in much the same way. I really enjoy using it when doing brown, daytime smokey eyes. Seductive is a little deceptive. It looks like a brown/grey but you only actually pick up gold shimmer. I’ve actually used this as a cheekbone highlight and it blends/sheers out really nicely.

Sexy | Silly

Sexy is a fantastic colour for Autumn especially on the eyes. It’s become a favourite for a transition shade for me but has the most amazing pigmentation when you just go wild and pack it on. The only thing to be careful about is red eye. If you use Sexy alone or too much around the eye without some sort of barrier like a black wing it can make any redness in your eyes that much more exaggerated which is a teency bit annoying because the colour is so beautiful. – Speaking of annoying, Silly. When you can get the glitter to stay mixed in with the shadow, Silly is a marvelous ‘party’ type colour. But most of the time the large chunks of gold glitter fall out before you even get it to your eye. Frankly, I think it was rather silly including large gold chunks in the first place. It would have worked so much better solely as a mid toned brown, somewhere in between Sultry and Sleek.

Serious | Sleek

These two shades are fantastic. Serious is a jet black that rivals Sleek Noir’s pigmentation. It doesn’t give off a grey tone to it either. Its also soft enough that you can use it as a liner without even having to wet your brush. You still get really clean lines despite using only a powder product. Sleek, as a rich chocolate brown has overtaken my Makeup Revolution shadow as mu new brown product. It’s fantastic as a shadow of course but as a brown powder it works eve better. It’s the first shadow I can use that doesn’t make my brow look over the top like I’m an extra in a RuPaul video. It’s just perfect. I’m in love.

I think this palette is a must have just because of its fabulous simplicity. You can get so much use of of the 12 shades here. Now there are makeup junkies like me who buy tonnes of makeup and know that they’ll never finish any of it in a lifetime but for those of you who want one palette and one palette only that you can use day in and day out without needing any other shadows, this is it. It’s full of classic colours that you can use to create everyday timeless looks. It’s really all you need.

**If you live in London like I do then you can pop into & Other Stories on Regent Street to see this in person and I’ve heard a few rumors that theBalm is coming to Superdrug. I’ve seen it online, but I’ve no idea if it’ll be rolling out in stores. If you’ve seen it in a Superdrug or eleswhere, let me know!