Review: Paula’s Choice Nude Mattes Palette

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I’ve been excited about this palette since I very first heard that it was coming out. It’s the first makeup I’ve tried from Paula’s Choice, but I ordered it as soon as I heard it was online because I could really use a matte neutral eyeshadow palette. My eyelids have the occasional minor wrinkle (especially if I haven’t been drinking as much water as I should) and my eyes can also get a little puffy during allergy season. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term ‘hot mess’ in reference to eyes before, but that’s pretty much what I get if I don’t use shimmer eyeshadows wisely!

Packaging

The Nude Mattes packaging sort of reminds of the Lorac Pro palette. The case is made from cardboard, and the pans themselves are nestled in a dense foam base. It’s very lightweight, which is nice for travel, but it’s pretty long. I’ve shown it with the Laura Mercier Artist palette (above) and Lorac Pro palette (below). It’s fairly slim and not very wide, but the length means it’s not necessarily going to fit into every makeup bag. The inside of the lid has a smallish mirror, and a fairly weak magnet holds the top closed. I don’t have any major complaints about the packaging, but it’s not anything to oooh and ahhh over, either.

The palette also comes with a synthetic laydown brush which, like all Paula’s Choice products, is cruelty-free. The handle and ferrule feel like plastic, and there’s a slight seam down the sides of the handle from where it was molded. The bristles are nice and soft, and firmly attached. I’ve shown it next to the Hakuhodo J5523 above for size reference. In use I wasn’t really a huge fan of it – it had a tendency to dig into the shadows and kick up powder, and caused some fallout that I didn’t get with natural hair brushes. It’s worth noting that I’ve had those two issues with most of the synthetic brushes I’ve tried to use with powder shadows, so if you like synthetic eye brushes then this one will probably be just fine. It’s a little too big for my eyes, but fortunately there’s pretty much no end to possible uses for a flat synthetic brush – it worked really well for applying concealer around my nose!

Colors

The palette comes with 12 shades in all – 11 matte shades and one shimmer that can be used for highlighting. They’re arranged more or less from lightest to darkest, and skew pretty heavily to warm colors. The shades are:

• Cream – light vanilla
• Beige – aptly named. It blends in almost seamlessly with my skintone.
• Pink Sugar (shimmer) – light pink with shimmer
• Cafe Au Lait – neutral light brown
• Tan – warm light brown
• Chestnut – medium reddened brown, almost terra cotta
• Clay – medium brown with greenish undertones
• Plum Taupe – medium brown with purple undertones
• Gunmetal Grey – medium pewter grey
• Chocolate Truffle – deep warm brown that really looks just like cocoa powder
• Coffee – deep neutral brown
• Onyx – black (not much more to say about it)

All of the colors are really pretty, but I really wish they didn’t lean so warm. It’s pretty heavy on the medium & dark shades too. On my lid I try to stick with light colors so my eyes don’t look smaller than they already are. All but the three lightest shades in the Nude Mattes palette are darker than my skin, so there aren’t a whole lot of options for that. I do think there are a lot of options here for people with medium-dark skin, which is (sadly) not something you see all the time. Not that it can’t be worn by lighter folks too – I just think you’ll see pan on the lightest shades first unless you reaaaalllly love a smoky eye.

Application, texture & wear

The formula of these shadows falls firmly into… average. They’re not quite as pigmented as some of my other mattes (like Lorac, Laura Mercier and Tom Ford) but they’re better than some I’ve tried (Too Faced, Tarte, Stila). The swatches above are each 2-3 swipes with brush over bare skin.

The texture is a bit dry and they don’t apply entirely smoothly, but they’re not chalky either. It definitely is possible to kick up excess product if you jab your brush into the pan, though I didn’t have any fallout when I used my natural hair brushes. I did have a bit of fallout with the brush that came with the palette. Blending kind of varies from shade to shade; some were really easy (Onyx, Cafe Au Lait, Pink Sugar and Cream) while others (Plum Taupe, Chestnut, Coffee) needed a little bit of elbow grease. The others fall in between.

Wear time on these is a little bit lackluster, at least in my opinion. I’ve been testing them over Lorac eye primer, and noticed minor creasing when I checked after 5-6 hours. By the time I got home from work (about 9 hours after I put on my makeup) the creasing was visible from a conversational distance. Of course, my lids happen to be oily and hooded, so if an eyeshadow is going to crease on anyone, it’s gonna be me. In other words, your mileage may vary wildly from mine!

I did notice one other thing that I think is worth mentioning. I usually swatch eyeshadows with my fingers, but a couple of the shades – Cafe Au Lait and Tan – absorbed oils from my skin so quickly that a film formed over them and I had to scrape it off with a tissue before I could get any more product out. I redid the swatches with a brush with no issues, but I’d recommend keeping an eye on these, particularly if you don’t wash your brushes after each use (and really, who does?).

In Short: The mid-range price on this palette is matched by mid-range quality. It could be a good buy if you’re short on matte neutrals, but for me personally? It just doesn’t make my heart flutter when I take it out to use it, and I don’t really have room in my collection these days for things I don’t absolutely love.

Tan (lid), Plum Taupe (crease), Coffee (outer corner), Beige (brow & inner corner highlight)

Paula’s Choice Nude Mattes Palette ($40) is available at paulaschoice.com.