The best neutral eyeshadow palette?! That’s a steep order, but I’ll tell you how to customise your Natasha Denona Glam Palette to best reap the hidden benefits and turn it into the neutral no-brainer palette of your dreams. (Really.) (Also: super easy.)
There’re a lot of problems with Natasha Denona’s Glam Palette. Even if touted so, it’s not cool-toned (it’s rather neutral). The palette has three pinkish shades that look virtually the same. The labelling inside the palette is bogus, and also, even worse, borderline racist. (Read more about that here.)
If you’ve got a deeper skintone, you’d need a few other shades to make it work properly, and I suspect, some shades would look ashy on skintones deeper than medium-deep. In a perfect world, Natasha Denona had actually released two palettes: the existing Glam for light to medium skintones, and a deeper toned one for darker suitable for darker complexions. (Sidney Grace did that, for example – so it is possible.)
The brand received some flak for it, and rightly so. It’s important to keep messaging brands to let them know that this is not ok – so let’s keep doing that.
The best neutral eyeshadow palette!?!
Still, if you’re looking for a neutral toned eyeshadow palette and your skintone is between light and medium-deep, this could be great for you. Especially so because the Glam Palette is one of the easiest palettes I own: all shades are easy to apply and blend, and fallout is minimal. Also, all shades are extremely easy to combine – I can do a look with it half-asleep in the morning, and also in a moving vehicle. Which makes it, in my opinion, the perfect daytime or office-friendly palette.
How to: customise Natasha Denona’s Glam Palette
I actually used it for the first weeks like it came. The trick it to absolutely and utterly disregard ND’s placement suggestions. They. Are. The. Worst.
Don’t overthink it: what’s one of the biggest strengths of the Glam is that you can easily pair any two shades in it and call it a day. Heck, even one for a one-and-done look works fine. If you want to do an elaborate (and glam!) evening look using the palette, sure. (Here’re some suggestions – YouTube.) But that’s not what this post is all about – we’re about ease, here.
What I did
I learned from Temptalia that it’s super easy to rearrange your ND palettes as the eyeshadow pans pop out easily.
- Insert a needle or something into the little hole in the back. Gently removed all pans.
- Label them in the process. (You should, because otherwise that information will be lost forever, as ND only tells us the names on the back of the outer packaging.)
- Start to group shades as your fancy strikes you (which is a lot of fun).
Instead of the hodge-podge look of the original I wanted to group shades together that would easily be paired in one look. Let me preface that by saying that there’s no rule for that: pair glitters and mattes and everything in between in however way YOU like. For an easy daytime/office-friendly look I always pair a shimmer shade with transition shade to blend it out around the edges. If I’ve got more time and am in the mood to play, I’ll shade in the outer v with a darker shade.
Therefore, the vertical rows can be paired easily, but also the diagonals. You can also do a wholly matte look with the first row of mattes. (More on ND’s eyeshadow finishes and formulas here.)
Easy daytime eyeshadow looks
All shades are really, really easy to use: I did one look just for the heck of it with one fluffy blending brush with minimal fallout. If you’re in a pinch, apply the shimmers with your (clean!) fingertip. Works a treat.
And please, disregard ND’s placement suggestions completely.
Where and how much?
’tis the season: Look around first for discounts before you commit. It’s not limited edition, so do your research.
Made in Italy, 19.25 g / 0.67 oz, $65 here.
Please note that this review is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods, or money, for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
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