Last week, I spotted the new Revlon Colorstay Not Just Nudes palettes at Walgreens ($14.99 each) and even though I'm not usually a fan of Revlon eyeshadows, I grabbed them both because I knew you guys would probably have questions about these and would be interested to know what they're like. These come in two shades...01 Passionate Nudes, which has warmer tans, browns, gold and bronze and 02 Romantic Nudes, which has cooler browns, pinks, purples and grays.
In general, drugstore eyeshadow palettes have been largely disappointing for me (although the L'oreal La Palette Nudes were the best of the bunch) so I tend to just bite the bullet and buy more expensive ones, and I also look to drugstore alternative brands like City Color, L.A. Girl and Profusion because they're even less expensive than the drugstore and the quality is top-notch.
But that doesn't stop me from wishing that the next drugstore palette will be great, because for the sake of convenience, it would be an amazing thing to just walk into Walgreens, CVS or Rite Aid and pick up a great eyeshadow palette. So keep on reading to see if these new palettes finally get it right!
I bought this cream shadow palette when it first came out back in...was it the 90's or maybe early 2000's? It seems like a very long time ago! It came in other shades too, but the only one I ever bought was the Not Just Nudes one.
Taking a closer look at each palette, lets start with 01 Passionate Nudes. This palette has a mix of matte and shimmer shades in warmer tones. I was pretty unimpressed with the pigmentation here. There was one standout shade that felt buttery and went on smoothly (with or without primer), and that was the bronze shade in the top row, 4th one from the left. The worst shade in the palette has to be the dark gray one directly underneath the bronze shade in the bottom row, 4th one from the left. It's a packed with glitter (although you can't really tell in the pan) and it just crumbles everywhere with tons of fallout and goes on much lighter than it looks. Plus, it easily wipes away from the skin.
The rest are just meh. As much as I didn't like the Maybelline Nudes palette, I felt that at least that one had a few shades that were buttery and pigmented while the rest were just ok.
I swatched these without primer first, and they just didn't have any intensity compared to what they look like in the palette. They were dry and powdery for the most part and didn't have much lasting power on my skin, wiping away pretty easily.
With primer, some of the darker shades came through a little bit better, but when layered over a base they became very hard to blend.
The 02 Romantic Nudes palette is full of cooler toned shades that I was really drawn to, especially that cranberry shade in the top row (2nd from left) and the purplish gray one all the way to the right of the top row. This one actually had better pigmentation that the Passionate Nudes palette for some strange reason, especially once I had used it for a few days. It seemed like once I broke through the top layer of these shadows they applied a little better (but that didn't happen with the other one).
In the bottom row, the pink shade 2nd from the left and the purple shade on the right were glittery shades that had major fallout and left glitter dust everywhere, swatching very light compared to their appearance in the pans. The rest of these applied ok...still not fantastic but better than the warmer palette.
Looking at these swatches, there's definitely a difference between this one and the Passionate Nudes palette. Without primer, they swatched ok...not super pigmented but not terrible either. Over primer, these had a nice intensity for the most part, except for those two glittery shades I mentioned (in the swatch photos it's the purple one at the bottom and the pink one that's the 4th shade up from the bottom). But again, over primer, they became very difficult to blend.
So, do I think you should pay $14.99 for these? Nope! Maybe the Romantic Nudes one would be something to try if it was on sale, but I honestly think that I liked the Maybelline Nudes palettes better than these (and I wasn't a fan of those either).
If you're looking for affordable palettes with better pigmentation, I'd recommend trying some by City Color or the Beauty Bricks by L.A. Girl $9 (check out my reviews of them here and here.
Sorry I didn't have better news with these! I had my fingers crossed that maybe these were a new and improved formula or something but sadly, they just didn't pan out for me, especially at $14.99.
Have you tried these yet? What are your thoughts?