This charming quint made my heart sing when I first saw it. After seeing Mimi's beautiful creative looks with it, I was convinced that I needed it in my life. I loved the initial swatches, too. But, I just can't seem to make it work for me even after trying more than a few times.
It's leaning towards the cool side of the spectrum but the color scheme is well-balanced having both matte and strong shimmer in texture plus there is an excellent transitional shade.
Isn't the Blue Dahlia just gorgeous? And, Flint is so useful for a warm/neutral base that makes everything a bit better. Linen makes a great topcoat/highlighter. Poison Berry and Raisin are...well, formidable.
As you see in the swatch photo, Poison Berry is the least blendable color and goes on quite patchy. This is not uncommon in saturated matte eyeshadows but honestly, I expected more because I know that many of you swear by Natasha Denona's eyeshadows. Raisin applies somewhat better and I have no other application issues with the rest of them.
This was my first attempt. I can't fault the finished look for what it is since it is soft and work-appropriate (and my hair looks nice because it was freshly blown out). My qualms, however, are that the vividly gorgeous colors don't really show up after blending out and I could end up with similar looks using zillions of neutral palettes in my stash. I would think that I do just a normal amount of blending but the end result always seems to be over blended to a point where it looks kind of muddy.
This time, I tried to blend less so the overall colors are more purple and blue. I thought it didn't look natural or sophisticated enough, though. Below is the overall look.
And, here is my latest attempt with less blending and different placements.
I shared my frustration with this palette on Instagram and was comforted to know that I am not the only person who finds the deep matte colors in it difficult to work with. There are more than a few makeup brands that do not work as well betraying my high hopes for them, and I find Natasha Denona certainly is one of them.
Natasha Denona Mini Lila is currently on a 50% sale if you're interested, though.
What do you think? Should I keep this eyeshadow palette? Have you tried Mini Lila for yourself?
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