Best Natasha Denona Eyeshadow Palettes of All Time (Well, So Far)

Remember when we first saw Natasha Denona Eyeshadow Palettes a couple of years ago?  She debuted with two mega-palettes with 28 shades at a mega-price tag of $239 a pop.  Each shade is full-sized and can be popped out of the palette, and all of the shades in the 28-pan palettes are part of her singles range.  Since then, the brand’s more popular and palatable (ha, ha, please, it gets me every time) palettes have been their 15-pan palettes, which still serve up lots of product but are a bit less of an upfront cost at $129.  The brand has also had full-sized, 5-pan palettes that are curated using all of the shades in the permanent, singles range (also found in the 28-pan palettes), which I don’t have since I had the larger palettes reviewed already (I have only reviewed the new ones).

I think the 15-pan palettes have been the most consistent of the releases, but I have a roller coaster relationship with the brand.  My initial testing of the larger 28-pan palettes was all over the map; I appreciated the soft, creaminess of her shimmer formula but found that it often creased on me more quickly than other powder eyeshadows (on average), which was the big downside of them for me–otherwise they were usually pigmented (or buildable), blendable, and easy enough to use by and large.  So if primer is your BFF or you’ve found they lasted longer, then mentally bump up my ratings for your own reference.

The actual formulations have evolved over time (I’m not certain that my 28-pan palette formulation is what is currently available), and the newer shimmers last a lot longer on me but have lost some of the creaminess of the original formulation that I know appealed to a lot of people.  I think her matte shades become more velvety with a bit more richness and substance.  I do think that the pace of which the formulations have been tweaked over time is causing inconsistency and missing the mark for some long-time fans of the brand, though.

I’ve revisited the Natasha Denona palettes I have from time to time because her color stories, finishes, and shade range manage to draw my eye quite a bit.  I really enjoy the color story and cohesiveness of the Sunset palette, though with all of the warm-toned eyeshadows on the market, it is not the brand’s most interesting color story these days.  It’s newer, but I found the Safari palette to work well (but note: I’ve seen that some have had issues with application and blending of the palette–it has had very love/hate reactions, which is concerning) and the muted, all-matte color story is a great complement to a lot of other palettes I already have.  The last palette I’ll mention that I’ve gone back to and enjoyed is the Lila palette, and the color scheme is still more nuanced and less overdone in the market.

I’d actually love to see a reinterpretation of her original 28-pan palettes into 15-pan palettes creating more cohesive color stories within the same vein, because I liked where they were going but the 28-pans are shimmer-heavy and beastly in size.  It would be nice, too, if the brand added singles of their newer shades, as the single range only includes the original 66 shades she had when the brand started out.