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NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit Review, Photos, Swatches

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

More Purple Than You’ll Know What to Do With

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit ($11.00 for 0.32 oz.) is an eye and lip palette; it contains nine eyeshadows and two lip colors. If you’re a fan of cool-toned, purple eyeshadows, this is a palette with your name on it! The palette includes: a smoked, blackened purple with violet sheen; brightened navy blue with a subtle sheen; softened fuchsia lilac with a satin sheen; light fuchsia pink with satin sheen; gray-tinged brown with cool undertones; pinked brown with sheen; softened violet with sheen; red-toned, medium purple with violet shimmer-sheen; and dusty brown. The lip shades included a pinky nude cream and a metallic bronze.

The majority of the eyeshadow shades were nicely pigmented, but three were on the sheerer side — the pink brown, softened violet, and dusty brown. The dusty brown was pretty pitiful for me; extremely sheer, almost chalky, and wasn’t working for me whatsoever. The other eight shades were much more workable, though, so it’s easy to forgive a palette of nine shades for only one bad apple. I liked that only a couple of the shades had a frostier finish, while the rest had a low satin sheen. Shimmers/satins are easier to blend but sometimes you can get too much of a good thing!

I didn’t like the lip colors very much–they’re a little sticky and the shades themselves don’t seem to fit with the palette. A metallic bronze lip is lovely, but I’m not so sure about pairing it with such cool purples. I wouldn’t grab this for the lip colors, but I do like that they’re in a separate pull-out drawer, which means they won’t get any cross-contamination from the powder eyeshadows. The included double-ended applicators aren’t anything to write home about; the bristled one is sparse and a little scratchy, while the sponge-tip is thin and a little scratchy.

The palette itself is housed in a square black palette, so it manages to look sleek and compact, and it would work really well for traveling. It’s a good palette overall, and for $11, it’s obviously a real gem!

If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ! 🙂

  • Product: 26/30
  • Value: 9/10
  • Ease of Use: 4/5
  • Packaging: 4/5

RECOMMENDATION: The quality is good overall with just a couple of misses but enough hits to make it well worth the price.

AVAILABILITY: NYX

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit
NYX Purple Smokey Look Kit

38 Comments

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Marcela Avatar

Is NYX sold in any store or just on their website? I’ve never seen this brand and I hear pretty good things about it considering it’s on the cheaper side.

Roxanne Avatar

To anyone who is interested in buying this (or a similar one): bear in mind that these are quite small! They can fit your hand (one of the reasons I decided not to buy it after all). Just to let ya know! I do love the colors though.

Ji Avatar

I actually have this kit, and I LOVE it. There is one colour that doesn’t show up on me, but it makes it easy to make a cute smokey purple look, even for a rookie. AND the shades go on pretty well pigmented. I was a little scared that as a brown girl the colours wouldn’t show up on me, but my mom bought this first and I tested them out and they did! So, brown girls, this one you can wear!

Andrea Avatar

Are you able to recommend eyeshadow bases which are good for holding the eyeshadow colours on the lid? I find that mine starts to disappear, sometimes after a very short time. It would be wonderful if what I put on in the morning looked something like what I ended up with in the afternoon! Very many thanks!

Alison Avatar

I have this kit, and I have to say, as much as I love the purples, I wish they had put just *one* light, neutral color to use on the brow. That would have made it even better for traveling!

Michelle Avatar

Thank you so much, Christine! I’m so glad I have NYX near me 🙂 I’d get a lot of use out of this palette, minus the lip colors (I don’t like palette lip colors so I use my own stuff).

HautePJ Avatar

I lurve purple so much! Can never have enough variations, really. And thanks for the handy Post FAQ. I bet you get tired of endless questions that you’ve already answered 🙂

Ashley Avatar

The Nude on Nude palette is probably the best of their square palettes. The lip colors work well as cream blushes too! Can’t get UDs Naked? The Nude in Nude is a decent dupe!

Vanessa Avatar

I own one of the NYX smokey palettes (nude) and i must say it is worth the money. The colors are nice good color payoff and inexpensive. Sometimes Ulta even has them on sale, which is how i ended up buying mine ($8.00!).

Meheen Avatar

Christine, are you going to do a look featuring this palette? We have a really similar skintone and eye/hair color so if it looks good on you, it’d probably look good on me!

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