The new Laura Mercier Parisian Nudes palette is limited edition and has gorgeous modern neutrals that appeared very wearable and the greenish shades really drew me to the palette because they looked like interesting shades that I did not have in my collection. The palette contains 12 shadows (5 mattes and 7 shimmers) and retails for $55.00 USD.
I have taken my time getting the review up on this palette because I wanted to make sure how I truly felt about it, for reasons, you will read below. I was very excited to see some good video reviews on YouTube about this palette and was really excited to get it based on photos I saw. The packaging is very weighty and really nice quality and it does have a nice big mirror inside.
The formula of the matte shadows is very smooth and buttery and blend very well together, but I had some trouble with some of the shimmer shades. The green special shade on the bottom row applies extremely sheer and had to be packed on to achieve any color and the color that does show up is a darker plum brown and not the minty green shimmer that shows in the pan. It barely shows any green color at all once applied to my lids and I experienced a lot of glitter particles falling on my face throughout the day. I understand maybe it was meant to be subtle, but this is so subtle it’s almost non-existent on me. I mean why bother with this little green in it. It also started to crease after only a few hours over my holy grail Milani eye primer. I never have trouble with creasing with this primer, with any of my other shadows. I can also feel it when I blink. I’m not sure if that is because it is creasing already, or because of how much I had to apply to get the color to show, but I hate being able to feel my eye shadow. I experienced a decent amount of fall out while applying several of the shadows, so it may be best to do your eyes first when using this palette.
The greenish silvery shade above the green shade also looks completely different when applied on my skin. Once swatched, it actually looks more like a bronzey, taupey gold on my skin. The golds, that are next to the greens in the palette, appear much more orange and corn-like in person than they did in any photos or videos I saw and so these are two colors I know I won’t use. The deep navy blue shows some shimmer in the pan but looks like a matte shadow on the skin. A lot of the shades show us more plum or reddish on my eyes than they appear on my arm.
Top Row Swatches:
Bottom Row Swatches:
I really love how my eyes looked the first time I wore this palette. That time I used only a couple of the light mattes and the second shade, on the top row from the left, on the lid. That day, the shadows made my eye lids appear smoother and soft and I really liked it, but the next time when I wore some different shades with the bottom green shade on the lid, I felt like the colors were muddy and looked too similar once applied, not to mention it’s not really a green shadow as advertised. I achieved a somewhat dark plummy brown smokey eye, which I do tend to wear and like, but had planned on this being a lighter look with the green as the main focus and I just ended up feeling annoyed and not really happy with the experience of them not applying anything like I expected.
Overall, I’m pretty disappointed with my experience of this palette because a lot of the shades look different in the pan than they do once applied to the eyes and many of the shades appear much warmer than expected on my skin tone. I don’t like it when I can’t count on eye shadows to show up, at least mostly like, how they appear in the pan. I did notice that all of the glowing reviews I saw online were from influencers that had received this palette free in PR. So this is actually only adding to my annoyance with this whole experience. No one that I saw had mentioned that these apply different than they appear in the pans. I really find it hard to imagine that I am the only person that had this happen.
I was originally thinking this could be a good beginner palette or good for gifts, but I no longer feel that it is because the gift recipient might not be expecting the colors to be so different and for the money there are other matte palettes out there that are more reliable. This has been my first time trying Laura Mercier eye shadows and this has been a let down for me. I honestly can’t recommend anyone purchase this palette without being able to swatch it in person to see how the colors apply for you and if they are what you were looking for.
I’m actually pretty sad to be writing this review because my opinion is not positive on this one, but I really don’t want anyone else to be as disappointed as I am and waste their money. I just don’t feel like this is a good value for the shades in here being so hit and miss. Even looking back at the official photos on the product page for this palette, I feel somewhat mislead because they do not look like that at all in person. This one is definitely going back.
I’m really curious if anyone else did have a similar experience with this palette. I would love to hear your thoughts on this if you have tried this palette. Please let me know in the comments or over on my Instagram.