Fave neutral eyeshadows

I love my neutral shadows. It’s perfect for work, it looks classy and it can give you that barely there make up look. On the other hand, neutral shades are also perfect for creating smokey eyes and more dramatic looks. Neutral eyeshadows are handy to take your every day office look and upgrade it to an evening look within minutes. Here are my particular favorites.

First of all, one thing I like about neutral eyeshadows is that you can make these barely there looks with it. It makes your eyes look brighter and you look 100x more awake than without any color on your lids, but no one would be able to tell you have any on. This is especially handy in my case, as I usually get up early and have some very long days. My favorite eyeshadows to accomplish this look are the following:

Top row (f.l.t.r.): Bourjois 71 Or Raffiné, 16 Ambre Nude, no. 05

Bottom row (f.l.t.r.): Sephora no. 15 Suede, no. 78 Sunkissed, no. 11 Creme Caramel

Especially the Sephora eye shadows are great for getting that barely there look. The Bourjois ones tend to be a bit too shimmery, but sometimes that is just what you need to give your look just a bit more oomph. The first two Bourjois shadows are from the old line, the numbers, names and packaging changed a few months ago. All six shadows could be combined if need be, but I also tend to use the 4 shimmery colors on their own sometimes.

To achieve some more dramatic looks or to darken things up a little bit, I love using palettes. There are tons of neutral palettes on the market. Pretty much every brand has a range of neutral colors in their eyeshadow range. Two palettes that I have been loving lately are by Make Up Designory and Sleek.

Make Up Designory Quad & Sleek Palette in Oh So Special

Make Up Designory Quad (clockwise from top left): honeysuckle, apricot, taupe, espresso

Sleek Oh So Special Palette

Top row: bow, organza, ribbon, gift basket, glitz, celebrate

Bottom row: pamper, gateau, the mail, boxed, wrapped up, noir

I love these two palettes! They both feature some very pretty colors. I love how the MUD shadows are all matte. The honeysuckle one seems shimmery, but that’s just the picture. The Sleek palette has some very pretty pinks and purples in the palette so you can change up the neutral look and give it a bit of a twist rather than only using black, greys and browns.

My two favorite palettes, however, aren’t these. My favorite neutral eyeshadow palettes are by Urban Decay and Too Faced. Yes, you have guessed right, they are the Urban Decay & Too Faced Naked palettes.

Too Faced Naked Eye Palette & Urban Decay Naked Palette

Too Faced Naked Eye Palette

Urban Decay Naked Palette

The Urban Decay Naked Palette has soon become a staple in many make up lovers’ stashes. The minute I laid eyes on it, I knew I had to have it and I love it. I love the texture of these shadows, the pigmentation, well everything.

The only surprise here could be the Too Faced palette. Most people I’ve seen with a Too Faced palette have the Natural Eye Palette. I opted for the Naked Eye Palette, as I found the Natural Eye Palette too similar to the Urban Decay one. The Urban Decay one is heavily based on browns and two dark greys. Now what my stash was lacking was good selection of grey/ taupish eye shadows. So rather than buying another palette filled with browns (the Natural Eye Palette) I chose to go with the Naked Eye Palette. As you can see from the picture, the colors I love the most from that palette are the ones I was also looking for.

I would like to indicate that this post does not feature any MAC eyeshadows, despite the fact that I love them. I am still working on filling up my MAC palette and therefore I have a few more neutral MAC colors to try before I can list my favorites. Once that mission is completed I will write a blog on my fave neutral MAC shadows as they are truly in a league of their own.

Q: Do you like neutral eye shadows?