Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette Review & Swatches
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette ($38) is a new eye and cheek palette that launched with the Tarte Fall 2015 Collection recently.
Tarte’s legendary for introducing palettes that feature an array of either neutral, natural shades or purples, their signature color. The Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette definitely focuses on taupes and purples for Fall looks. We’re seeing a lot of matte, some contouring, and either a completely nude eye or a soft metallic one for Fall 2015 but Tarte actually veers off the trend path and heads into a more traditional shade look with these shades. Purple and berries seem to speak of the Fall season and the shades in this palette do deliver those particularly trendy shades if that’s the look you love for the season!
It’s funny as purples and taupe-y shades go so well together but my eyes are aging now and they don’t always look great on me. My brown eyes look great in the shades but it’s my under eyes that end up look a little tired when I’m wearing such dark, sultry shades!
Let’s take a look!
The Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette is priced right at $38 and holds 8 total shades of color, one highlighter, and one blush as well as step by step instructions. The palette is Tarte’s standard rectangle palette done in gold with a full size mirror and a gorgeous hazy purple face plate. Inside you’ll find a printed clear film that lays atop the makeup with shade names. It would be great if they printed the names on the actual compact because I tend to lose these films.
One thing I took note of was the palette for whatever reason does not include the “Amazonian” name. It was dropped for some reason and is now simply known as “Clay Palette”. I’m not sure why they dropped “Amazonian” but I’m curious to see if future product names also drop it.
The sizes of the shadows vary in this palette with six of the shades weighing in at 0.035 oz and two of the others at 0.045 oz in size. The blush is 1.91 oz and the highlighter is 0.045 oz. I thought it rather sad the two shades I liked least were the biggest. Go figure!
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette
There are definitely dupes to be had here unfortunately and shades are a bit repetitive if you’re a Tarte user, lover, and collector. The Misty Mauve shade for example seems too have made an appearance in many palettes past as well as some variation or another.� And Full Moon (creamy beige), Charged Up (gray taupe), and Up Too Slate (purple taupe) also seem similar to past shades. I don’t any of the shades are exact dupes but there are variations here of shades you may already have from past palette releases. The blush in Unearthed does stand alone as being fairly unique to my collection of Tarte Amazonian Blushes.
The palette is predominantly matte with two frosty satin shades, three if you count the highlighter as an eyeshadow (which I do since the step by step guide uses it in an eye look). The mattes were a little dry particularly the two, larger ones which personally I feel are more liner shades than actually eyeshadows so this might act as an excuse for the dryness and use these wet as eyeliners. However, the smaller top matte shadows also had a certain dryness to them. Full Moon was the exception! This was powdery but still felt fairly silky.
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette Swatches (Full Moon, Charged Up, Dark Drive)
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette Swatches (Stone Unturned, Up Too Slate, Misty Mauve)
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette Swatches (Crystal Spark, Power Plum, Lunar Eclipse)
Tarte Unearthed Blush
Tarte Unearthed Blush Swatches
The satin shades are quite lovely and pigmented with the exception of Crystal Sparkle which is dubbed a highlighter but as I mentioned above it is used in eye looks in the step by step guide. I dislike this shade because it’s a bit too frosty for me! Pigmented yes, but the frost factor is a deal breaker for me. On that note, as I said there are so many descriptions that call this shade a highlighter but I don’t think they mean a face highlighter or I should hope not as the well is terribly small and a brush won’t fit into it easily.
As with most blush shades in Tarte Palettes I thought Unearthed quite dense but it still produced color great and applied seamlessly on cheeks. I just think the formula differs a good deal from individual blush shades in Tarte’s range and that deserves mentioning.
Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette is a delightful palette of sultry Fall shades and it should have many Tarte fans excited. I just wish the mattes were a little more silkier though and all the shades a little less repetitive! It creates some very lovely looks that’s for sure but I feel like I’ve been here a lot already with Tarte so some new shades are definitely in order for this older Tartelette.
What do you think?
Did you buy it?
Do share!
The Tarte Energy Noir Clay Palette is available now at Sephora.com, Ulta.com, and at tarte.com.