Maybelline The Rock Nudes Palette Review & Swatches
The Maybelline The Rock Nudes Palette is a new 12 pan eyeshadow palette that launched with the Maybelline Spring 2016 Collection. The Maybelline the Nudes Eyeshadow Palette launched in 2014 at drugstores and followed up with other shades variations like the Blushed Nudes and the Smokes.
Since Maybelline introduced these larger palettes many other drugstore brands started doing their own variations such as L’Oreal’s La Nude 1 and La Nude 2 and more recently Covergirl TrueNaked Eyeshadow Palettes and Revlon Not So Nude Eyeshadow Palettes.
For me these are a nod to Urban Decay’s popular Naked Eyeshadow Palette Collection and it’s understandable that drugstore brands are doing their own variations to cash in on the success of the “larger” “naked” eyeshadow palette.
I enjoy seeing different brands doing their own versions but many can prove disappointing and I think the Maybelline the Rocks Nudes Palette is one such disappointment.
Maybelline The Rock Nudes Palette ($11.99) contains 12 eyeshadow shades which can be used to create 13 different looks according to Maybelline. On the back of the palette you’ll find a diagram of the shades that can be used in groups of four, three, or two. I’m always at a lost for color placement so I appreciate this little guide on which colors will work well together.
I didn’t technically compare it to my other palettes but this comes in a new packaging that seems like a smaller compact. This contains a total of 0.35 oz of eyeshadow and the compact is a matte black versus the lacquer finish of the other four palettes Maybelline has introduced. Although it seems a little smaller in size it actually contains a little more product as the original compacts contain 0.34 oz of product.
Maybelline has already done the Smokes Palette which for me kinda takes care of any smoky looks you’d want to create and dare I say some of the shade variations in the Rock Nudes are very similar to those featured in the Smokes. I wouldn’t say they are complete dupes but there are similarities for sure. I didn’t like the Smokes Palette but dare I say that the Smokes is better quality than the Rock Nudes. I couldn’t even create a look with these shades as they were rather bad quality all around.
I’m unsure where nudes comes into play here. It could be a reference to the silver, white, cream, and taupe shades towards the start of the palette. Five of the shades as you can see in my images are considerably lighter than the rest of the palette but not really your traditional nude by any means. The rest of the palette is made up of darker shades. There are a good deal of blackened shades here that have micro-shimmer in the mix which results in sheerer, patchy color pay off with chunks of shimmer in the mix. There’s a lovely Olive Green here but the shade is a blackened color that has very little color pay off. The inconsistencies in the formula are kinda mind boggling. You have dry, frosty shades combined with denser sparkly ones and dry, denser mattes. I can’t say that any one shade stood out as having a good texture. They are all just bad in my opinion. Add to the fact they blend really badly and adhere terribly to my lids which results in a fast to fade formula and you have yourself a hot mess.
Unfortunately, like many of these bigger palettes from the brand, the Maybelline The Rock Nudes Palette is a total mess. You can get better quality eyeshadows from brands like E.L.F. and pay less for them as well.
This one gets a big old avoid.
But if you must try it yourself the Maybelline The Rock Nudes Palette is launching now at drugstores and at drugstore.com or Ulta.com.