NYX Cosmetics released their new Ultimate Shadow Palettes a few weeks ago and everyone instantly connected them visually as looking like the popular Viseart palettes. These palettes are on the more expensive end for NYX, but I was able to get them on sale during a ‘Buy One Get One Half Off” and use a 20% off Ulta coupon on top of that. Much more affordable! But are they worth it?
Sadly, I don’t own any of the Viseart palettes to do a comparison. Sorry! I kind of assumed those who do own them would do a comparison, but if you’re not seeing any comparison posts, let me know and I’ll be happy to purchase them and create a “Dupe or Dud” post for you! 😉
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NYX Ultimate Shadow Palettes
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I just picked up two of the four new Ultimate shadow palettes — the Warm Neutrals and the Brights palette. Each palette contains 16 shadows, so your paying just a little over a dollar each shade. One thing that I find very annoying is that the palettes are very difficult to open when snapped shut. Once I even grabbed my tweezers just to pop it open!
The Warm Neutrals Ultimate Shadow palette has nine mattes and seven shimmers. A nice mix, in my opinion. I like that they made sure to include light matte shades for the brow bone and dark matte shades for smoking out the outer corner. I do wish that they had one dark brown shade. The deepest color is a grayish/brown that doesn’t give me the deep color I want (like the matte brown in the LORAC PRO Palette).
The Brights Ultimate Shadow palette has about the same range of mattes and shimmers, but I actually find that only about three of the shimmer shades actually show up looking like shimmer. The others look shimmery in the pan, but when used on the lids it’s difficult to detect. Which is nice! I prefer matte shadows, and if I ever want to add sparkle to my bright eye looks I can just top it with a glitter. 🙂
Ready to look at swatches? As always, these are swatched twice without any primer underneath.
As you can see, the Warm Neutrals palette has a nice variety of shades that have great pigmentation. A few of the shades like the two goldish shimmers on the top right and the matte gray/brown on the bottom right were kind of a dud, but can be made to work. I thought that last gray/brown shade was a little weird in this palette, anyway, as it comes off as cool-tone to me….and I didn’t get the cool tone palette, haha!
Here are three looks that I created using this palette. The gold eye palette I actually pulled a true, dark, warm grown to use in the outer edge. But everything else was shades from the Warm Neutrals Ultimate Shadow palettes! I loved the middle copper color. It was stunning! And showed up a lot more shimmery in person!
I think you can see what I was talking about the shimmery shades not really showing up very shimmery when swatched. All the colors swatch beautifully — with the exception of the bright yellow one in the bottom right hand corner. There was a good big of powder kick up when swatching them, but I found that when I tapped my brush off before using it on my eyes, I had barely any fall out.
And here are three looks I created using this palette! If you didn’t know, I am a big neutrals/brown lover, so all of these looks were way outside my comfort zone…but totally fun! All the colors were pretty easy to blend and use…except for that yellow shade. It gave me so much trouble! With all of these looks I used either a nude or white base to get them to show up really vibrant. If you don’t use a base, you’ll get a much softer (and more wearable) look. Which, depending on what you’re looking for, you may or may not like. 🙂
By the way, the look all the way on the right was inspired by Vintage or Tacky on Youtube, love the look she created!
So do I recommend the Ultimate Shadow palettes or not, that is the question! I would say that the Warm Neutrals palette is definitely worth picking up. I find myself reaching for it often and I’ve already made a dent in the first matte brow bone shade at the top! The Brights palette, now that one is a little harder to say… I am glad I have it in my collection and it can work to create really great looks — it may just need more prep/work. I would say that if you don’t wear bright colors often, this will be the perfect palette for you to purchase and have whenever you feel adventurous.
But if you’re the type of makeup artist that enjoys going bold and dramatic often, I think it might be more worth your while to save up for either the Urban Decay Electric palette or the Viseart Brights palette. That’s just my two cents on the matter, though! 😉
Have you purchased any of the new Ultimate Shadow palettes yet? If so, which ones and what do you think of them? If not…which do you want to get first? 😉
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I purchased all products on my own. I was not compensated for writing this post. Some affiliate links are used above, meaning I get a few cents when you click through them. All thoughts are 100% my own. Any questions about my disclosure, read here. 
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