Neutrals from NYX

 Of course after last week's rant about the over-abundance of neutrals, I would have to review a neutral-hued product! I've actually had this mini-palette for quite a while and have been meaning to give it a good look. It's from NYX's Love in Paris collection and is called "Parisian Chic." I chose this particular one because it had a nice combination of shimmery and sparkly golden colors with some nice taupes, too. I figured it would be a good one for me to use to do a neutral smoky eye, like so:

I used four colors from the palette to create this look, and topped it off with a little Urban Decay 24/7 liner in West. I applied the colors dry over a base of Urban Decay's shadow primer and then spritzed myself with some makeup setting spray and headed over to troupe practice. After an hour of building up a good sweat, I came home and found that I had a little color loss. I had also noticed this after wearing it all day on a non-dance day last week.

So far I'm not really convinced that this eye shadow can stand up to hardcore dancing. However, I do really like to use it for daily wear when I want to look nice. A quick swipe of a couple colors from this palette gives me a slightly glamorous neutral eye look that is great for daytime meetings with clients or fellow dancers. I also think this might be a good choice for the student dancer who is only going to be dancing for a few minutes at the recital and wants something she can make use of outside of her dance life, too. The packaging is compact, sturdy, and closes securely, so it should travel well. NYX offers 10 different Love in Paris palettes that are each only $10 for 9 colors, so they're worth a try, especially since they are Cruelty Free.

Naked, Nude, Neutral, Naaaaah

Ok, I'm just going to get this off my chest: I'm really bored and maybe even a little frustrated by the current trend towards neutral and naked makeups. I mean, Urban Decay, a company which was founded to provide high-quality cosmetics in crazy colors, built their whole Spring launch around their Naked line. How boring!

Don't get me wrong, I know that neutral colors have their place. I've even been buying and working with them myself, both for day wear and for the possibility of having a nice, neutral smokey eye to go with some costumes where I want a more sophisticated look. But really, how many beige palettes does one need? How many sheer nude lip glosses can one woman feasibly use? How many does one company need to make when swatches show that they look almost completely identical when worn?

And it's not just Urban Decay. It seems like nearly every company has to have their own answer to the Naked palette, and that's fine if you have a certain sense of brand loyalty or really prefer a certain eye shadow formula or something. But then I see Zoya nail polish do an entire line of pale, neutral pinks instead of the awesome greens and metallics I love to buy from them, and I start to worry. Is this the way of the future? Is the pendulum going to swing back towards a more natural look in cosmetics? Is it going to be difficult for me to find green nail polish and ridiculous sparkly glitter eyeliner and incredibly saturated eye shadow colors? Will I have to carefully hoard my current products?

I'm hoping that this is just a blip as Urban Decay looks to diversify their product line and reach a broader audience and all of their competitors release similar products to try to get a piece of the pie, and that soon they'll go back to focusing on the sort of things I really like... but I might have to go hug my old school purple velvet palette until I feel better.

(Product reviews return next week)