Aeris Holiday Palette by Natasha Denona

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

I've been curious about Natasha Denona eyeshadows for quite a while, but the exorbitant prices for her palettes has kept me from trying them.  Until now, when the 2017 holiday 5-shadow palettes went on sale at Sephora ($34) last week.

I picked up the warm-toned with a pop of turquoise Aeris, and fortunately it arrived to me intact and pristine.  I say that, as there were lots of comments on Sephora's site that indicated many people received shattered shadows, so apparently these are a bit on the fragile side.  It no doubt does not help that Sepora's idea of packing is to put crumpled paper on top of the box contents....

So many people have raved about the quality of Natasha Denonna shadows, and I've got to say that the matte Burnt Terracotta may be the most pigmented yet easy to work with matte shadow I've tried to date.  Ice Blue is another standout with it's shimmery yet color packed goodness, and Nude gives a high-impact shine that is quite lovely.  Both Red Bronze and Peach Bronze feel more dry and crumbly to the touch, and are what I would consider to be lid toppers over other colors.  They are more sheer and take multiple passes with a finger to build up, but do yield very nice eye looks.

The shelf life of this palette is 12 months, and I have seen reviews that indicate Natasha Denona's shadow formula does go bad and not perform as well once they hit a certain age, which again makes me not want to invest in the larger palettes.  However, the colors and finishes in Aeris, combined with the sale price, makes me happy to have this in my collection.  Surprisingly, I was unable to dupe any of the colors, with the closest contender being Tajin from the limited edition Urban Decay Kaleidoscope palette.  Tajin is a great shadow as well, but Burnt Terracotta is definitely smoother and more pigmented in comparison.

Below I'm wearing Nude and Ice Blue, with Urban Decay's 24/7 eyeliner in Flipside (discontinued) in the water line.  I wore bareMineral's 5-in-1 cream shadow in Candlelit Peach as the base.

In this look I'm wearing Red Bronze, Burnt Terracotta, and Peach Bronze with the yellow shadow Mischief from Colourpop's Yes Please palette (review here).  The eyeliner is Urban Decay's Anatomy from the limited edition Jean-Michel Basquiat collection.  Yes Please is supposed to be a dupe for Natasha Denona's Sunset palette, so there is that...and in another post I'll be showing a compilation of Colourpop shadows from multiple palettes.