Not So Nude by stila

 Disclaimer:  I purchased this.

As cute as the little palettes that stila puts out are, I've resisted buying them.  I'd read various reviews that said the eye shadows were often not very pigmented and faded easily, so even they though were reasonably priced, I just never bit.  Until recently, when I finally decided the colors in the Not So Nude palette were calling to me.  So what did I think?

I took Not So Nude with me to a conference in Albuquerque last week, and I've got to say I enjoyed using it!  I love the convertible cheek/lip color Lily, to the point that I've ordered some of stila's other cream blushes.  The eye shadows are so so in quality and definitely need a bit of layering and building up to get a color impact, but then again, with nude in the title, I wasn't expecting bold color to begin with.  I like the natural but defined effect they gave my eyes, and as a bonus I was able to use Fawn as an brow filler. 

Lily gives me a nice glow and the finish is soft, not sticky at all.  My favorites and most used of the eye shadows are the flesh colored matte Buff and the soft taupe Fawn.  The matte shades in generally performed well, although there is some definite powder kick up when applying.  I was disappointed in Dolce, as it had poor pigmentation and was difficult to build up.  Barefoot looks lovely partnered with Urban Decay's now discontinued 24/7 eye pencil in 1999, as they contain similar colored shimmer bits.

Not So Nude is $20 and I used my birthday $10 Ulta coupon, making it a quite reasonable $10.  Do I feel compelled to start collecting these?  No, but I'm really glad I was able to discover how nice the convertible colors are!