L'Oreal La Palette Nude: HOT or NOT

About a month ago I picked up L'Oreal La Palette Nude in 02 Beige at Sam McCauley Pharmacy for just under €15. The palette originally came to my attention after my favourite youtuber, GlamLifeGuru posted a first impressions video on it.

My first problem with the palette is that the version (the only version sold in Ireland) is a totally different colour palette to the one she was able to buy in America.

The palette I have looks like this:

The Palette available in the States looks like this: 

I do wish that the US palette was available here also. I don't understand why the palettes in each zone have to be different. 

Here is a swatch of each shade. The top shade is swatched dry and the bottom swatch has been wet with MAC Fix+ before swatching. 

As you can see the colour pay off from each shade varies dramatically. 

LEFT: Applied Dry            RIGHT: Applied Wet

The first shade in the palette is a frosted cream colour. The colour pay off from this shade is very poor and is barely visible on camera either wet or dry. In person, it gives more of a sheen to the skin than applying any colour.

The second shade is a pearlescent gold with a peach undertone. It's a lot deeper than it looks in the palette. This is one of my favourite shades in the palette. Applying this colour wet actually sheers it out instead of intensifying the colour. This colour is a close dupe for Urban Decay Half Baked but not identical. Urban Decay Baked is a good deal more coppery than this shade. 

                L-R: Urban Decay Half Baked, Loreal Shade Dry, Loreal Shade Wet, Urban Decay Baked

The third shade is a matte cool brown. The colour pay off is poor from this shade and you really need to dig in in order to get it to swatch more opaque. It is a close colour match to Buck from the Urban Decay Naked Palette, but again it is not identical in person. 

L-R: Loreal Shade Dry, Wet, Urban Decay Buck

The fourth shade is a taupe with a silver/grey undertone. The colour pay-off is great from this shadow. It swatches creamy. Wetting this shadow intensifies the colour and makes it more creamy to apply. It is an almost identical dupe for Urban Decay Bust. 

L-R: Swatched Dry, Wet, Urban Decay Bust

The fifth shade is a shimmery, more than pearlescent lemon yellow. It's even more yellow in person than it's showing up in pictures. It's a very strange shade. I don't own anything else like it. I also don't feel like I'll ever have a use for it. If you tend to wear a lot of greens on your eyes you could probably use this colour. I'll probably depot it and give it to a friend. I think this is the only shade in the palette that I won't use at all. 

The sixth shade in the palette is a cool toned matte brown. It's slightly darker than the matte brown we discussed earlier. The quality of the matte shades in this palette leaves a lot to be desired. They come off very patchy and washed out when swatched dry and when swatched wet they are still powdery and lead to quite a bit of fall out. This shade is no different. I do not have another matte brown this dark and cool. 

The seventh shade is a slightly warmer version of the last. It's also the first matte shadow in the palette to swatch dry without being patchy. It's a good dupe for Buck from the Urban Decay Naked Palette, which means that it's also quite similar to the third shade in this palette. 

L-R: Third Shade Swatched Dry, Seventh Shade Dry, Wet, Urban Decay Buck

The eighth shade is a cool toned bronzed gold with a shimmer. It's one of my favourites in this palette and swatches beautifully. I almost always wear this wet. It intensifies the colour and makes it go on the lid nice and creamy. It's an identical dupe for Urban Decay Smog. 

L-R: Dry, Wet, Urban Decay Smog

The second to last shade in the palette is a cool toned grey/black brown. Dry, it swatches out no different than the other matte browns in the palette but as you can see, wet, the colour gets a lot darker and more intense. It is really powdery though and a nightmare as regards fallout. 

The last, and I certainly mean least, shade in the palette is a matte "black". I say black but I'd call it more grey. It's really washed out and when black shadows are a dime a dozen this one just doesn't cut the mustard. 

This palette is a bit hit and miss. While the matte shadows are a major let down,  most of the shimmers are beautiful and there are some exciting dupes for Urban Decay shadows. If you own the Naked Palette I wouldn't advise you to get this, or if you're looking to expand your collection of mattes (as I was), this isn't for you. If you don't own the Naked palette, this might be worth looking into as a more affordable option if you don't mind dealing with a few duds.

All in All I'm going to give this palette a NOT for me because I just didn't need it in my collection but for beginners out there this could be HOT.

Review: L'Oréal Paris Studioline #TXT Texture Styling Wave Creating Spray

WAVE IT.

This product claims to create texturised waves on straight hair, specifically formulated to help protect hair against heat, while leaving the hair non-heavy and non-crunchy.

As a sort of disclaimer I should probably begin this review by stating that my hair is naturally somewhere between a wave and a very messy curl when left to dry naturally. It's also very thick and can be quite stubborn to style. If I don't blowdry it my hair tends to get very matted, which leads to frizzynesss when I do manage to brush it.

I already mentioned this product in my Haul Blog Post. I bought this purely on the merits of the Volumising Spray I have from the same line. The spray is relatively cheap retailing at €4.99, which if it worked would make it a steal.

I started the process by washing my hair, adding some John Frieda Frizz Ease Serum for thick hair and by spraying the wave spray over my wet hair. I know that everyone's hair is different but I could have done with some further direction than "spray generously".

I then "half-blowdried" my hair, basically I blowdried the excess water out of my hair and styled my fringe.

I then stopped blowdrying and twisted my hair into a few topknots. The bottle says "at least two" but I have a lot of hair and I wanted fairly defined waves so I did put in a good few. I pinned them so that they would stay while I continued blowdrying my hair.

I kept blowdrying my hair for about another 10-15 minutes and then took out the topknots. At this stage the waves did look fairly defined but I couldn't leave my hair in just six curls so I had to separate them.

I then continued to blowdry my hair, while scrunching the waves upwards.

I wasn't that happy with the quality of my hair. It was really messy and not very wavy. It reminded me of the way my hair would look after I came out of the sea on holidays and left my hair dry naturally. It wasn't a very good look for me and the only place I would actually wear my hair like that would be on holidays, where my hair would look like that anyway.

I used my Remington Silk Curling Wand to make the waves more defined. I took some pictures to show how it looked along the way, and this is the finished look.

The look did take quite a bit of time to do and it would have been faster to just use my curling wand in the first place. 

I followed the instructions on the back of the bottle exactly. The bottle claims to leave your hair irresistibly soft to the touch, non-crunchy and non-heavy. I did find my hair a bit sticky and crunchy afterwards to be honest.

In writing this review I felt that I should give a balanced and well researched view so I looked online at how other people found the spray. 

The reviews in general that I found were poor enough, however I did find this article with some pictures from the press release of the product. My hair looked nothing like that unfortunately. 

I also found a tutorial from L'Oréal Paris on how to use it, which was totally different from the instructions printed on the back of the bottle. 

Maybe if you followed these instructions you would have a better result from the spray, but for now from me, its a thumbs down.