The mother of all neutral palettes, the Shu Uemura Shu:Palette (C$105) contains 16 shades of neutrals, from the lightest bone shade to highlight to the darkest matte black shade to line, designed for Asian skintones in mind. The Shu:Palette contains 16 full sized Shu Uemura eyeshadows, including (from left to right, top row then bottom row; where M is matte, P is pearl, IR is iridescent, ME is metallic, and G is glitter):

G Beige 821, M Soft Beige 814, ME Light Beige 825, ME Medium Brown 856, M Soft Brown 851, ME Medium Brown 862, IR Light Beige811, and IR Dark Blue 690

M Light Beige 813, P Soft Beige 823, S Light Beight 815, P Light Beige 822, P Medium Brown 875, M Dark Brown 895, ME Medium Olive 471, and M Black 990





Of the 16 shades, I generally like about 80% of them. The quality on all of these are great, as they’re smooth, very easy to apply, and mostly adhere well to skin. Not all of them pack the punch in terms of pigmentation though, which is understandable because some of them are more subtle highlight shades. The ME shades applied the smoothest and had the strongest pigmentation, and were by far my favourite. They weren’t glittery metallics either, but smoother, almost like molten metal.

My favourite shades in this palette were ME Light Beige 825 (3rd from left on top), ME Medium Brown (4th from left on top), M Soft Brown 851 (4th from right on top), P Medium Brown 875 (4th from right on bottom), and M Medium Brown 895 (third from right on bottom). These applied all incredibly smooth, pigmented, and were just a delight to use. The most disappointing shades were G Beige 821 (first from left on top), it’s sheer, somewhat glittery, and powdery – I had a hard time getting this shade to stick; M Soft Beige 814 (2nd from left on top), it was too powdery; P Light Beige 822 (fourth from left on bottom), it was too sheer but would make a great inner corner highlight colour; and M Black 990 (first from right on bottom) , it was a little bit patchy when swatched and had to be blended out significantly.

Because these shades were curated specifically with Asian skintones in mind, they don’t lean too cool or too warm in tone – most of them being neutral – as such, this palette would work great for any skin tone, whether you have Asian skin tone or not. Because of the wide range of colours, this palette is truly versatile and can be brought along with you on your travels or safely kept on your vanity.

In terms of packaging, it is housed in sleek, long rectangular case and comes with a large mirror. It also comes with a full size, double-ended eyeshadow brush designed specificially for this palette. Made with synthetic bristles, it has a flat wide end for applying and blending on the entire eyelid, and a thinner, smaller end to define the eye frame. While sleek, the packaging is also the biggest downside. While I don’t mind that the palette is quite large, I did find that each eyeshadow pan were not very well glued into its slot; many of them were wobbling a lot while I was swatching these, which made me question how safe it would be to take this on a trip with me.







While at first glance, the Shu:Palette looks like a hefty investment, but when you break it down, it’s actually very good value. You get 16 full size eyeshadows in this palette, along with a full size brush. Shu Uemura eyeshadows are C$19 for each refill, plus their synthetic eye brush is around C$45, and a refill quad is C$17 to house the eyeshadow in. If you just take into consideration the cost of the eyeshadows at full size, it totals to C$304, tack on the brush and you get C$349 in value on a C$105 product. Breaking down the cost of each eyeshadow in the palette, each shade costs approximately $6.56, which is cheaper than some drugstore eyeshadows even.

If you don’t already have a neutral palette that you love and are loyal to (which is rare because there have been so many of them out recently), I’d definitely recommend checking out the Shu:Palette. It is available online only, and just for a limited time.

See swatches and the look I created with this palette…

Swatches



















The look

On my eyes, wearing:

M Soft Beige 814 as an all-over wash of colour;

ME Medium Brown on my whole eyelid;

P Light Beige 422 in my inner corner to highlight; and

M Dark Brown 895 to line my top lash line, blended upwards, and on the outer 2/3 of my bottom lash line.











Some application tips from Shu Uemura:





