Shu:Palette Blushing Beige

Happy Monday!!  We’re halfway through July and wedding season should be in full strength. Today’s post made me think of blushing brides, and whilst I am anything but, I still think it is a nice imagery for what the latest Shu:Palette Blushing Beige has to offer.

In some ways, the composition of shades along the brown-purple theme reminds me of Laura Mercier’s Artist Palette [reviewed here], but Blushing Beige has much greater range of shade intensity and finishes, and also feels cooler-toned in general.  And personally speaking, Shu Uemura’s eyeshadows are more interesting to me when you consider the gorgeous micro-shimmers as you will soon see in the swatches below!  But first, let’s take a closer look at this palette…

Shu:Palette Blushing Beige consists of 16 full-sized eyeshadows, each consisting 1.4gm of product, in 5 different finishes.  There is a good choice of soft satin base shades, matte darkening shades, metallic/pearl focus shades, and iridescent accent shades.

There is also a functional full-sized dual-ended brush included which has a wide flattened end for laying down color and a narrow end for lining and more precise work.  Unfortunately, the bristles do not feel like natural hair nor are they the softest synthetics I have encountered, but they do their job well and since it is sleek and does not take up too much space, is good to have on the go.

Here is the palette in its full glory.  And swatches for the top row are as follows:

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From left to right, the shades are:

• *Iridescent white that shows up as a pale pink/violet on my skin.  It has a sheer base that makes this perfect for layering.
• Very chalky light pink that looks pink in the pan but swatches white on my skin.  This shade is so soft it kicks up in the palette when swatched, but applies incredibly smoothly as a base shade and does not have any fallout.
• Light warm-toned pink with a metallic finish.  This shade is fully opaque and has good intensity making it perfect for accents like inner corners.
• *Light-medium ballet pink with a satin finish.  This shade shows up well without pulling too chalky.
• Medium peach pink with a strong metallic finish
• Medium copper with a soft metallic finish.  I have a terrible soft spot for shades like these!!
• Medium-dark dove-grey with a strong purple hue.  This has a matte finish, and applies slightly sheer but is buildable.
• Dark sooty purple with a matte finish.  This shade is much smoother than it appears in the swatch above, and is a nice deepening shade for smokey eyes!

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The shades on the bottom row are as follows:

• *Shimmery pale champagne with a translucent base.  This layers well with the other shades for a lovely pop.
• Pale soft beige with a soft matte finish.  Another of those buttery smooth shades, dust it all over as a base or brow bone highlight.
• Light coral pink with a pearlescent finish.  Easy, wearable all-over shade!
• This is the odd colour that has me scratching my head.  It looks brown in the pan and is described as “medium beige” by Shu  Uemura, but it swatches like a light dove-grey on me!  It has very weak pigmentation and took several swipes in order to get to this level of intensity, but is workable.
• Medium coral with a metallic finish.  Again, soft spot… so easy to wear!
• Medium-dark warm-toned brown with a satin finish and lots of gold and light pink micro-shimmers
• Dark plummy brown with a satin finish and a generous sprinkling of gold and purple micro-shimmers
• *Dark sooty purple with a soft matte finish and violet micro-shimmers

It is hard to capture the full beauty of the finishes with a long row of swatches, so here is a close-up on the 4 shades on the bottom left of the palette that got my heart racing as I was swatching them!  If there was a quad with these 4 shades, I’ll grab them in an instant!  Unfortunately, the shades denoted with (*) at the beginning of their descriptions are unique to this Shu:Palette Blushing Beige and are not sold singly.  The good news is, all the other 12 shades are available for individual purchase.

I believe there are many possible ways to wear this palette, and I would like to show you 2 looks here today.

Just playing with the browns in this palette, I applied the medium-dark metallic brown (bottom row of palette, 3rd from the right) along the lower half of my lid past my natural fold.  Thereafter, I layered on the medium copper (top row, 3rd from the right) up to the crease.  Added a dash of light metallic pink (top row, 3rd from the left) in the center of my lid, and defined my outer corner with some black liner smudged out.

Here’s the full look in context:

For the next look, I wanted to create a more dramatic smokey eye…

I actually layered so many shades from the palette that I lost track!  The key focus is the dark sooty purple with violet micro-shimmers (bottom extreme right of palette).  I also used the dove grey (top row, 2nd from the right) and dark purple (top extreme right), and shimmery pale champagne (bottom extreme left) on the middle of the lid and inner corners.

The shimmers lend a duality to the look, and photographs much less intense from a distance than in a closeup.  I’m very fond of Shu Uemura eyeshadows as their quality is top notch, and pricing-wise it is much more affordable than other high end brands.  Shu:Palette Blushing Beige retails for SGD170 here, which is a steal considering Shu Uemura prices each eyeshadow at SGD25 which works out to SGD400 for 16 shades.  This is limited edition of course, so check it out in stores now!

_{This post featured a product that was temporarily on loan from Shu Uemura Singapore.  All opinions expressed here are my own honest, unbiased views.}