How many eyeshadow palettes is too many? Sorry, rhetorical question. As we spend the majority of our time in face masks this season, there’s no better beauty statement than to play up your most expressive features: your eyes. Chocolate, chestnut, russet, hazel, blue—whatever the eye colour—these universally flattering eyeshadow palettes get our pick for adding that extra sparkle to your peepers.
Yes, after exhaustive swatching, we’ve found these eyeshadow palettes to be the pick of this season’s crop, appreciated for their silken textures, incredible lustre and colour pay-off. They’re long-wearing in their own right but to really help these shadows stay put throughout the heat and humidity of day, you’ll need an eye primer from the likes of Laura Mercier or Urban Decay’s Setting Spray to really help lock the shadows in place.
1. The essential palette
Formulated with crushed pearls and crystals, Natasha Denona’s palette of silken textures for easy blending and dazzling colour payoff is an investment that’s worth every penny. The collection features 15 new cool, neutral, and warm hues with matte, metallic, and iridescent finishes. And if you’re an eyeshadow noob—or just experiencing analysis paralysis at the overwhelming thought of 15 shadows and so little real estate where your eyes are concerned—each user-friendly eyeshadow comes labelled with recommended application spots such as ‘centre eye lid’ and ‘inner corner’ or ‘crease’ for seamless transitioning between shades.
2. The luxe palette
This season, Tom Ford Beauty offers a quad of versatile, multi-dimensional eyeshadows in mercurial, cool-toned hues encased in a futuristic chrome case. Expect buttery-smooth champagne and nude tone shadows, offset by burnished bronze, and a deep plum shade which allows you to play up the intensity of colour in a series of light strokes. It glides across lids like a dream, and we love that it offers the right amount of luminosity and smoulder without obvious metallic glitter accents—then again, it’s Tom Ford, so opulent textures and a sophisticated finish are a given. Just 100 pieces of this exclusive palette exists in Singapore—and they’re going like hotcakes—so get your hands on this limited edition holiday palette while stocks lasts.
3. The day-to-date palette
If you’re not ready to leave your wheelhouse of nude and neutral eyeshadows, fret not. For mesmerising, supermodel-inspired matte eyes, Charlotte Tilbury offers three cool, caramel brown shades, complemented with three warm bronze tones for universally-flattering, smokey eye realness.
“Darlings, matte textures can crumble or drop but these light as air velvet mattes are finely milled and blended with oils and waxes for a super emollient, buildable and forgiving texture that delivers long-lasting pigment without creasing or patchiness. It’s a smoothing, contouring smokey eye palette for supermodel inspired nude-toned eyes to hypnotise!” shares make-up artist and namesake founder, Charlotte Tilbury.
4. The soft glam palette
For eyes with oomph, these berry and plum-toned shades in this eight-shade eyeshadow palette will do the trick. Go from matte to shimmer with this palette that offers six cult shades from Anastasia Beverly Hill’s Original Soft Glam Palette, and two from the iconic Norvina palette. The powders themselves are fully pigmented, highly blendable, with impressive colour payoff.
5. The romantic palette
It’s a fact: rose and purple eyeshadows amp up brown eyes. To remix the iconic smoky eye in a wash of rose pink hues, Huda’s Haze Obsessions in Sand offers nine ultra femme shades. Inspired by the dreamy hues of Arizona’s Antelope Canyon, tones go from dusty pinks to terracotta and earthy berry metallics. We love the foil shadow accents as an inner eye highlight, or as a topper to really draw focus to the mid-eye. This palette is the perfect way to create a delicate ombré look that makes your eyes shine.
