Hi my name is Smita and I’m a makeup junkie. After a successful no-(beauty)-buy-August, I succumbed to temptation and bought, among other things, the Huda Beauty Rose Gold palette. With buttery rose and gold metallic shadows and beautiful burgundy shades it was impossible to resist. It was love at first sight – with every Instagram post, my resolve grew weaker. The swatches only confirmed what I had known when I first saw it, I wanted needed it.
I stalked Hudda Kattan on every one of her social media channels so I wouldn’t miss out on this limited edition palette. Hudda Kattan, the creator of the Huda Beauty Beauty Rose Gold, is one of the first YouTuber/bloggers and has a cult following around the world. Born and raised in America she moved to Dubai to set up Huda Beauty which is now synonymous with her range of false eyelashes and matte lipsticks.
When I finally received the palette, I was so excited! Given its rose gold theme, the palette comes with a range of pinks and burgundy shadows in matte as well as metallic textures. This is also why it has been compared to the Violet Voss Holy Grail and the Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance palettes. But since I didn’t have either, it made perfect sense to get this one.
As promised, the foil shadows are buttery soft and have amazing pay off when used with your fingers. However, things can get messy with that method, so I prefer to use a brush and pack on the product after I’ve applied a smidge of primer – you don’t really need one, but it helps.
The matte shadows – there’s 10 of them – are talc-free and are absolutely matte so you have to make sure to adequately prep the skin around your eyes so that they don’t settle into fine lines. There’s also two pearlised shadows (Angelic and Moondust) that are absolutely gorgeous and can double up as highlighter.
Finally, what drew me to this palette was the balance of the shades. Even though it is a “rose gold palette”, it has just enough of the right shades of brown – reddish, tan and brown – that work well as transition shadows in the crease, or even by themselves when you want to create a natural look. There’s also a grey, a smokey bronze and most importantly black – which saves me the trouble of carrying a separate black or deeper bronze shadows. All these shadows, together in one palette, mean I can actually travel with just this one palette and be able to create multiple everyday/subtle well as dramatic, night out looks. When talking about how she chose the shadows for this palette, Hudda mentioned she wanted it to contain all the shades she couldn’t live without and wanted to take everywhere with her, and she has managed to do that rather successfully.
So what is it about this palette that bothers me?
When my palette arrived in the mail, I was so excited I couldn’t wait to open it. But what emerged after I had torn off the FedEx packaging and bubble wrap was a cardboard box with 18 shadows. Keep in mind I paid US$65 (since then the price has been raised to US$68) for this. Somehow, it spoils the whole experience. When I think of the metallic shadows, they seem so luxe and rich – packaging them in cardboard with a transparent plastic cover makes it looks like a toy palette. It also makes me rethink my stance on travelling with it – imagine I bubble wrap all my other plastic packaging – I’m going to have to find a box for this. Then bubble wrap it.
Aside from the packaging being a major disappointment, I still think it is a versatile palette, especially if you like shimmery shadows and berry, burgundy tones. I’ve been using the palette since I’ve gotten it and the shadows are easy to blend, don’t crease and stay true to colour the entire day. I just have to find a nice enough box for them.
P.S: All images were taken in daylight. My hands are about NC42.
THE BEAUTY DESK 
The packaging is such a shame.
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