The Deeper Hues Thread (Swatches, Color Matching, etc.)

[ElleElleG]

*new group located here: Deeper Shades

Have a deeper hue and want to know how a product might look on your skin tone?  This is the place for you!

Several ladies expressed interest in having a BIC group dedicated to WOC.  Such a group would serve as a central reference point for swatches, color matching and the like, which can often be difficult to find.  While I have no idea whether such a group will ever be created I figured it would be nice to at least have a thread.

It should go without saying, but  **Ladies (and gents) of all hues are more than welcome **

💋💋💋

[WinglessOne]

Tagging @danielledanielle who wanted to see my comparisons. 

PAT McGRATH LABS MOTHERSHIP XII Eyeshadow Palette: Petalmorphosis vs. Mothership II Sublime 

I wonder how the reformulated Motherships will perform, and how close to the originals their shades will be.

Now that all the pre-Moonlit Seduction Motherships are being reformulated to replace the “special” baked Blitz/Astral/VR shades (😭), I thought it’d be fun to compare the original version of Pat’s only other greenish Mothership to Petalmorphosis, the newest Mothership which has no baked shades. When I first pulled Sublime off my shelf, I thought “Sublime has no purples and Blitz Emerald’s on a black base, so it can’t be all that similar to Petalmorphosis aside from the rose shade in both palettes.” Then I swatched a few shades for comparison and you know what… 

Finishes are obviously different between the palettes, but the overall color story (minus purples) ain’t too far off.

I wasn’t gonna explain each shade’s finish & feel; I figured I’d let those swatches speak for themselves. But I gotta say I’d forgotten how creamy Iconic is. That shade feels like a cream shadow. I’ll also say Astral Sunset Splendor has a very subtle gold flip. Looking at it beside VR Nectar, one shade clearly outdoes the other in shine and shift. But Divine Dawn and Blitz Bronze Supernova are gorgeous in person. 

The shiny greens in both palettes are very different, as expected. In fact, first time I saw the new palette’s green, I immediately thought of Danessa Myricks Beauty Colorfix - Multi-Use Eye, Cheek & Lip Waterproof Liquid Pigment Evergreen. Let’s compare ‘em: 

That Evergreen green > blue > violet shift though.

I didn’t pull any greens from Danessa’s Lightwork palettes because I’m pretty sure those are all very color-shifty, unlike Blitz Radiant Rhapsody. The new blitz green does have a bit of a blue shimmer flip, but it’s kinda subtle. 

I used a $100 Rouge Reward to get Petalmorphosis and have no regrets about that. Those shadows swatch beautifully and really, I’m just happy to see Pat’s brand release a Mothership that’s not 80+% pink/rose for the first time since Midnight Sun. I’ll miss the baked shades going forward, though I do still love Mothership IV Decadence which doesn’t contain any. I said elsewhere that if Pat’s brand wanted to do a super crazy cash grab, they could re-release a very limited (small) batch of Decadence palettes but make all 10 shades the baked Blitz, Astral, and/or VR formulas. I’d buy that. 😅

Anyone who wants more shifty duo/multichrome shades is better off looking at Danessa Myricks’s palettes and Colorfix shades, or smaller indie brands. I love shifty shades, but I’m also happy to have this new Mothership.  

[danielledanielle]

@WinglessOne, thank you for choosing PMG to compare to PMG. This is great.

Logically, I should not get this palette.  But, I'm liking the non green shades even more so now.  Rouge Reward seems to be the way to go, since it's yet to pop up elsewhere.

[WinglessOne]

@danielledanielle  I almost also pulled out III Subversive to compare purples, but that’s probably the only similarity between it and XII. Might still do that next time I’m in the swatch comparison zone. 😂

I can see getting lots of use outta Petalmorphosis. For starters, it’s got perhaps more one-and-done options than any other Mothership. Seems like this palette was the brand’s specific answer to “must be user-friendly, but also contain enough shiny sparkly things to win over Pat’s longtime fans without scaring away the masses.” I’ll withhold final judgment til I’ve spent a week or so using the palette, but I dunno, maybe they’ve succeeded—even without the baked shades. 

BTW, Nordstrom has Petalmorphosis now. Ulta still doesn’t. 

[Titian06]

Thank you for these amazing swatches and your oh-so knowledgeable comments, @WinglessOne ! 💖💖💖

[danielledanielle]

Dropping off empties, was hoping to see the new Patrick Ta shades in store

PATRICK TA Major Headlines Double-Take Crème & Powder Blush Duo 

 

As always, it got messy.  I think I remembered most of them.  Also the brush isn't a revamp, there's a smaller, newer blush brush : PATRICK TA Dual Ended Precision Blush Brush 

Going from top right to left (fist 👊🏽 to wrist 🖐🏽

Left me on red
She's wanted
She knows who she is
She goes to the gym
She's seductive

Mid wrist
Not too much
She's blushing

She's that girl far left

She's Blushing, Not Too much, She goes to the gym look pretty similar on me 🤔

I was mainly interested in She Knows Who She is and Left me on Red

Swatched and blended out

The furthest left is left me on red, the blended search near my fingers is She Knows .  She Knows goes berry pink, but like like a welt or bruise for me

Also we did she's wanted to compare vs She Knows.  She's wanted goes plum, but bruisy still.

 

 

 

[danielledanielle]

PATRICK TA Major Dimension Eye Illusion Eyeshadow Duoin store lighting

Top of wrist Talk to my team

Mid wrist , We Need Better Lighting and We're Still At the Club

Do you know who I am and I'm with her, sorry for DYKWIA being a bit cut off

 for comparison, left to right, indoor fluorescent lighting

Fenty Fair Bomb in Trophy Wife, Fenty Beauty by Rihanna Fenty Beauty X Arcane – Diamond Bomb All-Over Diamond Veil Golden Rul'r and Fenty Diamond in Royal Icing

Also Fenty Beauty by Rihanna Fenty Beauty X Arcane – Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer Kaboom vs Major Flex in daylight

Kaboom is at the top

 

[PrettyPaint]

@danielledanielle Thanks for the swatches! I'm tempted by the Patrick Ta, but I haven't decided yet. That Fenty gloss looks fun! 

[WinglessOne]

Swatches of the 2 purple palettes I bought this month, starting with an indie brand. 

1st purple palette: Ensley Reign Cold Moon 

[ UPDATE April 2025: after learning about this brand founder’s “questionable” (🙄) views on things, I cannot recommend any of their products and won’t buy from them again. I’m still trying to decide what to do with this palette… it’s hard for me to use it without feeling icky about it. I might keep 1 or 2 shades and offload the rest, if I find someone who can mentally separate the product from the brand founder. ] 

Left: mattes only; all swatches done with a dry shader brush instead of fingers. Middle & right: 2 angles of all the not-mattes; swatches done with dry fingers.

I wanted natural daylight for swatch photos to do proper justice to all those very sparkly shimmers. But I kept missing the best sunlight so, eh, LED simulated daylight indoors will have to do. This palette has a few holochrome shades; they’re the ones that contain holo shimmer. In the not-matte section above, the 5th swatch from my wrist is the shade (Saturnalia) that made me NEED this palette. If it was available as a single, I’d have happily bought it. But I am glad I bought the entire palette: the mattes are a very pretty cool toned color story, and the rest of the shimmers are beautiful in person. 

The mattes aren’t chalky dry, but I did get a lot of kick-up while brush-swatching them. I haven’t used this palette on my eyes yet; hopefully I won’t get fallout with the mattes. Some of the shimmers have a loose flaky texture very similar to Clionadh’s multichrome shadows. 

A few friends asked me to compare Cold Moon’s mattes to NATASHA DENONA I Need a Nude Eyeshadow Palette. I knew Cold Moon was the cooler toned palette, but seeing it next to INAN really shows just how neutral toned (eh, neutral-to-warm toned) that ND palette is. So I only swatched 2 ND shades for comparison. Nothing else in that palette comes close enough to Cold Moon’s colors. 

Even if Cold Moon’s printed case colors weren’t there to distract my eyes, that palette would still look cool toned compared to INAN.I still can’t get over how deep Stone is on my skin tone vs. how it looks in the pan. 😄 Stone is the shade that convinced me to try INAN after I swatched a tester in-store.

2nd purple palette: NATASHA DENONA Roxa Eyeshadow Palette 

Cross-posting photos from theOtherworldly October Hauls 2024 💜🔮 thread: how about a few more swatches of Roxa? I’m interested to see how this palette swatched on skin tones deeper than mine, actually—so hopefully more of you will post swatches here. *gentle nudge* 

My fingers must’ve still been slightly damp when I swatched some of the mattes. This is one of the reasons I used to always swatch mattes with a brush instead of my fingers, and I should go back to doing that.

First time I saw the “leaked” Roxa promo photos, I thought “that is Love 2.0.” 😂 I don’t have NATASHA DENONA Love Eyeshadow Palette 0.65 oz/ 19.25 g because I already had Lila, but now I can tell Roxa’s cooler toned and more purple than Love. I did do a quick and dirty “palette vibe” comparison of Roxa and its inspiration, Lila: 

Left column: 4 Roxa shades. Right column: 4 Lila shades. The first shade in both columns is a duochrome.

Lila is one of my favorite palettes by anyone, so I expect to thoroughly enjoy using Roxa. I’m a big fan of purple palettes anyway, and Natasha’s new Silky Matte formula swatched very nicely for me. 

Tangent: I think Lila is still available to buy direct from Natasha Denona. I always recommend that palette, buuut if you happen to have Pat McGrath’s La Vie en Rose MTHRSHP (another of my favorite palettes) then you kinda already have a mini Lila: 

All La Vie en Rose is missing is a brown nude. 😄

[ElleElleG]

Thanks for the swatches @WinglessOne !!  Roxa is lovely but I haven't used Lila in ages so I can't justify getting another purple heavy palette. Catch me when it hits clearance 😉

[WinglessOne]

@ElleElleG  I wasn’t going to buy Roxa (at least not right away), but then I saw Natasha’s swatches and learned more about her new Silky Matte formula for all the purple mattes, so… I waited for Ulta to get Roxa so I could use some of my Ulta points. (I paid $0 OOP for it.) Psh, you can never have too many purples! 🙃 Really though, you’re more disciplined than I am. 

[CynthieLu]

This was incredibly satisfying to see @WinglessOne thank you for all the swatches and comparisons. 🙏🙏

I don't own any of the ND's you've swatched except for I Need A Nude. You've satisfied a huge curiosity for me. 😻 They look fantastic, even Lila. I think I would purchase one of these if they had or where still available here.

I know one day I'll order from ND direct but not yet. 😉

All your new palettes are looking beautiful! 💜

[WinglessOne]

@CynthieLu  Glad I could help! I’m still surprised ND left Canada and hasn’t since been carried by any retailers there. You might need to go on a Sephora or Ulta run if you ever visit the US. 😉 I know a Canadian who plans to have ND ship 2 palettes (not available at Ulta/Sephora) to her hotel room during her California vacation. 😂

If I ever pan Lila and it’s still available for purchase, I’ll buy it again. That’s how much I love Lila. Roxa might also reach that status after I’ve used it a few times. 

[CynthieLu]

I love that idea. Your friend, she's on to something.😀 @WinglessOne If I ever end up states side there are so many things I'm sure i'd buy right away or do what your friends doing and ship them to where I would be staying.  But my wallet is very happy I've been cut off, for now at least. 😉

I think ND would have so many more sales if she came back here to 🍁 and I figure that they have to know that? I still hold out hope she'll be back. 

I hope you share with us how you find Roxy after you've had time to experiment with it. 💜 

[makeitup305]

Great swatches @WinglessOne ! I’m glad you are enjoying the ER palette. I do find that their mattes are on the more powdery side. I honestly just buy them for the shimmers and I can make the mattes work lol Did you see their new Underland palette? It’s a little too deep and grungy for my current style but it looks really cool.

[WinglessOne]

Thanks @makeitup305 ! When I look at other ER palettes, I’m definitely more drawn to shimmers than mattes. Mostly because I already have most of the matte shades in those palettes, or the shades look like they won’t play nice with my skin tone. Harvest Moon, for instance: too many of those mattes would end up looking muddy on me. I’m glad the product page includes some swatch photos on a deep skin tone; my eyes can adjust those photos to my particular under/overtones, and I know I wouldn’t get much meaningful use out of those matte colors. The shimmers are lovely but in this palette’s case, I’m not willing to pay full palette price just for them. 

The Underland palette, on the other hand… It’s got some basic matte shades, and I’m not sure the deep purple will pop much on my skin tone. But it also has an olive green matte, and that’s a matte shade I don’t have much of in other palettes or singles. And the shimmers are hard to resist. Underland will probably find its way to my home soon. 😂 And then there’s the Flourish palette, which I almost bought instead of Cold Moon and will definitely pick up at some point. And you know, I should really blame thank you for all of this 🤣 —you and your Cold Moon swatches a while back. That was some A+ enabling inspiration you did! 

[makeitup305]

@WinglessOne the shimmers in that palette definitely reminded me of you. I love those deep vampy shades but just don't reach for them as often right now so I'm holding back. I'm loving that red shadow, though.

P.S. You're welcome ? 

[danielledanielle]

I enjoyed the swatch off @WinglessOne .  Yeah, Natasha's palettes are always a tad warm, even if cool.  Sometimes this is good (for me), because they don't come off dusty/chalky.  Cold Moon looks beautiful, I can see why they wanted a comparison, but it's different.  It's interesting you bring up a Pat palette.  I got vibes of Risque Rose using Roxa yesterday..

It's near impossible to not have a dupe/similar color story to something 🤷🏽‍♀️🤦🏽‍♀️, thought I had avoided this 😂

[WinglessOne]

@danielledanielle  “I got vibes of Risque Rose using Roxa yesterday.” Now see, I can’t read that without needing to comparison-swatch all of the things to see for myself. 😅 Here’s Pat McGrath’s Risqué Rose quad and La Vie en Rose 6-pan with similar shades from Natasha Denona’s Lila (left out Roxa because my arms are too short for that, plus I already posted a full set of swatches of that palette): 

Finger swatches taken in LED simulated daylight. Some of these shades are duochromes which may be hard to detect in these photos.

There’s also Mini Lila and other purple palettes by Natasha, Viseart, etc… but nah, I’m done swatching for the night. 🫠 I like doing these comparisons because they help me decide which pans or small palettes to pack for travel. They also inspire me to mix certain palettes for looks. Theoretically, these comparisons should help me not buy so many palettes in very similar color stories, but I know that won’t always happen. Hopefully they do help other folks with that, though. I mean, I LOVE Lila and think everyone should buy it (well, everyone who enjoys purples and magentas) but you know, why drop USD $129 if you happen to already have something similar—even if it contains fewer pans—and you’re trying to cut your beauty spending overall? 

And yeah, Natasha seems to have issues with cool toned eyeshadows. 😂 Eh, I do think some people see neutral tones as “too warm” simply because they’re not cool tones. (I see/hear people say that often about neutral pink. To them, any pink that’s not blue-leaning is warm.) But I do get that neutral tones don’t play nice with some skin under/overtones, and Natasha’s palettes are generally neutral and/or warm toned. Sometimes there’s a mix of tones, like in her 28s. And then there’s Xenon, which scares some people but you know what, it ain’t warm toned. (I happen to like Xenon a lot.) 

[danielledanielle]

NATASHA DENONA Roxa Eyeshadow Palette 

Swatches are in indoor fluorescent lighting

 

Maybe I'll add the names later, but swatches are from top row to middle row to bottom row, all towards the left

[missjeanie]

@danielledanielle I like these... They're colour but not tooooo much colour.  What do you think?  Have you tested out any looks yet?