This spring, Shu Uemura will introduce Shu:Palette (Edition 1), an eyeshadow compact with 16 neutral colours.
Comprising existing shades, it doesn’t have a single limited-edition hue. That said, the choice of colours—albeit a tad tired—is complementary and undeniably useful for natural to smokey eye looks. They aren’t soul-stirring but I appreciate the composition of different textures to give dimension. It’s Urban Decay Naked all over again but with fewer shimmery shades.
The swatches are named according to their placement in the palette; just picture my arm rotated to the left! ;)
Top row, from left to right: Shu Uemura Pressed Eye Shadows in G Beige 821, M Soft Beige 814, ME Light Beige 825, ME Medium Brown 856, M Soft Brown 851, Medium Brown 862, IR Light Beige 811, IR Dark Blue 690
Bottom row, from left to right: Shu Uemura Pressed Eye Shadows in M Light Beige 813, P Soft Beige 823, S Light Beige 815, P Light Beige 822, P Medium Brown 875, M Dark Brown 895, ME Medium Olive 471, M Black 990
The Shu Uemura eyeshadow code, for your reference:
G: glitter
IR: Iridescent
M: matte
ME: metallic
P: pearl
S: shimmer
As with the regular eye colours in their permanent range, these are made in Korea. Do note that the shadows aren’t easily removable from this ready-made palette – you’ll have to pry them out if you’d like to replace them.
The compact comes with a dual-ended synthetic brush that’s quite functional. Its synthetic make is unusual, given Shu’s fame for natural-fibre brushes…but necessary, for the brand to market this palette in China – apparently it would take forever for the authorities to approve the palette for sale if it held a natural-hair brush. I’m not sure if the brush is manufactured in Korea or Japan, though I’m fairly certain it’s not made in China.
At S$160 for 16 colours, you’re paying S$10 for each full-sized pan, minus the cost of the palette and the brush. Shu Uemura eyeshadow refills are S$22 here, so you’ll be saving close to S$200! If I didn’t already have several of the shades, I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase it.
The first of its kind, the brand plans to release a similar artist palette each year from now. I hope that the future palette editions would offer rainbow selections. ;)
In Singapore, this limited-edition palette will be available from March 2015.
