Hi lovelies! How are you doing? I'm slowly trying to get on the routine again and to take also my blog back on the track of posting more frequently. I don't know if I'll make it because as I've already mentioned, my nails are in a quite poor shape. That's why I'm posting today about the thing I love the most cosmetic wise after nail polish and it is makeup sets!! (well highlighters is a close runner too, lol).
Today is all about a wonderful NYX palette that came out last year sometime around spring, and it's called "Be free".


The palette, made in a sturdy black plastic case (why haven't I a picture of the case? still wondering), has a wide mirror and comes with 25 eyeshadows,  and a pull out drawer with three blushes and 7 lip glosses. It also includes a small double ended sponge applicator, a mini lipbrush and a tiny bitty blush brush which I doubt would ever work to apply any kind of blush, so you know. I think it's a very good quality palette! You can check some looks I've done using this palette here and here.



The eyeshadows are screaming spring to me. I guess is a pretty cool toned range of colours, which is so unusual for me, but I like this a lot for spring, specially because I'm usually not tanned until the end of August, lol. Also many of my spring clothes are in this colours, and I like to coordinate (not match) makeup and outfits, do you do that too?


The blushes are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! It is so rare for a combined palette to have such great quality blushes. I would have payed the 20 CHF only for one of this blushes!
The lipglosses are not bad, but you know, a lipgloss like this can hardly be reapply during the day unless you carry the palette with you so that is a disadvantage.
I started swatching the eyeshadows by column instead of rows, hope you don't mind. I started with the colums on the right and went one by one to the left. The shades have no individual names which I dislike about NYX. All the swatches are done on bare skin without any kind of primer.


First column is about teal and turquoise. You can see by yourselves my skin was quite dry, so the swatches are not the greatest :S I apologize. Starting from left to right, the picture above shows:
- a dark matte greenish-cement gray:
- a shimmery muted teal
- a medium cement gray leaning to green
- a gorgeous pearly turquoise with shimmer
- a quite fair pearly peach
The too matte shades are less pygmented than expected, but should work with a primer, the three shimmery are quite nice! the turquoise and the peach shade stand out.


Second column, again from left to right:
-a matte black (don't know why it sheens here, it is matte)
- a light shimmery taupe
- a matte middle brown shade (warmer than the others)
- a matte mauve
- a very light pink, also matte
The middle shades are nicely pygmented, soft on application and very blendable. The black shade, it's sheer indeed and it takes a little work to get it opaque, but it is certainly longlasting, though I prefer black shades that are perfectly opaque.The fair pink is a less pygmented than the rest and will need a prime just to show.


Third column is my favourite colour wise, but sadly the less pygmented.
- a midtone pearly blue
- a gorgeous pearly pink (I like to call this shade orchid)
- a light matte indigo
- a red tone matte purple
- a light pearly rosy pink
All of them are very soft but less pygmented than I thought they would be. But again they will certainly work a lot better with a good primer.


The fourth column, form left to right:
-a dark chocolate brown which is matte based with sparse shimmer
- a light shimmery taupe
-  a matte tobacco brown
- a coppery brown shimmer shade
-  a light matte vanilla
This column is the most pygmented. The taupe shade is not different to my eye from the second colour on the second column. So that's not cool. The vanilla shade is my favourite for highlighting! it is really close to my complexion.



The fifth and last column is the most pygmented and has some really unique shades
- a matte grey-"paradoxale"-purplish lovely shade
- a coppery brown, slightly less red based than the one in the previous column
- a matte mushroom grey
- a matte rosy pink
- a shimmery copper
All of these are great in terms of pygmentation, softness and payoff. Wonderfully blendable and three of the five shades are quite unique in my collection.
All in all the eyeshades palette is good. Inspite having twice the same colour which is not cool, it has a many great shades which totally worth the value of the purchase.


So, here are the blushes which are wonderful. A shimmery barbie pink, an intense shimmery appricot /coral superb shade with golden sheen, and a matte bubble gum pink. These babies are so soft and pygmented I hardly believed my eyes when I swatched them. I confess I've done the pictures long ago and in the meantime I've worn the middle shade several times, I just wish NYX would do a single blush with this shade that's how much I love it!


And lastly the seven lipglosses which I've swatched with the tiny brush. They're sheer but wearable and the colours are different enough to create different looks. I don't think I'll be wearing these a lot.

So I'm finally through! It took like forever! haha. I hope this review will be somehow helpful to anyone out there wondering whether to spend or not 20USD on this palette. In my opinion it's totally worthy, you won't be let down. But this is just my own experience.

So let me know your thoughts about this palette! And also, do you like this kind of palettes? do you own any? which is your favourite brand when t comes to combined sets?
Love,
Nati