Hey guys! So, I don't generally buy things unless I have a reasonable assumption that I'm going to like it. Whether that's because I've seen reviews or because I'm familiar with a brand and have confidence in their quality, I'm most likely to spend my money on things I have confidence in. Recently though, while out shopping, I encountered the Rude Cosmetics The Rude Awakening Book 5 Eyeshadow Palette and even though I couldn't find any reviews online before purchasing, I decided to take a chance on it and ultimately review it here on the palette in hopes that I might give other people some context before they make their buying decision about this palette - make sure you read right to the end. 

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What really drew me to this palette was a combination of the packaging, which I think just has amazing, unique and really impactful artwork, as well as the curation of the shades in the palette. Recently, I've been a little bit fatigued about what's been happening in makeup, with everything feeling very much the same to me, so finding something that I reacted to immediately and got excited about was what led me to pulling out my debit card without knowing anything about this brand or this palette in particular before entering that store. 

Another thing that really drew me about this palette was that it's so overwhelmingly matte. Because I tend to use several matte shades to build out a look and really only use metallic or shimmery shades on the lid, I'm definitely more drawn to palettes that lean more heavily matte. This palette, which contains 35 shades, contains 23 matte shades and 12 shimmery or satin shades, which is a ratio that I think is really bang on as far as my own personal preference. 

I feel like the curation of this palette is very much what's happening in makeup right now, but somehow still managed to not give me the same feeling that a lot of other palettes do. Aside from two cream shades that are inexplicably right next to each other in the palette, I really felt like there was a good amount of variety in this palette, which I definitely appreciate, especially since I've seen a lot of these larger palettes recently that seem like they have several shades that look different in the pan but will likely show up the same on the eyes. 

It also felt really wearable to me in that it has a good selection of the types of shades that I knew I could create full looks with based on my personal preference on how I apply my makeup. The shades that particularly stood out to me were the mustard and olive shades, which I think are going to step up in 2018 as the sort of trendy shades and replace the berries and burnt oranges that we've been dealing with for the past couple of years. 

I would ultimately say that rather than considering this a "neutral palette", it would be more of an "earth tone" palette for me. While this certainly won't be a brights palette by most people's standards, it's definitely got more than your typical brown shades. And honestly, I actually think that there is enough difference even in the brown shades to make them all valuable in this palette. The only thing I really don't get about this curation is the two cream shades. While, yes, I do think one leans a little bit more buttery in tone and has maybe a hint of a satin sheen to it, I really think that having both of these shades in the palette makes no sense whatsoever. 

While this palette did swatch really well, I feel like this is definitely a palette where swatches don't even remotely tell the whole story. The first time I used this palette, I absolutely hated it and wanted to return it, and while my experience has gotten a little bit better and I've figured out how to make it work, I'm still pretty disappointed in how it performs. I've tried this with several different primers, without primer, setting the primer, leaving it tacky, etc. and no matter what I've struggled with every look I've created with this palette because I find that these shades just don't want to blend together, refuse to build to any saturation or depth, and fall out absolutely astoundingly. I'm not even someone who generally cares all that much about fall out, but the fallout I experience from this palette is just extraordinary. 

When I first apply my transition shade, it always applies and blends really beautifully and seamlessly without a lot of work, but once I start adding other shades to the look it just goes south. Ultimately, I think I can get a decent look out of it, but for the amount of work it takes, it's just not worth it. In the look above, I tried adding depth with a couple of the different deep matte browns from the palette and I just couldn't get them to stick at all. I think that's been my biggest issue with this palette, I just can't get any intensity with these shades even though they're all nicely pigmented. 

This is the best look I've been able to get with this palette, I think, and it still feels quite patchy and unsaturated to me. To get any intensity at all, I could only apply 2 matte shades into the crease, a transition followed immediately by a very deep brown, and I had to sort of pack on the latter and then really gently blend it. I also found I had to reapply the metallic shades on the lid (deep brown in the center and rose gold towards the inner corner) multiple times and wet in order to get any reflection off them. Trust me when I tell you that this look was a fallout MESS underneath my eyes when I was done and seemed to continue to fall out throughout the day in small flecks on my undereyes. 

I had really, really high hopes for this palette but I was really disappointed with the performance overall and kind of still want my money back. I think that the shadow formula really lets down the phenomenal curation and packaging. I wouldn't recommend this palette at all and I really sincerely hope that Rude Cosmetics works on their shadow formula, because they really have so much potential when it comes to the creative side of things. 

Sigh!

Thanks for reading!