Emmie Swatches – My Huda Beauty Palette Collection

I don’t really consider myself that I much of a makeup collector these days. But for whatever reasons, I cannot help but have a weakness for Huda Beauty and her deluxe 18 pan eyeshadow palettes. Ever since 2016, I have been picking them up (or have been gifted them by family or friends). And I absolutely love them all.

So, I figured for a bit of fun, I would swatch out my entire collection. Six years, seven palettes, 126 shadows! And because Huda’s palette have a lot going on, this is a great way to look at each colour story more closely and see which palette is the right one for you. So. let’s do some swatching!

Em’s Note – All pricing is current at the time of writing and is taken from hudabeauty.com. While these palettes are available elsewhere, the pricing may be different.

HUDA BEAUTY ROSE GOLD TEXTURED EYESHADOW PALETTE – Discontinued
RELEASED – 2016
The eyeshadow palette that started it all! The Rose Gold Textured palette was Huda’s first palette launch. Arriving during the Modern Renaissance days of 2016, this was a fairly popular colour story that we saw during that time. Lots of reds, pinks and warm tones in general. The big selling point of this palette were the five ‘Textured’ shadows at the top of the palette. And I even remember at the time not being the biggest fan of them. Some of the shades like Dubai were creamy and easy to use. Whereas I found a shade like Rose Gold to be very chunky and clumpy on the lid. Also, I don’t remember the mattes being this stiff. The more red tone shades like Maneater and Bossy were much more difficult to swatch than I can remember. Overall, an OK palette, but I’m glad that it got the redo treatment (which I’ll talk about in a minute).

HUDA BEAUTY DESERT DUSK EYESHADOW PALETTE – $86.00
RELEASED – 2017
Ahh, Desert Dusk. Would you look at that colour story? If I recall correctly, this was actually pretty unique at the time. While warm tones were still very much the main player in town as far as palettes went, the addition of purple gave it an edge. The first thing I noticed, especially after giving this palette a play and a swatch, is that there is an improvement in the quality of the shadows overall. The mattes are a lot less stiff and the chunky cream shadows have been replaced with more conventional shimmer and metallic shades. And in my opinion, it’s the metallics like Blood Moon and Royal that are the big stand outs. The one real dud in this palette is Cosmo, which is an unbound glitter shade. I like the idea in theory, but in practice, because there is nothing binding it together to make a cohesive shadow, it gets super messy fast. I actually don’t reach for this palette as often as some of the others in my collection. But it still has a place.

HUDA BEAUTY ROSE GOLD REMASTERED EYESHADOW PALETTE – $86.00
RELEASED – 2018
The original Rose Gold palette was a roaring success during it’s initial launch. So, it was a huge shock in 2017 when Huda announced that it was being discontinued. Turns out, it was all part of her plan. Because in May of 2018, the Rose Gold Remastered launched with all not only new, revamped packaging, but an entirely updated formula! Now, I did actually do a review back when this palette launch where I compared the new versus old formulas. But I’ll give you the Cliff Note’s version. The mattes? Significantly improved. Maneater is still probably the worst shade in the palette, but at least it applies much more easily to the eye. They also changed up a few of the shades between the two palettes (Demure for Shy, Risque for Bossy, etc.) but these changes make for a more cohesive palette. The shimmers are still great (but Huda has always had great shimmers). But the biggest change was the so called Textured shadows. These are certainly easier to use and they are ridiculously pigmented. But they are next to impossible to apply with a brush. I’m not shocked to see that this isn’t a formula that Huda has carried over to future palettes.

HUDA BEAUTY NEW NUDE EYESHADOW PALETTE – $86.00
RELEASED – 2018
2018 was a huge year for Huda Beauty. With the New Nude palette coming out November of that year. I remember really wanting this palette at the time because I was deep in my Basic Bitch Neutral phase at the time. And this was, arguably, the closest Huda has come to doing a conventional neutral palette at the time. Out of all of her palettes, this is still the one that I recommend to makeup newbies because it has basically every shade that you could need for day to day makeup wear. The shimmer shades are, again, the standout here. With four of the shades being the closest Huda had come to a proper duochrome shade at the time. There are also two glitter shades in this palette. Fortunately, these are bound and are much easier to use. I would still recommend both using you fingers and a glitter glue while using them. The other big newbie is the introduction of the ‘Concealed’ shade. Which I believe was to be intended to be used as an eyeshadow primer. Again, great idea in theory, horrible in practice. Partially because the shade isn’t exactly universal, but also because it’ll inevitably get powdered shadow all through it. Again, not shocked that this shade hasn’t made a return.

HUDA BEAUTY MERCURY RETROGRADE PALETTE – $98.00
RELEASED – 2019
If you’ve been following me for a while, you would have seen my One Brand Recommendations post on Huda Beauty. Where I mentioned this palette as an absolute must have. And I still stand by that. The Mercury Retrograde palette is by far, my favourite one that she has released. I mean? First of all, that colour story. I can’t say that I’ve seen a palette like it. The teals, the violets, the apricots, the maroons. And they all work so well together! As far as the formulas go, these are the best mattes that Huda has ever bought out. They are so smooth and creamy and easy to blend out. The shimmers and metallics are border on faultless. Even the glitter shade is amazing! I truly love this palette and it’s definitely my most used.

HUDA BEAUTY NAUGHTY NUDE EYESHADOW PALETTE – $98.00
RELEASED – 2020
After the out of this world vibes of the Mercury Retrograde palette, Huda bought us back to Earth with the Naughty Nudes palette. Basically, the vampy younger sister to the New Nudes palette. And when I say vampy, that is very much the mood here. The colour story is rich with golds, deep browns, maroons and plums. I’ve seen this palette on deeper skin tones and it’s incredible. Formula wise, we are in the same ball park as Mercury Retrograde. Notably, this is the first Huda palette to introduce the swirly pan shades. And these give a cool effect to the eye depending on where you focus your brush. Most of these shades lean on the shimmer/metallic side. But Hard is more of a cream matte and its stunning! This is also the palette to introduce the Gloss shade, Slippery. The idea is that it’s a solid gloss with little beads of pigment dispersed throughout. I find it a little difficult to use on the eye, personally speaking. But on the cheek bones, especially when it’s mixed with the pigment, it’s actually beautiful as a blush topper.

HUDA BEAUTY ROSE QUARTZ EYESHADOW PALETTE – $108.00
RELEASED – 2021
Finally, we have Huda’s latest baby. The cool tone inspired Rose Quartz palette. Now, this one has only very recently landed at Emmie’s Beauty Life HQ, so quality wise, that’s too soon to tell. But this colour story is definitely a different one for Huda. As I previously mentioned, this is Huda’s first palette to lean more towards cool tones. With lots of mauves, taupes and violet toned shades. There are a few more neutral tones to balance things out. We also have another of the gloss shades here. I still need time to play with it. But it appears to be more of a subtle shade in comparison to Slippery.

And that is my Huda Beauty palette collection! Phew, that’s a lot of shadows. I left out my 9 pan palette collection. Mostly because I don’t have that many of them. But if that’s something you want to see, let me know in the comments below! Now, back to scrubbing the swatches off my arm!

Cheers and love
Emily xo