Sunday Swatches: Huda Beauty Obsessions Palette Review

Hello my lovelies!So today I'm reviewing the Huda Beauty Obsession palette in Warm Brown, although I did buy both Warm Brown and Mauve to compare to the original Textured Rose Gold palette, I ended up only swatching and reviewing the Warm Brown and am still undecided on whether to keep the Mauve or not!
Read on to see my full review and what I think as well as a few comparisons to the Textured Rose Gold (TRG) palette which you can read my review of here.

flat wet looking effect; palette before on left and after swatching on left; top right red and nude underneath have wet looking effect despite swatching with dry hands

Review

Packaging: The packaging for this palette is almost the same as the original Textured Rose Gold (TRG) palette, except this one feels slightly sturdier as it has a mirror in the lid rather than a windowed front, which I much prefer.The front of the lid has a larger "Huda Beauty" logo as well as a picture of the colours of the shadows in a crushed effect which is handy at a glance, as well as the title of the palette - Warm Brown, Mauve, Smokey or Electric.As with the TRG palette it has a magnetic closing which is handy.The palettes are super small (7.5cm x 7.5cm) and when I first saw them side by side next to the TRG palette, I was convinced the pans were smaller.Huda did a story where she placed the pan of an eyeshadow from an obsession palette onto a bigger palette's shadow pan and it was an exact fit, so I measured the pans and lo and behold they were indeed both 2cm x 2cm pans.

Colour:

I felt like the Warm Brown had more flattering shades that I was most likely to use than in any of the other palettes. Mauve was the next most flattering, but the Smokey and Electric didn't really appeal to me as I have pretty much covered those types of palette with my Urban Decay versions!

So I chose to swatch and review the Warm Brown because I felt like it would be most popular and flattering for all skin tones.

There are 8 matte colours in this palette and just 1 shimmer, whereas the rest of the palettes have at least 3 shimmer shades, which I found odd, but I'm not complaining as I tend to prefer more mattes to blend with anyway.

This shimmery coppery-gold shade reminds me of Urban Decay's "Baked" shade which was a solid favourite of mine when I used to work for them, however if you look closely at this shadow it has the tiniest microshimmer particles too which is quite pretty.

It's worth noting that the colours in the pan translate lighter when on skin, read on to see why.

Texture:

The texture of these shadows were mostly soft, dry and powdery, except the shimmery gold which has a similar bouncy/smooth texture as the shimmer/textured shadows of the TRG palette.

Pigmentation:

This is where I was confused.

On first swatch, I noticed the texture of these shadows were way more softer than the TRG palette shadows, so I expected them to be more pigmented.

I was wrong!

The matte shadows of this palette are inconsistent with their pigmentation levels; the most pigmented being the top left corner (a burgundy-purple) and the nude shade in the middle row (see single swipe swatches).

Generally I find that matte shadows are always less pigmented/dry/non-buttery, but these are so sheer, they literally swatch like a wash of colour which is so bizarre. I'm sure even Primark and Makeup Revolution/drugstore palettes have done more pigmented matte powder shadows!

I had to dip into the palette to build up my full swatch picture to get the true colours around 5-6 times minimum, when usually 3 times max does the trick. When actually using the shadows on my eyes, I felt like pressing on the shadows worked best, because if I used circular motions or windscreen wiper motions the shadow would literally blend away, so I'd HIGHLY recommend a sticky textured base/eye primer to help these stick (see eye makeup comparison picture above).

I also noticed that after swatching the top right red eyeshadow pan and the nude shade underneath it, some sort of flat wet-looking effect appeared on the pans (my fingers were dry when swatching, so it wasn't that), I even scraped at this wet-flat texture and it remained the same which was odd, so I'm wondering if the pans are thinner or if this was because the texture is different?

Anyhow, the golden shimmer shade is very pigmented, more so than the original TRG palette (compared to #Blessed in the eye makeup look picture).

Price:
Priced at £25 for 9 eyeshadows, each shadow works out to be £2.78, compared to £3.11 per shadow in the TRG palette (£56 for 18 eyeshadows).

In theory, it would be better value for money to go for these mini Obsessions palettes.

Available at Cult Beauty with free worldwide delivery.

Overall rating:
I feel like this palette had a lot of potential; very popular and wearable shades, travel friendly, sturdier packaging etc, but the pigmentation let it down massively.

As it is, I've been spoiled by UD quality since starting my makeup career, so everything measures to that for me and unfortunately this palette doesn't quite cut it.

I feel like you could find other similar shades of colours in brands like NYX, but with better pigmentation and a lower price point, so I give this Warm Brown Obsessions palette a rating of 2 out of 5, although I've not tried the other Obsessions palettes to comment on those.