Too Faced Natural At Night

Enabled by a surprise 20% discount at Sephora (France) yesterday, I picked up the Too Faced Natural at Night palette, along with their new Tinted Beauty Balm. Natural at Night is from the Natural Beauty collection for Spring 2012.

Ever since Too Faced did away with Quickie Chronicles emblazoned with buxom vintage pin-up girls, I've found their current style of eyeshadow palettes to be much more appealing. The cardboard packaging won't appeal to all, but I don't mind it as it's fairly sturdy and the magnet closure keeps the lid well secured. The earlier releases like Naked Eye and Smoky Eye came in a bulkier box, but like Romantic Eye, Natural at Night is slimmer thanks to Too Faced doing away with the lower slide-out compartment holding dual-ended applicators.

Enclosed in a slim pocket under the front lid are three cards with tips on how to create various looks. I usually don't refer to these as I have problems trying to slide the cards out, and end up having to use a tweezer.

Inside, there are three large eyeshadows (2g/0.07oz each) and six smaller ones (0.9g/0.03oz). The pans may look tiny but the total amount of product is still generous, equivalent to almost two MAC quads.

The nine eyeshadows have different textures, ranging from soft mattes (Cocoa Star and Spotlight), satin with a soft sheen (Nightcap, Eclipse, Moon Stone) to shiny metallics (Full Moon, Night Light, After Hours). Some of the shades feel like almost molten velvet to touch, like Eclipse, Moon Stone and After Hours, while others like Full Moon and Night Light feel slightly grittier and dry.

The swatches below were done on bare skin without any primer. Just two swipes were enough to get each shade to show up nicely.

While Natural At Night may draw the inevitable comparisons with Urban Decay's Naked palettes, I like its diversity of tones and textures, which make it a class above the usual boring neutral beige/brown palettes. There is sufficient contrast amongst the shades such that they do not just blend into one indistinguishable muddy hue on the lids. The only shade that I do not like is Spotlight which is an unflattering flat beige. I don't own any of the Urban Decay Naked palettes, but if you do, you probably do not need Natural At Night.



Using Too Faced Shadow Insurance as the base, I applied Night Fever along the upper lashline, After Hours in the crease, Eclipse at the outer half of the crease, Spotlight over the browbone area, Full Moon along the lower lashline and over the upper lid.

All the shades had good color payoff and were easy to blend, with only Night Fever causing some fallout during the application process (as my brush picked up too much product). Night Fever is a lovely blackened brown with gold shimmer flecks. It is useful for creating a soft smoky look as the shade is less harsh than black.

For this look, I am wearing Too Faced Tinted Beauty Balm in Vanilla Glow. I'll review this in greater detail after trying it out a few more times.

List of ingredients.


My current collection of Too Faced palettes. Half of these were purchased back in 2010 when Too Faced had a good bundle deal on their website.

The three palettes in the pic below were purchased yesterday at Sephora. Natural At Night retails at US$36 in the US, €34 in France and £26 in the UK (but Beautybay.com is offering it at £21). I'm not sure of the price in Singapore, but Matte Eye is retailing at S$56 at Sephora Singapore (according to their latest emailer).