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(* affiliate link) Hey Guys! This is the new 15-pan Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette *! I saw the picture of this palette earlier and is so excited for its release!
I do not own the original 5-pan Zendo palette but am intrigued by the color story of it. Seeing the shades in this large 15-pan Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette surprised me a little bit as this is much more colorful and giving a different vibe than its mini sibling! Let’s look at the quality and the performance of this Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette.
Table of Contents
About the Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette
This Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette retails for $65 USD. There are 19.25 g or 0.67 oz of product inside. This palette has 15 eyeshadows with 4 mattes, 8 shimmers, 2 satins and 1 duochrome shade.
I know Natasha Denona’s eyeshadow consists of different types of formula than most other brands, like the ‘cream to powder’ formula. I honestly am not very knowledgable on the exact difference. To me, eyeshadows are either matte, shimmer, metallic, satin or duochrome. So, I’ll describe them that way, ha!
According to Natasha, this Zendo eyeshadow palette ‘provides maximum color payoff with minimal effort, ensuring pro-level results’, and ‘allows seamless blending to achieve vibrant and neutral, long-lasting looks with a range of shades that allow you to create natural everyday looks and the most dramatic evening glam’. We’ll cover these claims in a second!
Moreover, like her other eyeshadow palettes, the shades can be popped out at the back of the palette.
Ingredients and formulation of the Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette
First of all, this Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette does contain talc as the first ingredient in 6 out of the 15 shades. Something interesting I noticed is that, all of the 6 shades that contain talc are shimmers (one of them is the duochrome). This is quite rare as a majority of the talc-containing eyeshadows are matte shades. While the mattes in this Zendo palette does not contain talc, they are made of mica and dimethicone as the first and second ingredient.
Although Natasha Denona has beautiful and high quality eyeshadow formulas, I still hope she can change back her talc-free formula in some of her earlier palettes.
This Zendo palette is also cruelty free and does not contain parabens and phthalates. There is no detectable fragrance.
For the formulation, I think they all perform very well on the swatch and applied with a brush. All of them are smooth, pigmented and easy to blend, there is no real dud to me. Having said that, I do thing 1 or 2 shades need more efforts to make them show better. They are ‘yama’ (the duochrome) and ‘breath’.
Yama and breath are not bad for any reason, they are just not as readily show up than other shades in the palette. Probably because all the other shades are so high quality!
I honestly don’t have particular things that I want to criticize about this palette quality-wise! I can justify the high price considering how nice are the eyeshadows inside.
Swatches for the Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette
Like I said above, all the shades in this Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette are top-notched! There is no patchiness or any unevenness in my experience. All the shades are soft, smooth and easily applied. Only the shades yama and breath need a little bit more building up, but that’s it.
Okay, it now comes to my opinion on the color story :). This Zendo palette is no doubt a colorful palette, and I love the colors themselves. However, how often do I wear these shades in a weekly basis is another question. Although Natasha Denona says this Zendo palette allows you to create ‘natural everyday looks’, I doubt it means the same type of looks for every person.
The eye looks that I could create (pictures below) were mostly leaning towards peachy and pinky tones, unless I’m using the blue/green side of the palette, which again, is not so much a natural everyday looks for most people.
The most ‘natural’ look that I could create was probably the 3rd one. So my feeling is, if Natasha Denona could replace one or two of those pinky shades into some light/medium brown shades, it would have been more versatile and achieving what it claims.
In addition, some of the pinks are indistinguishable on the lid, even though they are in different textures.
Looks created using the Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette
The red (vigor) in this palette caught my eyes the most when I first saw this palette, so I incorporated it in this first eye look! All the shades are very nice in quality but I was just not satisfied with the outcome. As someone who does not have the skill of a makeup artist, I think the pinks are too similar to make a contrast..
The second look of course is a blue/green look :)! I like this second look better than the first one. The grayish khaki at the corner (zeal) is one of my favorite shades in this palette! It is very pretty to complement with the bright blue green shimmer (flow). I would be happy to wear this look more often!
This third look is the more natural everyday look I created with the Zendo palette. The sheen you can see in the middle of my lid is the duochrome (yama). Although it performs like a topper shade imo, it gives a beautiful shift to the overall eye look. One thing I’m missing in this Zendo palette is a light cool brow bone shade also to be used as an inner corner highlight.
This fourth look is rather similar to the first one. In order to try out all the shades in this Zendo palette, I put together this look. I like the shades together, but it would be nicer if there was an even lighter pink or a cool champagne white shimmer for the inner part of the lid.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I like this large Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette. The color story is very vibrant and the quality of the shadows are amazing. It all boils down to how much you like the color story and if you would be using them enough to justify the price point.
For me, this is more an accent palette than a self-sufficient palette, given all the beautiful and colorful lid shades. There are critical shades (very light for highlighting and very dark matte for creating depth) missing imo. Together with the reason that I can only get very few natural everyday looks from this palette, I don’t think I would be buying it from a consumer’s point of view.
Interestingly, I like the textures/formulas of this Zendo eyeshadow palette better than the Natasha Denona Glam palette * (reviewed here), but I like the color story of the Glam palette more as it is totally within my comfort zone.
I will rate this Natasha Denona Zendo eyeshadow palette as:
- Texture: 9.5/10
- Color payoff: 9.5/10
- Longevity on eyelid: 9/10
- Quality consistency among shades: 9/10
- Color scheme uniqueness:9/10
- Affordability: 7/10
