The Ultimate Eyeshadow Test: Can Budget Beat Luxury?

Its research sweeties, not just playing with make up-honest!

I'm all about the eyeshadow. I wear it all the time and absolutely love trying out new brands. My go to look is always neutrals. I like a cream base, medium brown to contour and a dark brown to accentuate my eyes.
 I'm not a huge fan of shadows with sparkles in when I'm wearing this particular look but a slight dusting of twinkle is fine. 
Ive recently treated myself to some quite expensive eye shadow and also picked up some palettes from the lower end of the budget spectrum. 
Im always checking out what other bloggers think about make up brands so  thought it might be interesting if I did a comparison test to see how each eyeshadow kit fared. 
I wore each brand over the Too faced eyelid primer, used the Samantha Chapman Real Technique brushes and kept the make up on for seven hours so I could see how fade resistant it was. 
Can a budget brand ever really compete with a high end luxury product? Here are the results!

MUA Heaven and Earth available at Superdrug £4

MUA Heaven and earth

There has been quite a buzz about this palette with a few bloggers even saying its a  good Urban decay dupe-high claims for something that costs less than a fiver.

MUA Heaven and Earth palette

My initial thoughts are that despite the fairly matte appearance of the shadows they are actually very sparkly on, perhaps too sparkly for me but the shadow isn't flaky or dusty which is  a great start. The packaging's quite basic but that simply reflects the price point.
The neutral base was very glittery and quite goldy in colour rather than the cream I would have preferred but it provides good coverage in one sweep.
The colours have quite strong pigments and I didn't need to work in too much product to contour which is a huge plus with such an inexpensive product .
The palette has a nice spectrum of browns, 12 different shades from pale to dark brown as well a some lovely gold and bronze shades.Its a shame it doesn't include a really dark mocha brown and  a black to create some real definition and I was surprised not to see one but at £4 I'm just nit picking.

Long lasting and very good value

MUA  describe the Heaven and earth set as the ultimate neutral palette and if the colours have been more matt I would have totally agreed. At just £4 I can see why this is a best seller. 
If you like a lot of sparkle in your neutrals this palette is amazing if like me you prefer matt shades its not so good.
In terms of how long the make up lasts this shadow really does stay put. Because its quite sparkly it did start to look a little tired but that's more down to the finish,the actual shadow stayed put for the whole day with very little creasing.
Betty's Scores on the doors-7 out of 10

Sleek i-Divine Au Natural Palette £6.49

Sleeks i-Divine Au natural set

As soon as I opened this palette I loved it. The range of 12 colours is gorgeous and they are really matte. The packaging's very expensive looking with a great sized mirror inside. The applicator isn't particularly good but then I never use these anyway.

Sleek i-Divine a whole lotta bang for your buck

I used the shades Nougat on my lids, Nubuck on the socket line and mineral earth at the outer corners. The pigment in this shadow is really strong. I needed very little build up to create great looking results and the shadow lasted all day with very little creasing.

Such great shades and hardly any creasing

 For £6.49 I am totally blown away by the quality of this palette. This is actually a very close dupe to the naked 2 palette far more than the MUA one. The shades, texture and finish are brilliant for such a low priced product. My make up recommendation of the month by a country mile.
Betty's Scores on the doors-9 out of 10

Naked 2 Urban decay £36

The much talked about Naked 2 palette by Urban Decay

Possibly one of the most raved  about and beauty blogged eyeshadow palettes for a while. This palette has a beautiful selection of neutrals right through to black all contained in a fabulous tin case (great for not getting bashed in your bag) with a really high quality brush inside as well. The pigment of this shadow is very strong and the consistency is beautiful. It simply glides on the lid.

Beautiful consistency and strong pigment

I used shades Foxy on my lid, Tease on my brow bone and busted at the corners.Its staying power is average and after about five hours it starts to really fade. 

Gorgeous shades although not particularly long lasting.

Until I had used the Sleek palette this was undoubtedly my favourite eyeshadow set for a long time and it is still very, very good, however it is £36 and other than the silkiness's of the shadow it is certainly no better than the Sleek set and in fact for staying power the Sleek palette out performs the Naked palette.  
Betty's Scores on the doors-8 out of 10    

When I started this review I honestly expected the Urban decay product to out perform the other two kits by quite a long way but it seems that in this case  the young pretender that is Sleek have seen off its more expensive rival and the MUA kit isn't far behind. Great news for our budgets
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