I’ve never been a biggie on eye-shadows. I am a bright lippie fan, and was always under the impression you either do up your eyes or the lips, never both. How wrong was I. Eyes and lips, the entire face, need to compliment and blend in together. A smokey eye with a bright red lip is after all, classic siren material!

And so this summer has seen me investing in two of the most talked about eye-shadow palettes out there; Too Faced Chocolate Bar and Urban Decay Naked.

Too Faced Chocolate Bar

When I first spotted the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette on social media uploads, I thought it was a cute and fun new budget beauty brand targeting the teen market. My perceptions took a 360 degree turn when I found the brand was stocked by Sephora. Surely Sephora doesn’t do cheap?

The kitsch packaging stands out among the sophisticated, ladylike brands it shares shelving space with in Sephora, and surprisingly the price tag is far from cheap. The Too Faced Chocolate Bar cost me AED 242 at Sephora (and the Naked palette retails for AED 279).

However, once I had a touch and feel of the product, I was instantly sold! I love the tin box and its handy magnetic closure. It feels so sturdy in my hands, and the vintage-style bold fonts on the box and within relate well to the brand’s love for all things Parisian.

The Too Faced Chocolate Bar follows the brand’s philosophy of cocoa for beauty. Not only is the box made to look like a chocolate bar, but the eye-shadow palettes have equally chocolaty names to match (Gilded Ganache, Strawberry Bon Bon, Champagne Truffle… #omnomnom). The product is actually infused with anti-oxidant rich cocoa powder, and smells decadently chocolate! (Cocoa is great for the skin. Try my DIY Chocolate Mask!).

Despite not looking ‘high-end’, the Too Faced Chocolate Bar shadows are exceptionally high-quality product. The palette is incredibly pigmented, and has a beautifully easy blending consistency that makes eye makeup application a smooth and easy process even for novices like me.

My favorites from this palette are White Chocolate, Salted Caramel and Ameretto for day wear, and the darker shades of Gilded Ganache, Candied Violet and Cherry Cordial for a night out.

Two out of the 16 are double shadows and these are White Chocolate (a perfect matt white that works well beneath the brow line) and Champagne Truffle (a shimmer highlight that can be used to accentuate the final look).

Of all the 16 shades, the only one I’m not too keen on is the Strawberry Bon Bon.

One of the biggest disadvantages of the Too Faced Chocolate Bar in my opinion is that it doesn’t come with a complimentary brush. It would be far more convenient to have a brush in the palette itself, especially when travelling.

Urban Decay Naked

Urban Decay’s Naked was an impromptu buy at Changi Airport while I was transiting back to Dubai from New Zealand.

I am pretty late on the ‘Naked’ bandwagon. Although they had the newer palettes of Naked 2, 3 and Smokey, I went for the original seeing its gorgeous velvet packaging. I am a sucker for pretty packages!

I fell in love with the deep brown velvet packaging, and loved how earthy and predominantly deep and dark the shades were. The whole idea behind the ‘naked’ philosophy was to create eye-shadow colors that look naturally beautiful, but with a hint of shimmer.

Where Too Faced is cute and kitsch, Urban Decay is deep, dark and mysteriously glamorous.

The palette includes 12 shadows; 3 are matte and 9 are shimmery.

The colors are gorgeous, and like Too Faced, are of exceptionally high quality. The shadows blend well, and can be built up for more dramatic looks.

My favorite shades from this palette are Buck, Dark Horse and Naked for day wear, and Hustle, Creep and Gunmetal for a more dramatic night-time look.

Unlike Too Faced, Urban Decay’s Naked palette comes with a Crease & Shadow Brush. The pack also includes a month’s supply of eye-shadow primer.

Chocolate Bar vs Naked

• Love kitsch and cute.
• Want more matte shadows.
• Like the idea of having cocoa in your beauty product.
• Like the smell of chocolate!
• Don’t mind a palette sans brush.
• Want a little more eye-shadow colors (and more product quantity) for a slightly lower price.

• Love deep, dark goth packaging.
• Want more shimmer shadows.
• Need a brush in your palette.
• Want free eye-shadow primer to boot!