I’ve been raving on about this Becca Ombre Nudes palette for a while now and so – at the risk of over-Becca-ing you this week (see lipstick post here) – I wanted to just do a quick run-down on why I like it so much and why I think it’s a good buy.

There are plenty of matte neutral-toned eye palettes out there at varying price-points and widely differing quality levels, but the Ombre Nudes shadows are densely pigmented and easy to blend – two characteristics that don’t always play nicely together. Quite often, with heavy pigment, I’ll try and add a tiny bit of smokey-dark brown and all of a sudden there will be this immovable blotch on my eyelid that almost needs an electric floor-polisher to buff it out. Not so with the Becca palette – yes the darker shades need a light touch, but the pay-off is worth it and it’s easy enough to handle if you’ve a clean, sturdy eye blending brush at the ready. I suppose that much of my love for the Ombre Nudes palette is down to the fact that the shades work so well for me – all but the very lightest (which barely shows up on my skintone) can be combined to create quick but sophisticated eye looks. Because all of the shades are matte, the “looks” are never OTT – we’re talking the most subtle of contours, the daintiest of cat eyes, the faintest hint of a sultry smoke. I mean of course you can build it up and wheel out something much more dramatic, b...