Huda Beauty Desert Dusk Palette

​For the last few weeks I've been playing with the Huda Beauty Desert Dusk Palette doing several looks with it. This is a gorgeous palette, when you open it it's absolutely stunning. It came out the same time as the Natasha Denona Lila Palette with a similar purple theme. I opted for this instead of the ND palette because to be honest I never reach for the Sunset Palette that I have so I wasn't going to drop that much money on a palette again. That being said, this one is not cheap either. It comes in at $65 for 15 shadows and one pressed glitter. 

​The Rose Gold palette they released first had some mixed reviews but I actually did like it for the most part. It had it's flaws. Which I think is kinda forgiven with your very first palette and one of your first products. I'm willing to look past that. However, on the second palette I expect an improvement and a pretty significant one from the last palette's issues which mainly laid with the mattes in my opinion. This palette has definite hits and misses for me which happened after playing with it and creating different looks. Which leaves me with one final thought. 

Let's talk about the misses first:

The glitter came broken some but was easy enough to press back in place and looked completely normal. However, it broke again in a couple of days. Once again pressed back into place before it could get glitter into the other shades. I store my palettes flat so that was a plus. 

That being said, I don't feel as if, mine at least, is travel friendly. I would not put this into any bag that I cared about because I don't like glitter all over my stuff. I especially don't want glitter in the more almost "cream like" shades. So a big no for travelling or taking it with you anywhere. 

I have some issues with the mattes in Amethyst, Saffron, and Blazing. Those three specifically. The mattes are all powdery in my opinion but that doesn't really bother me because for the most part they blend out nicely and are good in pigment. These three shades are hard for me to blend out. More so Amethyst, I also have an issue with the pigment in this one. Especially transitioning it to the lid, I lose a lot of pigment. I actually had to apply it with my finger to get the purple pay off I wanted. I never do that with matte formulas. Pigment issues are pretty common with purples and pinks mostly. I wish it wasn't the case though because that shade is gorgeous. Most of the shades will swatch well, which is why I'm not going to swatch it. There are so many swatches out there with different skin tones, and I think we can all agree now that swatches don't really show us how the product performs. Saffron has good pigment in a swatch and even going onto the lid but it's harder for me to blend and it's a drier texture. Blazing doesn't have the best pigment in my opinion. It's almost more sheer. Which could've been intentional but I'd prefer a little more pigment. It's also quite dry.

I was super excited for Twilight and Retrograde but both were just underwhelming and kinda sheer. Again that could be intentional. I really wanted to use them as a "pop" on the lid though because the color shift is so gorgeous in the pan. I tried layering them up and it didn't work too well for me. I used glitter glue that was a little better but the lid was starting to look crusty by all the layers on it. So that was a bummer. 

I really love the shade Blood Moon but it was tricky to work with I used a brush dipped in Mehron Mixing Liquid, I used just my finger, and then I used glitter glue. It worked best with the glitter glue. This swatches great as you're swiping it and dragging it on the skin. Applying this though in a patting motion is where the issue lies. It tends to want to stay on your finger and not go on the lid and if you use a damp brush, that brush tends to pick the colors up off the lid instead of packing this color on.

Onto the hits

I really like the packaging. It's not a see through top like the Rose Gold which would've been fine too but I really like the Holographic aspects to this and the true to the line Huda Beauty "eyes" that they use on all their packaging.

This palette has improved from the Rose Gold with the more "foiled" shades that are super creamy. The issue in the last one was that they were very chunky and hard to apply. Some shades still have that texture like Twilight and Retrograde but mostly I find the rest really creamy in texture. Much different from those in the last palette. My favorite shades being Celestial, Nefertiti, Royal, and Turkish Delight. Angelic is fine as well but it was also in the Rose Gold so it's neither a hit or a miss for me. Cashmere is very different in shade from the rest but in a very good way, I've not really got to use it a whole lot but so far so good. 

The rest of the mattes aside from the 3 I mentioned that were misses are nice. Eden is my favorite. I think it's the best matte Peach shade ever because that shade is insanely pigmented. They blend out well. They all go very well with the others, even Musk which is like a weird beige that's kinda taupe but also more olive toned, it still goes very well with the rest and I actually really like it as a transition shade that isn't warm for once. I really appreciate that they included Musk actually because of that reason.

As a whole I love the whole color scheme of the palette, the lay out, and the shades that were chosen setting aside the fact that some weren't working for me. So basically it's very aesthetically pleasing to me. 

When I first used this I really liked it because I used all the red and orange toned shades. Then the difficult parts came when I tried to do different looks especially with the purple. Alright so all that being said, I'm going to get to my final thought. I will use this palette and I DO use this palette but I do not think it's worth $65 because of the issues that I had. Those issues are like polar opposite of each other too which makes it difficult to not like the palette in all honesty. Mainly because the parts that are good, are great! Same being said though for the things that are a real miss for me. Aside from the problems that I had, I basically wouldn't re-purchase this because I have pretty much every shade in some form or the other with the exception of Celestial and Cashmere, maybe. I think if I really looked hard enough I could probably find dupes for those shades as well in my collection. There are definitely dupes for every shade though out there just check out Angela Mary Tanner on Instagram she has dupes that are dead on and I had most of those exact products. 

I also wouldn't recommend this because the price is too much for the performance in my opinion, there are other palettes that I think would serve you better. I also think you would be better off making your own palette with individual shadows from Colour Pop, JD Glow, MUG, etc. I'm nearly positive you would have the warm shades in another palette somewhere so maybe I would shoot for some really beautiful foiled shades that are similar to the shades you liked like from JD Glow Metallon, Shimmer or Galaxy lines. I would get a good quality brighter/royal purple that is very pigmented, again JD Glow mattes are nice but so are Makeup Geek singles and so on. So that being said when I look at the palette as a whole the shades that I would totally want/get in my collection and what draws me in is really like 4 maybe 5 shades when it gets down to it just from looking at it. The rest are just really necessary colors to have in order to do different looks and they're lovely but they are done in plenty of palettes over and over again.  Therefore, I would rather buy a very good quality palette of warmer shades like maybe Modern Renessiance or even the Jaclyn Hill palette from Morphe (which has a royal purple in it too) to be honest and then possibly buy the other shades I really liked from the palette in a single form or something? I know price wise that probably isn't saving you a ton of money, but it's fixing the fact that there are shades that I just can't and don't bother trying to use anymore because I have something that works better. You get what I'm saying?

Now the VIB and VIB Rouge Friends and Family Sale is coming up next week which is 20% off  your purchase. Therefore this palette would be $52 instead of $65. However, it also makes the Modern Renessiance palette $33-$34 instead of $42. Also, for the same price as the Desert Dusk Palette you could basically get one of the Sephora Pro Palettes which have more shades and are said to be good. I've not personally tried them but I definitely would choose that value over this palette plus you have selection there like Editorial Brights, a Warm palette and a Cool palette. So to me it's a better option and deal in my opinion. I will update this post with the coupon code when the sale goes live. 

I'm not trying to be negative, and the reason I don't bother swatching is because I'm only one skin tone and it truly is not how products actually perform on the eye. I understand that people want to see the shades though on the skin to see how vibrant they are and see how foiled they may be. Sephora is now, at least with this palette, adding a swatch picture on the product page that includes fair, medium and deep skin tones. So I feel a little redundant swatching it for you and also showing you that it looks phenomenal as a swatch but the reality is that it doesn't work out on the lid like I wanted. So with my reviews, especially for makeup, it's very much, take it or leave it. I'm speaking from my experience with my palette that I have.  Sephora has a great return policy if you don't like it so it's totally up to you. This is just my take on it. 

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