I stumbled upon this palette, which also has a warmer counterpart, at Walgreens a few weeks ago and I've finally given it a thorough testing.
True Classics includes 6 neutral shadows on the cooler side of the spectrum. They are housed in raised strips of colors, rather than traditional pots. They are classified as Baked Shadows, and are marketed to be used wet or dry. For testing purposes, I used these dry, with primer, but no additional base or mixing medium.
From left to right are the top three shades; A taupe-y brown, cool toned pewter and a pearl shade.
Remaining from left to right are a neutral bronze, a cool deep brown and a frosted black.
These shadows are shimmers across the board. No mattes, no glitter, just a healthy frost. They weren't the most pigmented shades in the universe, but I've seen much worse in my day.
Application basically sucks when working with this palette, however. The pans are so incredibly skinny and so close together that its nearly impossible to get anything of decent size in there. I tried to use two of these as all over lid bases to achieve both of my test looks and my big base shadow brush just WAS NOT having it. The formulation of these also seem to require a denser brush. To get any kind of color impact dry, you need a super dense, almost stiff brush; which was a pain in the tail to do that from lashline to browbone. It was definitely easy to accidentally pick up some of the adjacent color without meaning to as well in application.
While the application of this palette frustrated me quite a bit, the shadows themselves are flattering and wear well. Once I got enough product to even warrant blending as well, I was able to blend these quite easily.
Theres one big takeaway that I had from this product though...It's nearly a dead ringer for the right half of Urban Decay's Naked 2 Palette...
Milani True Classics is on the left and the right half of Urban Decay's Naked 2 on the right. Naturally, I did some swatching.
On the left is UD Suspect, while the top shade of TC is on the right. Suspect may be a touch cooler toned and has superior pigment, but they are very similar.
UD Pistol on left and 2nd shade of TC on right. Nearly spot on dupes, Pistol having superior color payoff.
UD Verve on the left and the 3rd shade of TC on the right. Verve is warmer toned, more of an oyster shade, while the other reads more to a very white gray. Verve's pigmentation was the far more superior of the two.
UD YDK on left and 4th shade of TC on right. YDK is a touch more bronze and warmer with a different finish and much more pigment.
UD Busted is on the left with the 5th shade of TC on the right. Busted is a bit redder, while the 5th shade of TC is a cooler toned deep brown.
UD Blackout is on the left and the 6th shade of TC is on the right, which looks a lot more gray in comparison to Blackout. While they have different finishes, Blackout still had far better pigmentation.
Overall;
Pros:
- Average wear time.
- Good blendability.
Con:
- Packaging is difficult to use.
- Pigment is somewhat lacking when used dry.
It begs the obvious question, "Is it a dupe for Naked 2?". In a way, yes; for half of it. If you're looking for a budget neutral palette and can deal with the frustration that I mentioned beforehand, have at it. It ranges at less than $9 for 6 shadows. Personally, I'll be sticking with my Naked 2..my brushes take to that better.
6/10
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