I have a problem with neutral eyeshadow palettes where I look at them and think “oh look, a normal brown”, and then I put them on my face and everything is orange. As an example, I Need a Nude is much peachier on me than I thought it was going to be and I Need a Tan is extremely warm (as expected, I know, I shouldn’t have bought it). Unsurprisingly, I Need a Gold also has plenty of shades that go orange. I was really hoping I Need A Cool would be the neutral palette for me from Natasha Denona, and it turns out that it is. Since I won’t come back around to this, saying upfront that the Xenon palette is my all time favorite cool-toned Natasha palette, but it’s a very different kind of palette than I Need a Cool.
In this post, all links are affiliate links (thank you for your support!), but all opinions are my own and I bought all these products myself. Swatches are under a ring light to show true to color (photo #1) and then standard lighting to show the formula a little better (#2) for all the products.
I’ve seen other people say this palette is too gray or ashy, and after actually wearing it, I completely understand what they mean. I think I’m pulling basically every ounce of warmth out of these shades and they’re still landing somewhere around neutral-to-cool on me. If you don’t normally make everything turn orange, I can absolutely see this looking much grayer on you than it does in my swatches so I wanted to warn everyone up front that this is, in fact, a (mostly) cool palette.
I personally tend to veer towards pink, purple, berry, and navy types of shades when I go for a cool toned look. This palette is very specifically a gray, mushroom, silver, taupe version of cool, and I honestly don’t own that many palettes that have these kinds of shades. I’ve really liked the looks I’ve been wearing with this palette even though it’s weirdly a bit out of my comfort zone. I’m already excited to wear this with berry blush when it gets colder, and it turns out these shades look great with a bright pink blush just like warmer shades do.
Formula-wise, I’m still not the biggest Natasha Denona matte person. I know people LOVE these mattes, but they have a stick-to-it-ness that isn’t really my preference. Once I put them down, they want to stay exactly where I put them, and I prefer a silkier matte that I can move around more easily, like the mattes in the YSL quads. They’re still good mattes, but I think they really benefit from a natural hair brush and being used to working with this type of formula.
The super sparkly shimmers and metallics, as usual, are stunning. They have a lot of dimension and just look blingy, for lack of a better word. They’re easy to use with a finger or a brush, and they wear really well on me. The smoother shimmers are exactly what you want for a sophisticated (meaning I had 30 seconds to get ready for this 7am meeting, and I don’t want it to look like I’m covered in glitter) type of look.
A short detour to look at each of the shades individually:
Slab – This is my perfect midtone brown matte that doesn’t go even a little orange. It has a little gray-green thing going on if you look really closely, and it just works so well with my skin. I can wear this as a one and done matte look so easily. I wouldn’t say buy this palette for this shade, but I wouldn’t be mad if I could buy this as a single.
Moosh – This is a smooth taupe shimmer that’s less sparkly, but easy to wear alone. It’s one of those neutral browns that always turns orange on me, except this one doesn’t.
Sterling – This is one of my favorites in the palette. It’s a taupey brown with a chunky silvery metallic reflect that I just want to pile on my eyes (and I have many times). Another one that I’d totally buy as a single.
Zima – This is somehow the least special shade in here even though it’s not a matte. It’s a champagne shimmer that pulls a little gold on me, and I feel like I already own this shade 400 times. Spoilers – it’s also the only shade I found an actual dupe for in the Stone Cold Fox palette.
Tatra – This is one of my favorite mattes in the palette. It’s a muted stone/khaki/beige transition shade that does what I always want a camel brown to do because Tatra doesn’t turn orange.
Chime – I love this one. There’s a little pink in it, but it’s almost silver when I get it on my eyes. It’s mostly just really shiny and sparkly, and the silver reflect keeps it from going too peachy.
Nimbus – This is the darkest brown matte in the palette, and it honestly swatches pretty badly. It works much better when I’m actually working with it, and I really like using this as a subtle liner because it doesn’t show up too strongly and I have room to build it up.
Glacier – This is a very pale and icy sparkly shade. I like this much more as a topper or brightening shade than using it alone. This is also the shade that I get the most fallout with, so I have to be a little more careful.
Cloud – This is a super pale mushroomy off-white matte. I thought I would use this a lot to blend things out, especially because it’s almost a little green, but I just really haven’t. This is also one of the shades that can make a look go from neutral to “wait why is this so gray?” pretty quickly.
Crescent – This is a really nice taupe brown metallic that doesn’t go orange. It’s pretty and the formula is very nice.
Shale – Similar general territory to Crescent but much deeper and browner, and I like Shale so much better, I really haven’t used Crescent.
Chisel – This is the actually warm shade in the palette especially relative to everything else. I don’t even know that I would call it particularly warm if it were sitting somewhere else, but next to everything here it definitely is. I like having it for when I’ve accidentally gone too gray and want to pull things back a little without going too orange, but it still feels a little out of place.
Cove – This is the deepest shade. It’s more of an almost black than an actual inky black, which is nice if you’re afraid of using a super pigmented black shadow. If you’re used to that though, this might be a little disappointing.
Zelda – A smooth taupe-brown shimmer (yes, another one!). It’s pretty, and I would happily wear by itself.
Cube – Another mid-tone taupe/brown. It’s deeper and browner than Tatra, but they’re close enough in what they do for me that if I were making this palette, I probably would have put something else here.
Most of the looks I’ve made are some variation of taupey brown with sparkle. Sometimes they’re more pink, sometimes more gray, sometimes a little khaki, sometimes very silver, but they’re all the same vibe. That doesn’t bother me when it’s so obvious that’s what you’re getting with this kind of palette. If you want to wear that kind of look every day, you’re gonna love this palette.
And now, the real reason you’re here, comparison swatches!
The Natasha comparison that makes the most sense to me is I Need a Nude, because I Need a Cool is basically what I wanted I Need a Nude to look like on me. I Need a Nude is really pretty, but so much of it ends up being really peachy on my skin. When I swatched all 15 shades next to each other, I Need a Nude was noticeably rosier and peachier vs the gray/taupe/mushroom tones in I Need a Cool.
If I Need a Nude already looks beautifully neutral on you, then I can absolutely see I Need A Cool being too grey for you. If I Need a Nude is orange on you, then I think I Need a Cool might be exactly what you’re looking for.
And then obviously there is Colourpop Stone Cold Fox. I matched 15 shades from the two palettes and when I swatched them all together, the overall color stories looked much closer than I expected. There aren’t 15 actual dupes, but I truly think you can get pretty close to both I Need a Nude and I Need a Cool with the shades in Stone Cold Fox. Even though they’re not exactly the same, they’re very very similar. And by they’re, I do really mean both I Need a Cool + I Need a Nude = Stone Cold Fox.
I personally reach for I Need a Cool more than I Need a Nude and Stone Cold Fox, especially because I like the Natasha shimmers more and the I Need a Cool tones more. If I already had Stone Cold Fox and liked it, I definitely wouldn’t feel like I had to immediately buy I Need a Cool too. And if you’re looking at all of these gray-taupe-brown shades and have no idea whether this is something that could work for you, Stone Cold Fox is a much cheaper way to experiment. Especially because Stone Cold Fox is under $30 right now, and each Natasha Denona Palette is $72.
I used Ulta points to get I Need a Cool and I would happily use my points on it again. Actually, if I could go back in time, I just wouldn’t buy I Need a Tan and buy this instead. I knew I Need a Tan was probably going to be too warm when I bought it, but I wanted to review it anyway, and now I feel guilty every time I see it because I just don’t want to use it enough to even finish the review (I did post swatches in my Substack chat, please comment if you want me to find them!). With I Need a Cool, I keep wanting to use it and have to force myself to use other things I’m also testing. But of course, if you already have your perfect silvery taupes, mushroom browns and neutral mattes that never go orange, you may truly not need this.
Ultimately, I do think this one is worth getting if you have also spent years wondering why every “neutral” brown palette looks orange on you. If my toddler hid this somewhere in my house and I couldn’t find it again (he would never, but hypothetically), I would buy another one. A lot of my other palettes, I wouldn’t miss.
