Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette Review October 17, 2019
I’ve remained skeptical of Natasha Denona’s eyeshadows since experiencing major issues with the brand’s Mini Lila Palette. When the Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette released, I knew this was my opportunity to give the brand a second chance. But is this 15-pan palette worth the $65.00 price tag? Read my honest review to find out!
Natasha Denona is an unofficial member of BEAUTY’S BIG THREE, a term I affectionally coined for Pat McGrath Labs, Natasha Denona, and Viseart. Each of these brands creates expensive, coveted products that set trends. Although the brands’ fans love them, many consumers hate these luxury makers due to their highly expensive prices. But, is the hate justified?
Unfortunately for me, I’ve experienced issues with each of these brands. I disliked my first major Viseart Palette, experienced quality issues with the Natasha Denona Mini Lila Palette, and went through hell ordering some hyped Pat McGrath releases.
Can the Sunrise Palette redeem Natasha Denona for me? Please keep reading for my in-depth review to find out!
What is Natasha Denona all about?
Founded by acclaimed Israel-based, Croatian-born makeup artist and former model, Natasha Denona, in 2015, the Natasha Denona brand aims to offer luxury beauty products for the modern consumer.
Designed to empower wearers’ creativity, Natasha Denona combines high-quality formulas and unique textures with editorially curated color stories that set industry trends and raise standards. To read more about Natasha Denona’s brand evolution, click here.
As a professional MUA and beauty educator, Natasha Denona provides potential buyers with tons of online inspiration. The brand posts many step-by-step guides on how to recreate editorial-inspired looks.
Click here if you’re looking to break out of your normal beauty routine or expand your creativity. However, if blog-style tutorials aren’t your thing, click this link for video-based tutorials.
Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette Claims
The Natasha Denona Sunrise palette promises to provide wearers with shadows that emulate the warm glow of a morning sunrise. Each shade in the palette is new to the Natasha Denona family and promises to be created with the highest-quality ingredients.
The shadow textures are meant to have a buttery-soft texture that blends with ease. Furthermore, Natasha Denona promises that the shadows will be ultra-pigmented a long-lasting on the eyes.
The Sunrise Palette includes three Natasha Denona Eyeshadow formulas: Creamy Mattes, Metallics, and Duochromes.

Close up of the Natasha Denona Sunrise Eyeshadow Palette
Packaging & Price
The Sunrise Palette* comes in a sleek, pinkish-red compact. The outer packaging is high-shine with a mirrored effect that smudges easily. Inside, the Sunrise Palette comes with a large mirror. Also, unlike her larger palettes, the shade names are all clearly labeled within the Sunrise palette.
The Sunrise palette retails for $65.00. As such, it is one of Natasha Denona’s most affordable eyeshadow palettes to hit the market. Moreover, this 15-pan palette includes 19.25 grams of eyeshadow. This breaks down to roughly $3.38 per gram or $4.33 per shadow.
To note, Natasha Denona’s full-size 15 pan palettes retail for $129.00. The $65.00 price tag of the Sunrise Palette places Natasha Denona’s palette in the same price range as other prestige brands like Huda Beauty or Urban Decay.
Ingredients & Cruelty-Free Status
Unfortunately, Talc is the number one ingredient for all of the matte shades in this palette.
Thankfully, Natasha Denona is Cruelty-Free, meaning that this palette was not tested on animals. However, this palette is NOT Vegan. A number of shades in the Sunset Palette contain Carmine.
Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette Swatches
Although swatches are not a perfect indicator of quality, they can provide clues to how an eyeshadow may perform in terms of pigmentation and blend-ability. I swatched the Sunrise Palette on a bare forearm with my finger.

Finger Swatches of the Natasha Denona Eyeshadow Palette
If you can’t tell by the above photo, the shadows in the Sunrise Palette swatched like an absolute dream. In fact, the swatches pleasantly surprised me. Initially I though that the light shades in this palette looked like neutral “filler” shades. However, the shadows swatch (and wear) very vibrantly on the eyes.
Creamy Matte Shadows:
- Citrine – warm yellow creamy matte
- Glory – fuchsia creamy matte
- Morgan – pastel coral creamy matte
- Clove – dark maroon creamy matte
- Carnelian – burnt light orange cream matte
- Jasper – bright terra-cotta creamy matte
- Morning – light apricot creamy matte
Duo-Chrome Shadows:
- Awakening – lavender with nude shift duo-chrome
- Aster – violet with mauve shift duo-chrome
- Azalea – pink with copper shift duo-chrome
Metallic Shadows:
- Poppy – crimson bronze metallic
- Phlox – burnt warm crimson metallic
- Laurel – peachy champagne metallic
- Agate – champagne apricot metallic
- Dayspring – nude bronze metallic
Traditionally, yellow and purple shadows are hard to formulate without looking chalky and feeling dry. However, these mattes actually live up to their creamy label.
Application & Wear-Time
The creamy matte shadows blend themselves on the eyes. Overall, the mattes play well together. Each shade is pigmented and buildable.
My go-to crease shades are Morgan and Morning. Whenever I use this palette, I first blend Morgan or Morning in the crease. Then, I work a vibrant shadow onto the eyelid.
The metallic and duo-chrome shadows apply best with a finger. However, these textures apply well with a stiff flat brush. Personally, I prefer to use a flat brush to apply my shadows whenever possible. Brushes are neater and allow for better precision.
Without a doubt, Aster is my favorite shade in the palette. Aster is the truest duo-chrome. In other words, this shade has the most vibrant and noticeable color shift. In comparison, the shift in Awakening and Azalea are subtle.
Y’ALL. These shadows do not fade, crease, or move throughout the day. The shadows last a long time regardless of whether I use a primer. However, wearing a primer provides the longest wear-time. With a primer, these last 12+ hours without fading, creasing or smudging. Nevertheless, I was surprised that the shadows lasted a good 4-5 hours on my lid without a primer.
Where is the Sunrise Palette sold?
In the United States, the Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette can be purchased at Sephora* and via the brand’s online shop. In the UK, Natasha Denona retails at Selfridges and Cult Beauty.*
Final Thoughts on the Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette
With the release of the Sunrise Eyeshadow Palette, Natasha Denona redeemed herself. After a horrible experience with the Mini Lila Palette, the sheer beauty of the Sunrise Palette blew me away.
Also, the quality of the shadows is outstanding. Each shadow provides a warm pop of color to the eyes. The shades apply with ease and last on my oily lids.
Overall, I love that Natasha Denona released a more affordable palette without skimping on quality. Finally, given my positive experience with the Sunrise Palette, I feel more comfortable trying one of the brand’s larger eyeshadow palettes. In fact, read my review of the Natasha Denona Camel Palette here.
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Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links (*). If you make a purchase using one of my links, I may make a small commission at no added cost to you. Also unless otherwise stated, all product were purchased by me. Finally, all opinions are my own.
Have you tried anything from Natasha Denona, Pat McGrath, or Viseart before? Do you have a favorite luxury brand? Please let me know in the comments below.
beauty cosmetics luxury beauty Luxury Eyeshadow Palette Review makeup Natasha Denona Natasha Denona Review Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette Natasha Denona Sunrise Palette Review Natasha Denona Swatches
I love this palette so much the colours are so vibrant and I feel like you don’t really have to try to blend them, perfect!! I’m so glad I made this purchase too! xxx
I could not agree with you more!! 💜 I’m so pleased with this palette – especially because the colors that looked so neutral in the pan are way more vibrant on the eye!!
And the looks you created with the palette were so stunning. I literally contemplated asking you if I could link your IG post!!
This palette is so stunning and I did contemplate purchasing it but I have a lot of similar shades in my different eyeshadow palettes, so I left it. The shades look incredible and pigmented, though, and it’s great to hear that they worked well as it isn’t exactly cheap. I’ve always been of the opinion that I’m happy to pay for higher-end brands and products if they perform well, and this palette does seem particularly strong! I’d love to see you create some looks with it!x
That is such a healthy mindset to have – it is important to purchase things that we don’t already own… even if we think we “need” something. I’m def with you that I’m okay with paying a higher price tag if the quality is there and the brand def redeemed itself in my eyes.
I was so hoping to share some looks, but I forgot to take photos of the looks that I created. Will have to be better about that!
Really impressive and the colours look so pretty too!
I was so pleased with how this palette performed! 💜
It seemed really good!
I’m sorry L but please don’t make me want to buy a potentially £60 palette!! This looks absolutely stunning and I cannot believe how gorgeous it is swatched as well. Wow! I can’t wait to see some amazing looks using it
Alex x
Ahhh sorry, girl!! Hopefully ND will have some killer holiday sales – last year they had some pretty good deals in Nov and Dec!
I really wanted to share some looks with this palette, but kept forgetting to take photos! Laura (@Palette of Thoughts) created a stunning look with this palette though!!
The colors on this palette tho…. it looks sooo gorgeous!! Omg that price haha but really good to know that it lasts really long and doesn’t crease or fade!! Another brand I’ve never heard before haha. Thanks for sharing and teaching me more about beauty, as always! xx
ND is def a newer brand that is more popular with those of us who buy way too much makeup LOL 😂… but I was happy with this palette bc I had a negative experience using one of the brand’s mini 5-pan palettes where the shadows just didn’t last on my lids!
I hope she comes out with more $65 palettes!
Me too – they’re more approachable at that price tag!
Yea, I don’t know any one who would spend $129 for a palette but
$60 is way better!
Wow what can I say? Although I hardly wear makeup (I totally love happy lip color 💄 though), this palette looks exquisitely gorgeous!!! Thanks for spreading Beauty with so much LOVE!!! 💋❤️🥰
Omg thank you so much for your lovely comment! 💜 A gorgeous lippie can always create such a lovely and timeless look!!
You are a true BEAUTY icon …. you give amazing beauty product reviews and more than that, you inspire ladies to celebrate their true beauty!!! Oh and yes, I love love love gorgeous lippies! 💄😀❤️
I’ve been contemplating if I should buy this palette or not and now I’m officialy sold. These swatches had my mouth fall open, so pigmented!! I need this palette asap.
Omg lol – we convince each other to buy too much makeup lmao 😂…. def hold out for a sale since one will def come in November!! But was so happy with this purchase 💜
Lmao we actually do convince each other 😂😂
You are a true BEAUTY icon …. you give amazing beauty product reviews and more than that, you inspire ladies to celebrate their true beauty!!! Oh and yes, I love love love gorgeous lippies! 💄😀❤️
Ah thank you so much for the kind words! 💜
This palette is gorgeous, LP! And it compliments your skin tone so beautifully also. It’s great to hear that this one holds up and I don’t think the $65 is that bad either for the quality.
I was happy that this was so much better than the other mini I tried from her! 💜
The colours in this palette are stunning!
I definitely agree with you!!
Wow, the color story in this palette is absolutely gorgeous. Those swatches turned out SO pigmented, I love how they are all their own individual shades– too many palettes include creamy, bland filler shades.
I was so skeptical about this brand because I read tons of bad reviews on the Mini Lila (yours being one of the first). I still think it’s kind of shady how they skimped on quality on that one but, it really does seem like they redeemed themselves with this one, since it’s more affordable, too. I’m glad you weren’t disappointed with this one! Thanks for always sharing your honest opinions with us. 💖
I really was so unsure about how I’d feel, but I went into this feeling very skeptical so I was genuinely impressed by the performance of this palette!!