Normally, when a high end cosmetic brand like Anastasia Beverly Hills releases a major eyeshadow palette, I can easily walk by it without being tempted. I have a few palettes, and I use maybe 60% of the shades included, so I am very selective and particular about which ones I spend my money on. This was not the case when I laid eyes on the Modern Renaissance palette that debuted earlier this year. Oh my god I have never wanted an eyeshadow palette so bad in my life.
Who let them make something this beautiful?!
Modern Renaissance Eyeshadow Palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills, $42 at Nordstrom.com
Sandy-mustard colors mixed with sunset shades and a totally random but completely welcome purple-y cranberry set… It’s just dreamy! The number of things you can do with this palette will convince you that you need it. YouTube is overflowing right now with video tutorials using this palette. There are matte, pearl, and shimmer eyeshadows in this palette, so you can pretty much consider it an all-in-one for an array of eye looks.
My favorite shades in the palette are the orange-toned eyeshadows. Realgar, Red Ochre, Raw Sienna and Burnt Orange are all screaming my name. For a deepening shade, I’m looking at Cyprus Umber, obviously, but putting Red Ochre in the crease for every eye look forever would be fine, too.
This palette has a lot of different stuff going on which makes it both awesome and hard to find direct dupes for. There are warm oranges, shimmers, cranberry reds, and neutral neutrals… The drugstore dupes for Modern Renaissance that I found definitely lean in one direction over the other, but if you know which shades of the Modern Renaissance palette are your favorite, there’s definitely a dupe for you!
I scoured the internet for days trying to find the best palettes that might come close to mimicking the glory and beauty of Modern Renaissance. I found only seven, but I am confident that they are the best drugstore dupes for the Modern Renaissance palette.
Here are the best dupes for the ABH Modern Renaissance Palette ($42):
- Wet n Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow Palette in Rosé in the Air ($4.99)
- Coastal Scents 26 Eyeshadow & Blush Palette ($19.95)
- Morphe 35K Eyeshadow Palette ($22.99)
- e.l.f. Mad for Matte Summer Breeze Palette ($20)
- Morphe 35F Fall Into Frost Palette ($22.99)
- Coastal Scents Revealed 2 Palette ($19.19)
- Makeup Revolution New-trals vs. Neutrals Palette ($10)
- NYX Cosmetics Ultimate Shadow Palette in Warm Neutrals ($17.99)
- Morphe 35W Warm Eyeshadow Palette ($24.10)
- NYX Lid Lingerie Shadow Palette ($9.99)
A quick reminder: while some affordable makeup products can blow high-end stuff out of the water, please remember that these are, in fact, drugstore eyeshadow palettes. The quality is going to be good, but not $42 per palette good. Packaging might be downgraded, shadows might now be immaculate, and they won’t have a velvet-touch exterior. That being said, there are some great brands on this list that are sure to give you lots of Modern Renaissance-y bang for your buck!
Drugstore Dupes for the Modern Renaissance Palette
Wet n Wild Color Icon Eyeshadow Palette in Rosé in the Air
$4.99 at Wet n Wild
If you love all of the shades in the palette, this is the dupe for you. As far as drugstore dupes go, this palette has one of the highest similarity scores and one of the lowest prices on this list – scratch that, the lowest. For less than $5, you get 10 pans of Wet n Wild’s newly reformulated Color Icon eyeshadows. Out of the four variations, the Rosé in the Air is unmistakably inspired by Modern Renaissance. The orangey-reds are there, the champagne shimmers are there, the lavender, the red, the deep browns… they’re all there. When it was released in December 2017, it sold out instantly after weeks of waiting. Now, it’s back in stock and ready to rock.
The only potential setback, if I had to dig for one, is that the pigmentation is probably not as good as the ABH shadows. From the swatches I saw on Temptalia, it looks like they might require a little more work, but the shades are pretty much the exact same colors as Modern Renaissance. If you’re dying for MR and want to get it for literally 10% of the price, pick this up.
Coastal Scents 26 Eyeshadow Blush Palette
$19.95 at CoastalScents.com
If you love the purple and orange shades the most, this is the palette you want to pick up. There are 21 Eyeshadows and five blush colors, two of which mimic shades in the Modern Renaissance palette, so I would suggest using those as shadows. Included are both matte and shimmer shadows in warm and neutral tones. Also included are the mustard yellow family of shadows featured in the ABH palette. I admit that mustard eyeshadow is not something I ever thought I would be enamored with, but here we are.
Unfortunately, this palette doesn’t have that rich, burnt orange (ironically I’m referring to Realgar, not the one actually called “Burnt Orange”) but it has a dupe for pretty much every other color in the palette including Venetian Red and the luminous Love Letter.
Morphe 35K Koffee Eyeshadow Palette
$24.20 at Beauty Bay (Free Shipping)
If you love the warm taupe and brown shades the most, this is the palette you want. The warm oranges are definitely present, and there’s enough cool, neutral, and warm browns to keep your crease defined for the next 100 years. There are matte, pearl, and shimmer shades in this palette which is awesome.
The shades that are missing include the purple-pink shades the previous palette had. A light lavender like Buon Fresco from Modern Renaissance would also be nice. I think this palette is gorgeous, and I’d never heard of it before stumbling upon it when researching for this post. That surprised me, because I truly think this is a great combination of shades. Definitely one of Morphe’s more underrated palettes, and not a bad semi-dupe for Modern Renaissance.
e.l.f. Mad for Matte Summer Breeze Palette
$10 at e.l.f. Cosmetics
If you love the orange, pink, and beige shades, this is the palette you want. Yet again, the berry shades are absent from this palette, and in their place there are a lot of dupe colors with some additional khaki. The other thing is that, well, this is a palette of all-matte shades. It’s BYO-shimmers. The oranges and pinks – even the cool lavender are present, and the addition of a deep, dark black is appreciated. Read my full review of the e.l.f. Mad for Matte palettes here.
Morphe 35F Fall Into Frost Eyeshadow Palette
$22.99 at Morphe Brushes (+ $9.45 shipping) and Ulta ($5.95 shipping)
If you love the berry tones, taupes, and orange tones the most, this is the palette you want. As a nice contrast to the last options, every shadow in this palette except for the very bottom row is a shimmery, frosty shade. Impressively, this palette contains quite a bit of the soul of genuine article, and might be one of the best Modern Renaissance dupes in this list.
The darkest red color on the bottom row of mattes makes me very excited, as does the orange shade, third from the left in that row. Let’s finally address the fact that there are at least five great pink-y berry shades. The only thing this palette is really missing is… maybe a satin pink shade like Buon Fresco? A darker brown, possibly? I don’t know, it’s not missing much…
Coastal Scents Revealed 2 Palette
$19.95 at Amazon.com (Free Prime shipping)
If you love the red, orange, and purple shades the most, this is the palette you want. I didn’t even know Coastal Scents made palettes like this! There are actually three of these Revealed palettes, but the Revealed 2 is definitely the closest to Modern Renaissance. That perfect cranberry shade sticks out like an actual sore thumb, but they also included some good rusty oranges and even the lighter, cooler pinks and purples made it in. Revealed 3 is a mix of matte and shimmer shadows.
There are a few yellow shadows missing for this to be considered a direct dupe for Modern Renaissance. But it’s awfully close, don’t you think? They’ve nailed the dusty pastels that mimic the OP (original palette), but this one has a lot more shimmer shades in it. Lavender, peach, brick, burnt orange… they’re all there, but those warm-warm tones are sorely missed!
Makeup Revolution New-trals vs. Neutrals Eyeshadow Palette
$12 at Ulta.com ($5.95 shipping)
If you love the pink, purple, and shimmer shades, this is the palette you want. New-trals vs. Neutrals actually got rave reviews from beauty bloggers, and some even set it apart as one of Makeup Revolution’s best palettes. I’ve been seeing this brand at Ulta over the last year or so but I haven’t pulled the trigger. This palette has pretty much everything from the Modern Renaissance palette, inlcuding the brick red, the pinks, purples, and lighter taupes. This palette includes matte and shimmer eyeshadows.
I am missing the range of browns in this palette, including the deep and warm Cyprus Umber from the Modern Renaissance palette. There are way more purple and grey shadows in this one, and not enough yellow. Maybe it’s just my infatuation with this palette, but I don’t think I miss the yellows. I’m not even sure how I feel about yellow eyeshadow in the first place, but I admit it doesn’t feel complete without them.
NYX Ultimate Shadow Palette in Warm Neutrals
$17.99 at Ulta ($5.95 shipping)
If you love the orange and taupe shades, this is the palette you want. This palette has the same number of pans as Modern Renaissance, but the colors are all focused on the oranges and warm, sandy beige colors with a hint of the pinks. It’s definitely missing the vibrant berry shadows, though, which makes it feel incomplete as a Modern Renaissance Dupe. But for under $20, this is an amazing and versatile palette that would easily recreate MR-inspired looks.
Morphe 35W Warm Eyeshadow Palette
$24.10 at Beauty Bay (Free Shipping)
If you love the warmer pink, orange, and purple shadows, this is the palette you want. Pretty. Damn. Close. I love seeing that bright, burnt orange color and some similar shades! There are also plenty of browns and purple colors to satisfy my dupe needs. Taupes are covered, pinks are covered… Everything seems so warm and cozy! This palette includes matte and shimmer shadows.
Can you tell the difference between this Morphe palette and the Koffee one? This has more aggressively warm tones and there are literally no cool shadows present. Once again, though, we find ourselves without any yellows or ochres. I also don’t see any pinky-red colors, which as we’ve stated are kind of important signatures of the Modern Renaissance palette.
NYX Cosmetics Lid Lingerie Shadow Palette
$9.99 at Ulta ($5.95 shipping)
If you’d like an abbreviated version of the muted shades in the Modern Renaissance palette, this is gonna your jam. Take those 12 shades and squish them into six, and you’ll have the NYX Lid Lingerie palette. These, much like their sisters, NYX Lip Lingerie, these are the dusty shades of Modern Renaissance condensed into a super-portable palette. Like others on this list, these are all matte shadows, but the shades are perfectly in line with the original palette – and you can’t beat the price.
Shaaanxo x BH Cosmetics Eyeshadow & Lipstick Palette
$18.99 at BH Cosmetics ($4.95 shipping)
If you love the warm reds and yellows, and strong shimmer shades, this is the palette you want. It’s worth mentioning right up front that this palette comes with another nine lipstick shades attached to it, so the price is pretty much unbeatable. This has rich, warm colors and icy shimmers and a deep black. It’s missing those hard-to-find berry shades and a matte brown, but the same number of shades for under 1/3rd of the price so if you love that mustard yellow as much as I do, it’s destiny.
I hope these dupes and near-dupes helped you quench your thirst for the ABH Modern Renaissance palette! You could combine any of these palettes to create your perfect MR dupe, too. Combining the NYX Dream Catcher palette with any of the palettes missing yellow gets you pretty damn close to the Modern Renaissance palette. It would be just over half the price of the Modern Renaissance palette, too, with almost twice the number of shadows.
Do you know a great Modern Renaissance dupe? Leave it in the comments!
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