Palette + Chanel? How I could resist This caught my eye as I was browsing through Chanel.com, and then once again whilst I was walking through Myer. I decided to instead purchase this palette online via a mail forwarding service as (no surprise) it still worked out to be cheaper! But enough about acquisition, let’s talk about this palette.

This limited edition palette is called Ombres Matelassees, and was created to celebrate the opening of Chanel’s latest boutique in Paris. The shade is 51 Montaigne, also the address of said new boutique. The five shadows, besides the last all have a golden hue to them with a shimmery finish. The press of each shadow is reminiscent of Chanel’s signature quilted bags, a beautiful touch.

The shadows themselves range in pigmentation, with naturally the black being the strongest. I wouldn’t say the pigmentation is comparable to Inglot, but in comparison to some of the Chanel eye shadows I’ve tried before, this is rather impressive.

The last two darkest shades can also be used as liner, so the palette is relatively versatile, depending on how dark you dare to go. I’m not sure if this palette is still available at Myer (the only place in Australia I’ve seen it on sale). But it would be worth having a play before you put down any cash as generally speaking this is one heftily priced palette even in America, sitting at $80US.

A few days ago I reviewed SUQQU’s Bright Veil Face Color, a really subtle pink based highlighter that I haven’t been able to stop using because it gives my skin just the most subtle hint of dewiness. Well in today’s post I wanted to talk about the corresponding eye shadow palette.

I first discovered these palettes from Front Row Beauty, where Reika raves on about the quality and pigmentation of these shadows. She has never steered me wrong so when the Spring 2012 collection hit I decided to test it out for myself. And this girl was not lying. If I were to compare these eye shadows to anything, it would be very similar to Tom Ford’s Mirage Cocoa Quad eye shadow.

I found the texture to be very soft, buttery, almost like touching velvet. I could tell it was definitely from the same family as the Bright Veil Face Colour Powder as the consistency was very similar, as was the finish.

The first shadow was a satin soft pink shadow which works as a really great subtle highlighter, not as bright and obvious as a traditional white highlighter. The next shadow is almost like a lighter taupe satin shade, which works as a great crease or all over the lid colour. I was quite taken by the third shade, which is actually split into two. The darker side works great as a liner or on outer corner of the eye, and the lighter shade is perfect for the crease. And finally the matte tan shade is ideal for a general wash all over the lid, brow bone etc. I know it’s a shade I tend to use a lot.

I’m a bit terrified as to how much I’m loving the SUQQU range to be honest. They are by no means cheap, I think depending on the exchange rate and where you buy them (not available in store in Australia sorry!), the eye shadow palettes are between $60 to $80AU. None the less, I love the quality and can see myself saving up and indulging in more in the future.

Long time no blog? Or rather, I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve written a real post, minus a chapter from my Book of Fables. I’m going to blame work and a higher than average amount of social activities that have crept up. My goal has always been to blog every day if I can, which I think I managed to do quite well for a few months straight. I guess I just need a better organisational system, one unscheduled late evening out with friends and I feel like my entire blogging schedule gets thrown off!

Anyways, enough whinging, I want to show you a few products from the Lunasol Spring 2012 collection Probably one of my favourite collections so far because I feel I may have actually found my new almost HG brow product!

Petal Pure Eyes – 03 Soft Beige

I picked out this particular palette because the shades were highly wearable (just what I need, another wearable nude / neutral eye shadow palette…). The pigmentation for this palette is pretty amazing, didn’t experience any issues what so ever. Was able to apply the shadows both with my brushes and fingers easily.

The design is truly gorgeous, even though I cringe at the idea of using beautiful designs such as the white rose above. All the shades are of a shimmery to satin nature, minus the top left hand shade which is clearly a purely shimmer shade that can be either worn alone as a highlighter to overlayed a more solid colour. It reflects pink under the light. None of these shadows contain any glitter and all apply buttery smooth.

Brow Styling Pencil Oval – Grayish Brown

The highlight product of this collection for me! (even though I actually love all the products here). I find it incredibly difficult to find natural brow products I can use. Day to day I don’t fill in my brows as they are naturally very strong, but if I’m going out to say a wedding or particular event I like to be able to fill in my brows just a touch. The problem is my brows are not brown (not even dark brown), which is the case for most brow kits. My brows are far more ashy, almost black / gray. As a result I end up lightly using black powder, which quite a number of my readers have already slapped me on the wrist for.

Introducing this brow pencil, a perfect mix of gray and brown tones mixed together to create a lovely shade for my own natural brows. I won’t go as far to say that the colour is seamless to my own brows, as you can clearly see in the photo below. But if I didn’t point that fact out, you can see how natural my brows actually look. Almost like I didn’t fill them in, which is exactly what I want in a brow kit. For now, this is as close to perfect as I can get (and I’ve been searching for a long time), so I’m truly in love with this pencil!

Full Glamour Lips G – 42 Light Pink

Lucky last, a light moisturising pink lipstick! My favourite kind. I find that the Lunasol lip products are quite similar to SUQQU’s lipsticks. Probably not as moisturising and creamy, but extremely close.

As you can see in the swatch, the colour is very sheer. I’d almost compare it to a balm to be honest, but this shade is incredibly work friendly and wearable, which is my favourite kind of lip product. It feels great on the lipsticks, not at all drying, but unfortunately lasting power isn’t the best. I found it lasted around 2 hours tops? It’s a small price to pay for a moisturising creamy lipstick in my books. But if you’re looking for lipsticks high in pigmentation, I’d look else where.

To me brands like Lunasol, SUQQU, Bobbi Brown are more about natural looks, enhancing what you already have rather than covering it up, or emulating a different look all together, hence why most of their products contain more neutral tones or are very sheer.

In other words, these brands are perfect for the work environment or people who are not comfortable with heavy transformations. Lunasol certainly has a place in my collection Unfortunately this collection is only available in Asia, but there are plenty of websites online who will ship to Australia.

I ummed and ahhed over this collection for a while before I decided to take the plunge and try it out for myself. I would say personally the two products I really enjoy and will be using is the blush and lipstick, which are really lovely. The eye shadow palette was the biggest disappointment of the lot, which I’m explain why below! Hopefully my loss is your gain! Which is exactly why I continue to shop (hey, denial is a nice place to live!) and post reviews for you all

Ultra Nude Eye Palette

A warm neutral palette with a mixture of shimmery and matte shades. The shades are very wearable by all skin tones and the brush provided with the palette is very good quality! Unfortunately that’s where my praise for this palette ends, which saddens me as the last few Bobbi Brown eye shadows palettes have really impressed me.

The pigmentation for most of the shadows are below average, especially for any of the more shimmery shadows. Some of the lighter matte shades are pretty average, but some of them have a chalky finish. All in all, this eye shadow palette is a real mix bag of average to terrible, certainly a palette I wouldn’t recommend to anyone. Too bad because the packaging is really striking and as I said before, the brushes are highly usable. Tempted to take it out of this palette and keep it for others. This palette retails for $45US / $99AU.

Blush – Nude Peach 28

A lovely matte powder blush, I found this shade to be universally flattered to most skin tones. Unfortunately I can’t speak for darker tones, but based on my swatches and tests, I think it should be fine.

It takes a few swipes to get a good level of pigmentation, but with all my every day natural makeup this is actually what I prefer. It gives to a lot of flexibility to build it up from subtle to heavy. This blush retails for $24US / $58AU.

Lip Color – Uber Beige

A neutral creamy lip color, the collection came with two very vibrant colours and then this shade. I know it appears to be very boring, but it’s actually one of my go to shades. Currently I have Estee Lauder’s Nude Almond in my everyday makeup bag, which I love for it’s beautiful scent, moisturising traits and highly conservative shade. Bobbi brown’s lip color is less creamy and does not have a particular fragrance associated to it, which means there is less slip and it has better staying power than Estee Lauder’s.

Ultimately for me this comes down to personal preference, I prefer a lipstick that does have more slip even if it means I won’t last long, but I know plenty who would take longevity over slip any day. Still I will certainly be using up this lipstick once I’ve finished my Estee Lauder lipstick. The lipstick retails for $23US / $44AU.

Lip Gloss – Ultra Violet

Finally the lip gloss, I thought since I already opted for such a neutral lipstick I’d pick the most “out there” lip gloss. Not surprisingly, the gloss actually applies relatively clear once on the lips. It gives them just a hint of colour, very conservative and work appropriate.

The gloss has a slight minty feel to it, which leaves your lips feeling refreshed. For me it would just be a fun gloss to carry around, because the colour in the tube is very unusual. This gloss retails for $23US / $42AU.

In the photo below I’m wearing all the products mentioned in this post minus the gloss

You guys know I love NARS, their eye primer is my absolute HG, and I would recommend it to everyone I possibly could. However I don’t love this palette. And here’s why.

It’s essentially a trio palette with three black shades infused with different coloured glitter / shimmer that don’t show up very well when worn. It looks lovely in the pan as they all have good contrast. I knew from the get go this wouldn’t be a heavily used palette given how dark the colours are. Unfortunately once the colours were swatched, they tell a very different story.

To me, only the pinker shade on the far left actually shows some sort of colour, whilst the other two are almost identical minus the glitter. Quality wise, I found that with most dark colours, you need to use a very light hand and build it up, else you’ll find your under eyes littered with lots of fall out (unless that’s your thing!)

As you can see, I tried to use all three shades on my eyes and they all pretty much look the same once worn. At $89AU from Mecca Cosmetica or $45US from NARS Cosmetics, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. I don’t think the shades when worn are unique enough, nor is the quality high enough to justify the price. But that’s just my personal opinion, I can’t see myself reaching this much because I like it, but more because I’d want to use it up (can’t bear to throw NARS out)

Pros:

• Soft and buttery texture
• Highly pigmented
• Solid secure packaging with mirror
• Easy to apply
• Minimal fallout

Cons:

• Disproportionate amount of shadow (not enough highlight)

Price: $59US

Rating:

Where: Giorgio Armani.

This palette was part of the Summer 2011 Heat collection released earlier this year by Giorgio Armani. GA is certainly one of my most favourite brands in the market, in fact my first high end foundation was by them and is still to this day my go to foundation for every single photo shoot I’ve done!

I absolutely love this palette, I can use every shade in this palette every day if I have to. The selection of colours are spot on and the pigmentation is second to none. I love how soft and buttery these shadows feel both on my fingers and on my eyes.

Admittedly all the shades are shimmer, with no matte. But to me, that’s a non issue. Even though I believe in using matte shades for contouring (crease), this is still a fun palette to use if you want your eyes to look a little more fun and festive. It almost gives the eyes a slightly flirty fun look.

The only down side I see with this palette is how small the highlighter shade is. I use highlighters for the brow bone, inner corner and often as an all over lid colour. So usually my highlighter shades get the most use and given how little is provided in this palette, I can see it being the first shade to run empty.

Other than that, and the price point, no regrets Still glad I purchased this palette!

I have to admit to being a tad slow with my reviews as of late, I’m hoping now that since the year is gradually coming to an end it’ll give me a great opportunity to sort myself out. Estee Lauder kindly gifted me with this palette quite a few months ago, but I only just recently got around to using it and hence reviewing it.

Estee Lauder’s Five Color Eyeshadow Palettes comes in a range of colours, from what I can see they range from neutrals to some more earthy colours such as blues and purples, don’t however expect any neon yellows, this is Estee Lauder after all

I loved that the colours in this palette really did complement each other, I was able to use all five when doing my eyes, but honestly I probably could get away with using 2-3 if I was going for a simply smokey eye. I am glad that the black portion of the palette is the smallest as that is always the shade I use the least of. A little goes a long way!

Quality wise, this palette is impressive. You can see in the swatches below that they all swatch pretty well, if I was being nit picky I’d say that the gray shades were probably the most stubborn, but that’s me searching for a reasons.

This palette retails for $90AU at Myer or David Jones, most certainly not a cheap palette by any means. The colours are lovely, but certainly not unique if you’re someone on a very tight budget who wants this same look, I’m sure you can achieve it with more budget eye shadows.

But this palette would be perfect if you have the cash, luxury palettes in general to me are great splurges

Sorry for the blurry images X_x; I’m testing out a new lighting set up, a rather crappy one I have to admit. Hopefully I can work on it a bit more this long weekend!