GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #408 Jeu d’Ombrelles (discontinued) Swatch and Review

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats #408 Jeu d’Ombrelles was a part of Guerlain’s Spring 2010 collection.

The compact is housed in a black velvet pouch and contains mirror and two sponge tip applicators. Each pan of the eyeshadow contains 1,5 grams so in total you get 6 grams of eyeshadow.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadows stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Jeu d’Ombrelles palette contains the following shades:

- shimmery white

- matte dark purple

- matte violet

- shimmery light pink.

Each pan has a red overspray design which disappears with a sweep of a brush.

This palette is my choice when I want to wear a purple look. The colours in this palette compliment each other; this really is a palette from which you’ll use absolutely every colour.

The matte purple and violet shade have excellent pigmentation, they are very silky and easy to blend. The shimmery white and pink shade are not as pigmented, but they are still pretty good, compared to other Guerlain shimmery eyeshadows.

Overall:

 

 

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #406 Tsarina (discontinued) Swatch and Review

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats #406 Tsarina is a part of Guerlain’s Fall 2009 collection Beaute Slave.

The compact is housed in a black velvet pouch and contains mirror and two sponge tip applicators. Each pan of the eyeshadow contains 1,5 grams so in total you get 6 grams of eyeshadow.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadow stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Tsarina eyeshadow palette contains the following shades:

- shimmery golden orange

- shimmery warm cooper

- burgundy – with tiny microshimmer

- warm purple – almost matte, but it contains tiny microshimmer.

Each pan has a silver overspray design.

While the colour scheme is not 100% to my liking (I’ve purchased this only because of the burgundy shade), in the terms of quality, this is one of the best Guerlain’s quads. All of the shades are very pigmented, soft, smooth and they blend easily.

The only problem with this palette is that few people could pull off a look made only with this eyeshadow combination.

Overall:

 

 

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #405 Perles des Mers (discontinued) Swatch and Review

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats #405 Perles des Mers is the palette from Guerlain Summer Splash collection (Summer 2009).

Each pan contains 1,8 grams of eyeshadow, so in total you get 7,2 grams of eyeshadow.

The matte silver compact housed in a black velvet pouch contains mirror and two sponge tip applicators.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadows stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Perles des Mers contains the following shades:

- white

- peachy beige

- sand

- turquoise

All of the shades are shimmery (but very fine shimmer).

Perles des Mers is one of my favourites among Guerlain’s palettes. The colour scheme is perfect – sandy colours with a splash of turquoise.

I have noticed that Guerlain’s shimmery eyeshadows always have worse texture than the matte ones – it seems that the more shimmer, the worse the texture is.

This palette, even though is shimmery, has an amazing silky soft texture and the pigmentation is pretty good. These shades are very easy to work with and they blend like a dream.

The Turquoise shade is a bit on the sheer side, but it is pigmented enough to give a pop of colour.

Overall:

 

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #403 Mysterious Butterfly (discontinued) Swatch and Review

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats #403 Mysterious Butterfly is the palette from Guerlain Holiday 2008 collection. It is easily the prettiest palette that Guerlain has ever made, yet in the terms of quality, it is absolutely the worst.

The metallic violet compact has an imprint of butterfly on the cover, it is housed in a black velvet pouch and contains mirror and two sponge tip applicators.

Each pan contains 1,5grams of eyeshadow, so in total you get 6 grams of eyeshadow.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadows stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Mysterious Butterfly palette contains the following shades:

- pearly white – contains gold microshimmer

- dirty rose

- lavender

- dirty purple

All of the shades have some of the microshimmer.

Across the pans, there is an imprint of a butterfly, filled with silver overspray, which disappears after a couple of swipes with the brush.

The texture of these eyeshadows is absolutely horrible – the eyeshadows are extremely hard and very difficult to apply with the brush.

All of the shades are lacking pigment – the white shade is absolutely the worst. I have put 6 coats of the white eyeshadow for the swatch and it is still barely visible. The other shades are not so bad, but they are still very far from what I would expect from Guerlain.

Overall:

 

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #401 Jeu de Nuit (discontinued) Swatch and Review

Guerlain Ombre 4 Eclats #401 Jeu de Nuit is the second palette from Guerlain Jeu de Dames collection (Fall 2008).

The matte black compact housed in a black velvet pouch contains mirror and two sponge tip applicators.

Each pan contains 1,5grams of eyeshadow, so in total you get 6 grams of eyeshadow.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadows stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Jeu de Nuit contains the following shades:

- slate grey

- warm light grey

- warm dark brown

- dark coffee brown

All of the shades contain microshimmer. The first three pans have a bas-relief of woman’s head with red overspray. The fourth pan has Guerlain double G logo.

While the colours in the palette look extremely dark, they are much lighter on the skin. The pigmentation is not as nearly great – for example, the light grey eyeshadow is pretty sheer on the skin.

On itself, the palette is appropriate for a smoky eye, but you will have to combine it with Jeu de Nacres to create more day appropriate looks.

The texture of these eyeshadows is not as good as the texture of the eyeshadows in Jeu de Nacres palette – these are much harder and the pigmentation doesn’t transfer easily onto the brush. On the skin they often end up looking muddy, especially if you do not wear the primer. They are not as easy to blend – again, if you blend them too much they will look muddy.

Overall:

 

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #402 Jeu de Nacres (discontinued) Swatch and Review

As I was browsing the statistics of my blog, I have noticed that many people have found this blog by searching for swatches of some of the older Guerlain products. While this products are not available in stores (and therefore you cannot see it in person), it is still possible to find them in some on-line stores or on eBay. For this reason, I have decided to swatch all of my older Guerlain eyeshadows, hoping that if will be helpful to some of you

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #402 Jeu de Nacres was a one of the two palettes from Guerlain Jeu de Dames collection for Fall 2008.

Each pan contains 1,5 grams of eyeshadow, so in total you get 6 grams of eyeshadow.

Guerlain eyeshadows are absolutely the best eyeshadows I ever had (in the terms of staying power). I have extremely oily lids, and without primer every eyeshadow creases in max. an hour. Guerlain eyeshadows stay well over three hours (without a primer). With the primer, the eyeshadows stay on for as long as I want it, without fading or creasing.

Jeu de Nacres palette contains the following shades:

- pastel pink – very finely milled texture that looks almost matte, but it contains tiny, tiny microshimmer

- pastel yellow – not so finely milled, the microshimmer particles are slightly bigger

- light mint green – very smooth texture with green microshimmer

- baby blue – contains blue microshimmer.

The first three pans had a bas-relief – a woman’s head covered with silver overspray. The fourth pan only had Guerlain double G logo.

The shiny black eyeshadow compact housed in a black velvet pouch comes with a mirror and two sponge tip applicators – one bigger and one smaller.

The eyeshadows are basic pastels – this palette is hardly the one that would function on its own. The best is to combine the shadows from this palette with the second palette from the collection – #401 Jeu de Nuit.

The eyeshadows are pretty pigmented, but the colours are very light. They are very blendable.

Jeu de Nacres was my first Guerlain eyeshadow palette and this colour scheme was slightly disappointing until I have tried the eyeshadows over the black eyeliner. This is really the only thing this palette is good for: a swipe of the eyeshadow instantly transforms the black eyeliner to a bright pink, golden yellow, shimmery green or sky blue. I suggest that you use it over a greasier eyeliner – good choice is Givenchy Magic Kajal.

Overall:

 

My Stash: Eyeshadows, Mascaras and Eyeliners

We have finally arrived to my favourite part: eyeshadows. I think that if I’d stop to buy eyeshadows today, I’d still have enough to last me a lifetime.

As for the eyeliners, I’m not a great collector. I prefer black, but here and there I use colour eyeliners.

GIVENCHY Le Prismissime 9-Colors Eyeshadow #61 Acid Lights Swatch

Top picture source: Temptalia

All other pictures are mine.

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Givenchy Le Prismissime 9-Colours Eyeshadow is the star item of Givenchy Acid Summer Collection.

The compact contains 9 eyeshadows (the size of each eyeshadow is approximately 1×1 centimeter). The compact contains the mirror and 3 brushes in the special drawer underneath the eyeshadows.The palette retails for $62.

The palette contains the following shades:

1st row: rosy bronze (swatches almost like orange), sky blue, turquoise

2nd row: matte purple, pearly white, bright yellow

3rd row: grass green, turquoise green, brown

The quality of the shadow varies depending on the shade. The palette offers a variety of finishes: some are more matte (purple, sky blue, turquoise – but neither is completely matte), some are slightly shimmery (yellow, rosy bronze, turquoise green, brown, grass green, white). *Flash swatch emphasize shimmer, while the swatch taken without flash emphasizes matte*

The most pigmented shades are turquoise, purple and yellow.

White, turquoise green and rosy bronze are not as vibrant as before mentioned shades, but they are silky and still offer a decent pigmentation.

Sky blue and brown eyeshadow do not apply evenly.

Grass green is the worst shade in the palette. It is incredibly sheer (I really had to pack it on in the swatch) and chalky.

Keep in mind that none of the shades applied on the skin is not as bright as it is in the compact. Nevertheless, this palette seems as a nice product to have if you like to wear bright colours from time to time. Those who are really into bright colours might find the palette not bright enough. However, this might be a nice introduction to the bright coloured eyeshadow as the shades are not too bright to be putting off to someone who is used to neutrals.

CHANEL Les 4 Ombres in #29 Lagons (LE L’Ame d’un Regard Collection, Spring 2011)

As I’ve posted yesterday, Chanel has launched another spring collection along with Les Perles de Chanel collection. I’ve prepared several swatches. Please, note that this review will be based only on the testing I did at the counter, so I won’t rate the product. I also cannot say anything about staying power, since I didn’t wear it long enough.

I’ve tried Les 4 Ombres eyeshadow quad in the shade Lagons. The product contains 1,2 grams of eyeshadow (European version) and it retails for 47 euros.

Lagons contains these shades: light baby blue, medium dark greyish blue, dark royal blue and medium dark baby blue. I’ve swatched the European version. The three lighter shade have a very tiny silvery microshimmer and the darkest shade (royal blue) has a bigger blue shimmer particles.

The texture of the eyeshadows is very silky and smooth. The pigmentation is average – on the swatch I applied three coats. Whan I’ve applied the first coat, it went patchy and uneven. You have to blend it, but the eyeshadow will look very sheer. For more intensity, you have to apply second layer, blend it and then apply more if you’d like even more intensity. The two shades on the right were the easiest to apply, the top left shade was a little chalky. Although the bottom left shade is gorgeous (I think it is the prettiest shade in the quad), it doesn’ t apply evenly.

Overall, if you are into blue shades and you like Chanel quads, this quad might be worth purchasing.

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Eclats #441 Brun Mordore Review

This eyeshadow quad comes in a gold square case with a black velvet pouch. There are also two spoonge applicators included: one wider and one narrower, for the corners of the eye. It retails for $56 and there is 7,2 grams of product (1,8 grams in each pan).

Brun Mordore has been released together with the Beaute Slave collection for Fall 2009, but it has been made a permanent edition.

The quad contains an array of gorgeous warm neutral shades: pale champagne, sandy beige (similar to Sable Blonde), dark bronze and dark coffee brown. All shades are shimmery, but the shimmer is not very obvious.

The eyeshadow texture is very hard (compared to other Guerlain eyeshadows, which seem much softer) and sometimes it is very difficult to work with these shades. The darker shades are not easily to blend, and they often end up looking muddy.

As you can see on the swatch (swatched with sponge applicator without a primer), the pigmentation average. The best colour pay-off offers the shade in the top right corner (sandy beige). Pale champagne (which is heavily applied on the swatch) has absolutely horrible pigmentation – it looks like a tiny bit of goldish-champagne shimmer. Dark bronze shade doesn’t swatch as intensely and it might look very orangey. Dark coffee brown is also not as intense as I would like it.

All shades look better if you apply it with sponge tip applicator. The only shade which looks good no matter what method of application you use is sandy beige.

While you get a good value for money, this quad could use a bit more pigmentation. But, as it is, it is only good for a natural, daytime look.

Overall:

CHANEL Ombres Perlées de Chanel Review and Swatches (Spring 2011)

Yesterday, I gave a preview of my new Chanel Ombres Perlees de Chanel eyeshadow palette. As I’ve promised, today I’ll give you a full review. I’ve also taken a lot of pictures to illustrate how, depending on in which condition the picture was taken, the eyeshadows appear to look.

CHANEL Ombres Perlées de Chanel Preview (Spring 2011)

 

Yes, I finally got it. Ombres Perlees de Chanel, the most coveted item from Chanel Spring collection is finally mine.

This post will just be a quick preview, the real review will follow tomorrow. I’ve made a quick swatch, but it is night here, and the light is horrible. Nevertheless, the swatch is made with only a light swipe of finger (this is why the shadow seems very sheer). Tomorrow, I’ll make a comparison between wet and dry application, as well a more in-depth review.

But for today, just enjoy the pictures

GUERLAIN Ombre 4 Éclats eyeshadow quads – an interesting piece of information

 

Have you ever noticed that, despite being equally priced, Guerlain eyeshadow quads contain a different amount of product, depending whether they have overspray design or they are just regular eyeshadows?

URBAN DECAY Book of Shadows vol.2 Review

If I had to pick the favourite part of my stash, it would definitely be Urban Decay Book of Shadows vol. 2. For a very long time I couldn’t made up my mind whether to purchase it or not, but right now I think it’s the best make-up purchase I’ve made so far. This is definitely the best edition in the Book of Shadows series.

Since this item is discontinued (although you should get one if you manage to find it somewhere) I won’t write a very detailed review. Suffice to say is that this palette is absolutely amazing and it really got me interersted into Urban Decay makeup. The staying power is great, especially with the primer. The texture of the eyeshadows is just as I like it – very soft, almost creamy. They are even better than Sisley eyeshadows, and they are much cheaper.

BOS2 contains 16 eyeshadows (seven of which are exclusive to this palette) – each is 0.03oz/0.8g; two 24/7 eye-pencils in Bourbon (bronze brown) and Zero (black) – each is 0.03oz/0.8g and mini Eyeshadow Primer Potion (0.13fl.oz/3.7ml).  The exclusive shades are AC/DC, Nylon, Mushroom, Sphynx, Jinx, Homegrown and Misdemeanor.

The packaging is cute, but very unpractical. The shadows are in a carboard pull-out drawer which doesn’t slide smoothly. There is also a small booklet which can be found after opening the top cover whith mirror. There are some very good looks, but I wish it included some step-by-step instructions. They claim there that the instructions can be seen on their web-page, so I checked it, but there were instructions for only one of the looks.

The reason I like it so much is that it offers all the right shades and I like them all. Usually, palettes are too neutral, or offer too many unflattering clownish shades. This palette has thes right measure of both: first three rows are practically all neutral nuances, while the last row offers slightly edgy shades. I don’t even have to mention that the pigmentation is amazing, each colour on the skin is true to the colour in the pan.

To sum up: it’s a must-have.