Ah, eyeshadow palettes, and my undying love for them. There is just something about palettes that always tempts my wallet - the packaging, the sheer prettiness of seeing a nice choreographed set of shades neatly lined up side by side, the fact that you feel like you could be getting more value for money with more shades - whatever it is, I end up buying palettes, even if I don't even use them all that much.
The latest palette to capture my eye is the Lancome Ombre Absolue 3D Eyeshadow Palette (which I've swatched before) in Etoile du Soir, G10. It's a set of five varying shades of greys, from white-grey to black, and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's also my personal favourite palette right now because it's just so versatile.
The palette comes looking much like any other Lancome compact, complete with shiny sleek back packaging and the Lancome rose at a corner. Very classy, and very nice looking. There are a couple of small tiny travel eye brushes inside, consisting of sponge applicators of various sizes, as well as a tiny natural hair shadow brush. The shadows inside are arranged from lightest to darkest, and my favourite shades are the three greys in the middle row.
It appears that this palette was created partly with the Asian market in line, as part of it's marketing is that it provides you with shiny, glittery eyes, which tend to be more a staple of Asian market eyeshadows than Western ones. For some reason, Asian eyeshadows tend to be a lot sheerer and contain larger, chunkier glitter - both of which are often viewed as traits of "bad" eyeshadow in the West. I don't know why this is the case, but it just seems to be a difference in market preferences.
Anyway, all the Lancome Ombre Absolue palette fortunately doesn't make the mistake of imparting heavy craft-style glitter into its shades. Instead, most of the shades are kept glitter-free, with the exception of the black liner shade, which has specks of glitter, and the shade imprinted with the Lacome rose. The shade with the Lancome rose on it is just purely a glitter shade, and is meant to impart that "fairy eyes" look so popular in Asian makeup. Which is a good thing to me - if I don't feel like fairy eyes that day (e.g. if I have to work), I can just skip that particular shade, instead of passing over the entire palette. Perfect.
Etoile du Soir, consisting of grey-based neutrals, is thus very work-appropriate (if you don't wear the glitter shade), and suitable for virtually all occasions. And just to prove the point, I've done not one, but two(!) EOTDs (Eye of the Days)!
Here's the first EOTD. This is the day look:
For this look, I just used the three lighter shades. The off-white shade on the top row was a highlight, while the lightest grey shade in the second row was used on the lid. The middle grey shade in the second row was used to contour the eye.
As you can see, this look is very soft, simple, and girly. Very appropriate for any occasion where you don't want to look like you're wearing too much makeup, yet still want to bring out your eyes. This look would also be totally appropriate for Spring, since grey eyes seem to be all the rage lately!
Now, here's the night look, created using the same palette, but just a different array of shades:
For this look, I used the middle shade in the second row as a lid shade, and used the black shade to contour the eye. The white shade was used as a highlight.
I really love this look. It's a smokey, sutry, sexy look that is still very wearable - perfect for a smokey eye without being too dark. I would absolutely wear this out even during the day, although I'm sure most girls would probably only wear it out at night.
Although a palette of greys might look a little bit boring to some people, Etoile du Soir really stands out in its versatility. The quality of the palette is also pretty good - the shadows start off moderately pigmented but are buildable, and have a soft texture that makes it easy to blend. I love this palette, and if you love neutrals and greys, and are out on the market for a palette that can take your eye from day to night, this could be worth looking into.
(Product sent for review. Review is my honest and complete opinion. I am not compensated by/affiliated with the company.)
