Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

For holidays, Clarins recently released a natural palette with ten eye shadows.

How said than done, but take a moment to think about it. We are talking about something like UD's Naked, something good, something which, I think, is ever better. Check this out...

Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

The palette has a sleek package with a rubber band to make sure the top lid stays in place. For less than 40€, you even get a full sized two ended brush, which I didn't care about that much but surely comes handy when you are travelling. If you like sticking to your favorite brushes, you may as well use the space available and exchange it with this one. The top lid has a large sized mirror and the plastic cover has some sketches with ideas about how these shadows can be placed. The eye shadows are 0.04oz /1.1g each, same size as in quads and here there are 10 of them! Could it get better?


Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

The answer is yes! It certainly gets better once you start touching, playing with these and see how buttery they feel and how easily they blend. We are talking about lovely texture and good color pay-off. There is definitely a balance between light and dark, warm and cool.


Close-up: Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

The left side of the palette consists of lighter shades.

#1: Skin color (at least to my NC20-25 skin) with matte finish.  
#2: Very light beige with shimmery finish.
#3: Light pink with shimmery finish
#4: Light rosewood with matte finish
#5: Light taupe, leaning pink, with frost finish


Swatch of Shades 1 to 5: Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

#6: Mid-toned bronze with subtle golden shimmer, satin finish,
#7: Deep warm bronze with satin finish
#8: Gorgeous mid-toned pink leaning taupe with silver shimmer, satin finish.
#9: Mid-toned brown with silver shimmer, satin finish.
#10: Khaki-leaning deep brown with golden shimmer, satin finish.


Swatch of Shades 6 to 10: Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette

I have to admit I am not a fan of UD Naked Palettes, since I find the texture too frosty for my taste and it looks almost falling off my rather dry eye lids, making them appear much older. The Essentials Eye Make-up Palette on the other hand is almost the perfect natural palette for me. It is pretty close to being my dream basic palette with just one exception: Wished there would be a darker shade, like a dark cool brown with matte texture instead of #6 or #7 which are quiet close.

Below I applied three shades on my lids, #2 (inner lid), #9 (all over lid) and #7 (definition/crease) and used #1 to blend on the crease. I am just starting to explore the many possibilities you can get with so many pretty neutrals.

In-action: Clarins The Essentials, Eye Make-up Palette, used shades: #2, #7, #9

Final thoughts: Clarins goes on impressing with the quality they deliver for affordable prices. The Essentials  is definitely great value for your money. If you like your easy, everyday neutrals, you can't go wrong with it. It is limited and retails for 39 € in Germany, at Clarins' website or for £35.00 at Escentuals.

Do you like the concept of "basic neutrals" palette or would you rather go for one which has more interesting colors mixed in between?
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16 comments

  1. Oh wow, there are some seriously good shades in there! I already own BOTH Naked palettes plus a whole bunch of neutral eyeshadows though, so I think I might pass. Still, this is just SO tempting! Might need to swatch it in any case :)

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    1. LOL, yes it is tempting. Of course so many neutrals become abundant at some point but I can never resist having another, such a conflict ;-)

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  2. I don't know if I can ever have enough neutral palettes. Part of me says I've got plenty of brown eyeshadows...enough to last 5 lifetimes. The other part is thinking how versatile they are. They work for pretty much any occasion. I usually cave ;-)

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    1. Hi Laura,
      yes, LOL, exactly the same argumentation here. If it is a crazy color combination I say "oh so unique, let me get this". If it is neutrals I think "can be used everyday, let me get this" :-))

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  3. Sold sold sold! Just ordered from Selfridges. Oh Sara why do you do this to me!!!

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    1. LOL Stacey, I feel good about enabling that one! I am sure you will love it. Can't wait for your review.

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    2. Yay! Can't wait! I hope you like it.

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  4. Eeeeh, you got this one! The thing with it is however when I saw the press photos, it seemed so much more purple toned than it actually was. It still seems a great palette though and it may speak to a bigger crowd because the finish isn't too frosty. Because yeah, that's the weak point of both Naked palettes imo. I'm very tempted now! Not sure if it will be available here.

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    1. Hi Teri, yes you are right, that purple palette on promo pics was my dream but in the end this also turned out to be pretty :-)
      You can check from UK, escentuals.com, they have reasonable shipping prices for Europe. I got mine from there before it was released in Germany.

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  5. What a lovely palette. I love the shade no 6 - 10 the best. I can see the pigmentation very nicely! Glad to hear Clarins has come out with something interesting this season as I only buy Clarins skin care.

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    1. Clarins is more known for their skincare, still I can't resist mineral palettes. In the past there were at least one out of four shades which had not very good color pay-off and had to be applied wet. This time around, I can safely say this palette has perfect quality. Also #1-#5 are nicely pigmented, they are light colors so was a little tricky to take swatch pictures.

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  6. This is a good one! Too bad Clarins has no staying power on me. I have to get a primer to see if the ones I have (Forest from the fall coll) will stick to my lids first.

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    1. Hi Icaria,
      I am using Nars Pro-prime and this one stays on me all day. Maybe you want to check that out?

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  7. At one glance, it does look like the Naked palette :-P If I didn't have so many neutrals, I'd definitely snag this. Looks great :-)

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    Replies
    1. Yes it is like a Naked palette with less frost/metallic shadows, which is a great thing for me! :-)

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