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?