Laura Mercier Enlightenment Eye & Cheek Palette for Spring 2014 Renaissance Collection, Review, Swatch & FOTD

Center piece of Laura Mercier's Spring Collection is a very chic and sleek palette for eyes and cheeks, named Enlightenment proper to Renaissance theme of the collection. Upper lid of the compact doesn't stay up but opens all the way back, this is I tried different angles on this picture.

My last experience with Laura Mercier Holiday Palette must have set a flag in my brain which enables me to buy each and every palette they release at the moment. Artist's Palette from holidays became my everyday complimentary eye shadow palette to deepen crease, set eye liner and add inner corner highlight. I loved the fact that I could get all those regular eye shadows in great quality in one single package. What it also did was to increase my expectation for the following palettes to come as it was such a perfect product at a great price point.

Enlightenment Palette is divided into three sections, the middle section has four limited edition eye shadows. Right and left there are one blush each. The names of the products are written right under them which makes this all very easy to review for you beauty bloggers out there (one plus point!). Upper lid has a large mirror, which is great for travelling but since it doesn't stay up, you have to probably hold this one with one hand to be able to use it. The closing stripe is magnetic to hold the upper lid in place.

The pan size is big enough to easily swirl brush around the eye shadows and blushes. I really like the design, which is practical and chic.

Left side of the compact has a darker blush, called blushing, a pigmented reddish coral. Blush on the right hand side is called Awakening. I like this one since it gives a healthy flush for daily use. Two can be combined for more defined cheekbones or mixed to create new shades. I really love how they apply and blend but I found out that they didn't last very long on me. On 5 hours mark, I checked to see that they faded considerably. I was using a mix of shades so I don't know if I can say this for both of the shades though.

Believe me I swatched the eye shadows at the counter before I decided to get the palette. It must have been that way, I swatched Grace, which is a gorgeous taupe and later I must have passed out from how pretty it is so is this why I don't remember the others?

Anyway, look at those, pretty? To me they are a little too frosty :-( I don't mind them being all light shades because I can always compliment them with a darker shade from my beloved Artists' Palette but that frost didn't apply all that well on me. I wished those had the same quality of Laura Mercier's Luster Eye Colors. *sigh*

Here are the shade described:

Angelic: Light warm ivory, frosty/metallic finish

Grace: Light to mid toned cool taupe, frosty/metallic finish

Pure Glow: Light to mid toned copper,

Innocence: Light cool champagne with a tad of pink, frosty/metallic finish

Here is a quick look to give you an idea. I am wearing Grace on eyes (deepened the crease with two of the darkest eye shadows from LM Artists' Palette) and a mix of Awakening and Blushing on the cheeks. No doubt that it is a fresh springy look. Eye shadow lasted all day, blush was almost invisible after 6-7 hours.

I might be the odd one out not liking this chic, spring-light palette because it looks so beautiful on Make-up Magpie and Beauty Reflections. So don't let my review hold you back, be sure to check these out too.

Final thoughts: I can't all that well understand the concept of this product and to me it lacks some versatility as well as quality since blush didn't have lasting power and eye shadows were rather too frosty. I would rather go with a palette which has a range of permanent ones in, but as said, that is probably just me.

Now I would like to try Laura Mercier's Nordstrom Exclusive palette. This one is composed of brand's great quality permanent eye shadows, yay!

Have you checked Enlightenment Eye & Cheek Palette out? What are your thoughts?