Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Eye Shadow Palette in Dolce Vita, Swatch, Review & FOTD

I wish you all a wonderful Sunday and celebrate Mother's Day of all the mothers out there. 

I have way too many thing going on right now in my life, so it has been a busy month, or even months, which is hopefully going to settle down in a few weeks time. I have some exciting posts which I already partly prepared and hoping to share them with you soon. 

At the time I was placing an order for Tom Ford Unabashed Eye & Cheek Compact (reviewed here) at Selfridges, one of Charlotte Tilbury palettes fell unintentionally(!) in my shopping bag. I was curious about these for a long time but didn't have the real urge to pull the trigger. Personally I found them too expensive to justify the purchase. They are just a few Pounds cheaper than high-end brands such as Dior and Chanel. As a reference, Selfridges prices of Dior and Chanel Palettes are both £40, Charlotte Tilbury Quads are £38, if we check the amounts of product, Charlotte Tilbury has 5.2 g while Dior has 6 g! I use Dior as a reference since Chanel has another type of formula in Europe which can't be compared with this one in terms of weight. I always assumed when you buy a Dior product, you pay partly for the name and this is exactly the point that my logic falls short to justify prices for Charlotte Tilbury, because I just don't know what I am paying for at her case. Not having a counter close by is also another drawback, once you are paying even more than a high-end brand, you want to at least try things out before buying them right?

Long story short, I wanted to try at least one of those just for science. My logic said no but my blog duties (is there something like this?) said yes. The epic swatcharama of Kate helped me a lot while giving my decision. I personally don't like frost finish eye shadows and many of this range has one or more shades like this, so it was easy to restrict myself to a few in no time. Then I have read Stacey's, Silverkis' and Jo's reviews of Dolce Vita and I thought I would give that one a go. Dolce Vita is a little too warm for my taste but the finish of this being more satin was the main factor for me, also Stacey reported this one having better quality than Uptown Girl, which I was also considering.

The compact looks alright, it is not what I would expect from a palette which is denoted as "Luxury Palette" but I can live with it. One thing to note though, although it looks like "metal" inside, it is just shiny plastic, compact feels rather light and the closure is a little cumbersome (watch out your nails once you open that one). I might be spoiled by say Armani compacts but I would like a magnetic closure or at least a button (like Dior's) to open this. I might be a little too skeptical for this product, but please stay with me. All I am just trying to say is that once it is labeled as Luxury Palette and has such high price, my expectations went sky high, not that all of these are that important. Let's move on to quality.

I like the color combination of Dolce Vita. Reminds me of Tom Ford's Burnished Amber, which is one of my favorite quads and is unfortunately discontinued. Some compared it with Tom Ford's Cognac Sable but I think resulting effect on eyes is closer to Burnished Amber. 

Upper left: This is a very light champagne leaning taupe. It has a satin finish with multi colored shimmer which you can see at sun swatches. 

Upper right: This is my favorite shade in this quad in terms of quality and color. It is a reddish brown with slight pink undertones and lovely coppery shimmer with satin finish.

Bottom left: Coppery golden glitter shade which is nicely pigmented. It has a cross finish between glitter and metallic because it is not as transparent as many other golds, yet not that opaque as a metallic eye shadow.

Bottom right: Deep bronze brown with satin finish and golden shimmer. In terms of pigmentation, this one is unfortunately not au par with the other shades of this palette. I had to get several swipes to get the density you see down while the others needed only one to two swipes. It is also a bit too shimmery for my liking of the deepest shade. 

Here is Charlotte Tilbury Dolce Vita in action. I used the pinkish copper shade all over the lid, champagne at the inner corner and deeper brown to define the crease and outer lid. As you see the brown shade here falls a little short for definition if you like a bit more drama, you may want to go over it with your favorite matte deep brown. All in all it gives a soft eye look, which is maybe the intention of this range. I am telling it because Charlotte communicated that she wane to design something "fool proof" which can also be used by beginners. So this is why she labeled everything and uploaded tutorials with these. Following that concept, she might intentionally opted for a soft definer shade, but I personally find that brown a bit too "soft".

Here is the full look with Charlotte Tilburry Dolce Vita on eyes, MAC Sunset Beach on cheeks and MAC Woodrose on lips (both of them are from Proenza Schouler Collection and are reviewed here)

There was some controversy about Sunset Beach blush, so here it is to show you how pigmented it is. I needed a light hand to achieve the following look.

Final thoughts: I like the quality of Dolce Vita and the multi dimensional finish. The only shade I am not very fond of must be the darkest one, which is too shimmery and too light for my liking. All in all I will use this one and like it, but I don't think I will go for another one since I still find these too expensive for what they offer meaning packaging, design, quality and shade range.

Have you tried out anything from Charlotte Tilbury range? How do you find the prices?