My mailbox: Chanel Lumiere tropicale!

Last week I was the happy receiver of a product I blogged about earlier (here): a consoling gift to myself...I was excited that the ebay seller mailed the item so quickly, so I could have my greedy hands on it...
I promised to show some swatches and do a little review about it...so here it is:


It came in a lovely pouch, that is common for Chanel products. At least, I have seen it around their blushers as well.
The pouch has a little department with small brushes. Even though Chanel is a high end brand, the added brushes are still quite worthless (aka craptastic). This happens so often with lots of department store brands, not just Chanel but Dior, Lancome, etc...they could improve this in my opinion. It would be so wonderful to find a palette that actually stores a good brush once in a while...



Love love the inside...It is not a large palette, though, it is the size of two blush containers. However, the colours are really neutral looking. I promised to do some swatching, otherwise this could have ended up with my collection of virgin palettes...



The beautiful palette in natural light....




Again, with flash....
So, I swatched the eyeshadows...I was not too happy about the texture, which was a bit of a bummer to me. I only have one Chanel eyeshadow, which was a swap item from a couple of years before, so I cannot compare with previous Chanel collections. However, compared to the silkiness of Dior's Quints...it is not so good.





But, I will stay positive and I can use this with some UDPP or too Faced eye insurance. I am sure I can make this work...
The colours themselves are nice neutrals. However, I expected them to have a bit mor oopmff...(neutrals with a kick...)

I took some swatches on a paper towellette as well. Something I have learned from the Chinese bloggers I am following...

Close up....
Ahhh, the good news is that the lip department inside has some gorgeous colours. The texture is divine, especially their glosses. I wonder if the glosses are similar to their glossimer formula...

The selection is a combination of peach/orangy/pinky lipstick shades that look natural with a twist on your lips....

I even like the look better in natural light...The second colour is a lipstick for sure. The third, I am not sure. No 1 and 4 are glosses...

One of my greatest and most useless indulgences is collecting blushes. Most cosmetic fans have this obsession with eyeshadows, but I am more a blush-obsessee. It probably has to do with my mother, whose beauty secret was adding a bit of colour to her cheeks.

Actually, she only had one shade of blusher, but I happily picked up the habit of adding dimension and 'colour' to my cheeks, and this ended up in always looking out for the perfect shade of rosiness...
Chanel Lumiere tropicale blusher is exactly what I expected it would be, which is a good thing. It is a colour which you can place under the Nars Orgasm kind-of-colours. A pinky peach with a slight bit of shimmer. I prefer the Chanel lumiere one, as it has less obtrusive golden particles, and more sheen... It still has some gold particles, as you can see in the close up with flash. However, it is subtle enough for my not-so-perfect skin...

So, what can I say about this product which I haven't said before. Mmm...

Alright, would I buy this again. Yes, but not for its retail value of $85. I bought this for about $50 including shipping on ebay, so that makes a lovely deal.

The glosses/lipsticks are great, both colour and texture-wise. The blush is lovely, but duplicable. The eyeshadows are dissapointing in pigment and the colours do not show off that beautifully as I expected they would. The Chanel label and portable size is both luxurious and recognizable.

I agree with Allure best-of-beauty list that this palette is really nice, but I would not put the universally applicable stamp upon it. I hardly imagine that the pigment of the eyeshadows would show up on medium to darker skintones...it almost did not show up on my NW20-ish skin and not even on my paler arm..! The eyeshadows belong to the children's shop I wrote about earlier in the review on the Eyeko tin. It is a bit better than Eyeko, but it should be wonderful concerning the Chanel pricetag...

Another thing, I would not recommend the other colours on cool skin tones. I am a neutral which leans to the cooler side of the spectrum. I think that the orange toned colours would be too warm for several cooler skintones. Even the blush could be a bit too orangy if you are really cool...

Personally, I prefer my Dior summer palette for carrying around. I will some pictures of that one soon. It contains a more universal applicable blush and bronzer and better pigmented eyeshadows.

But, I still love the palette for myself and for creating a warmer look with some lovely corals...It is truely beautiful and Chanel did include a lovely blush and some wonderful lip products inside. I think I will reach for this palette during the spring and summer when I like to have a bit more warmth on my skin...