Charlotte Tilbury Luxury Palette in Fallen Angel

 Ever since seeing Charlotte Tilbury in person during the launch of her eponymous makeup line at Selfridges in the summer of 2013 I have been pining to get my hands on more of her products. The great news is that Charlotte Tilbury is now available in the US and retailers such as Beautylish have made it easy to get her products north of the border.

Fallen Angel (LE $65.00 US) is part of TIlbury's holiday offerings and is part of Tilbury's "The Supermodel" look. Fallen Angel is the first Luxury Palette with "a breakthrough formula for a wet and dry finish." According to Tilbury, using these shadows with a damp brush gives "three times the colour intensity and an irresistible liquid metal reflective finish."

Photos taken in natural light, swatches are dry on unprimed NC 35 skin.

Charlotte Tilbury Fallen Angel (clockwise from top left): Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop

Like all the other Luxury Palettes, Fallen Angel consists of four shades: Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop (clockwise from top left.) 

Prime - described as a "pale golden pearl,"  this is a pale golden champagne shimmer that runs on the neutral side of golden with good pigmentation.

Enhance - described as "antique silver," this is my favourite shade from the quad - a metallic taupe that leans golden brown at some angles and silvery in others. Excellent pigmentation.

Smoke - described as a ":velvet black",  this medium dark black has a slight blue undertone and a satiny/pearl finish. Good pigmentation.

Pop - this "metallic bronze" shade is an ultra pigmented metallic bronze with auburn undertones.

Charlotte Tilbury Fallen Angel applied dry (clockwise from top left): Prime, Enhance, Smoke and Pop

The texture of the shadows in the pan is smooth and almost dry feeling - very similar to MAC's Extra Dimension eye shadows or Estée Lauder's Gelée Powder eye shadows. All the shadows apply, blend and layer effortlessly. Applied dry the Pop and Enhance shades are the most opaque, although all the shades can be built up to be opaque in two layers. Applied wet, the shadows have a slightly more opaque finish, and they apply as smoothly as they do when dry. You can see Charlotte herself apply this quad both wet and dry in her fantastic and entertaining "Supermodel Look" tutorial here.

While the actual shades in the palette are not incredibly unique, the finish and saturation of the shades makes this worth owning if you love smokey neutrals and are willing to pay for a luxury brand. Yes, if you are a makeup junkie you most likely have colors very similar to this in your stash, but they will probably not perform this well! The one thing that impressed me in particular with this quad is how well the shadows layered on top of each other, there was no muddiness or dulling down of the shades. When layered, the shadows actually became richer and more lustrous. This is not an easy feat for a quad that contains both warm and cool tones. Wear time on the shadows is excellent, I only noticed a tiny bit of fading and creasing after 8 hours on non-primed eye lids. 

Highly recommended if it fits your budget!

Grade: A-

J

MAC Fabulous Felines Eyeshadow Quads Review and Swatches

Fabulous Felines debuted three limited edition eyeshadow quads: Leopard Luxe, Burmese Beauty and Palace Pedigreed ($43.00 CA/36.00 US).

Photos taken in natural light, NC 42 skin.

Left to right in fours: Leopard Luxe, Burmese Beauty and Palace Pedigreed

Leopard Luxe (top row, bottom row): Style Predator, Wild By Nature, Furiously Fabulous, Notoriety

Leopard Luxe

I was surprized by how much I like this quad. Although I fit in the NC range of skintones, I find I don't usually gravitate towards very warm colours. Out of the three quads released this one has the most creative pairings. MAC was definetly thinking of the runway trends with this quad, as smokey orange eyes were all over the catwalks this season. Generally speaking the shadows in this quad have good colour payoff, with the exception of Notoriety.

Style Predator (VP) - an oranger version of Flip (Blonde Brunette Redhead)
Wild By Nature (M) - a buttery ochre/mustard, a good but very warm base
Furiously Fabulous (VP) - a blackened Satin Taupe or a much warmer version of Moth Brown
Notoriety (V) - a warm matte grey with a fine copper shimmer which is unfortunately lost on application

Burmese Beauty (top row, bottom row): Skintone 2, Prized, Showstopper, Burmese Beauty

Burmese Beauty

Of the three quads, this is the most neutral and by extension the most wearable for all skintones. You could go daytime and corporate with this quad or nighttime and vampy if you like.

Skintone 2 (F) - a beautiful neutral pale gold, acts like a VP more so than a frost

Prized (S) - a pale pinked beige, reminds me a bit of Next To Nothing (Smoke Signals) except in a satin texture

Showstopper  (M) - a rich blackened brown

Burmese Beauty (L) - a reddish brown/green duochrome, similar to Blue Brown pirment but in a lustre formula and so sheerer and much less pigmented

Palace Pedigreed (tope row, bottom row): Quite Spoiled, Courtly, Russian Blue, Palace Pedigreed

Palace Pedigreed

The coolest of the three palettes, Palace Pedigreed really spells fall for me, with its rich plum tones and cool grey blue accent. This quad is very matte in texture and look, despite the fact only one shadow is actually listed as such. I see this quad functioning quite nicely at night, when you can really play up the density of the colours.

Quite Spoiled  (S) - a pretty medium mauvey blue pink

Courtly (S) - an slightly iridescent grey mauve, rather sheer on application

Russian Blue (M) - my favourite of the quad, a deep smokey blue grey that looks like its namesake

Palace Pedigreed (S) - a blackened plum

General Comments

MAC didn't reinvent the wheel with these three quads, but they did offer a few interesting ideas. I think Leopard Luxe is by far the most inventive, and although it's geared towards yellow/warmer skintones, I think it's neutral enough to be worn by many. Palace Pedigreed is a fairly typical offering for pinker/cooler skintones, for me what saves it from being boring is Russian Blue which is a shade I can't think of a dupe for. Burmese Beauty plays it fairly safe, but it's pretty and flattering on.

J