Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette, Review & Comparison

Tom Ford Cosmetics started to take over the blog, so I decided to throw something else in between. I have taken the photos some time ago but the product is still available. If you are on the market for a peachy eye shadow palette with a copper/plum twist, you may want to check this out: Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette.

Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette

The palette consists of four eye shadow shades and an eye liner shade. Similar to the Splendours bronzer (reviewed previously here) from same collection, it has gorgeous design embossed on it, inspired by the ruins of South America.

Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette

As much as I love almost all of their powder releases, I am a little cautious with Clarins eye shadow palettes. The reason behind is that in the past I have seen that not all the shades in one quad perform their best if used dry. You may accept this fact and use them wet at all times but I still find inconsistency throughout the formula of one quad undesirable.

Close-up: Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette

This is why it took me some time until I decided to purchase Splendours Quad. After a quick swatch at Clarins counter in Breuninger, I knew this one was no exception in terms of inconsistency. Knowing that didn't help though, I was sold for the orange copper shade, which has the smoothest and most pigmented gorgeous formula I have ever seen from a Clarins eye shadow. Let me introduce you to the shades (from left to right in swatch photo):

• Copper leaning orange, metallic finish with golden shimmer. Very pigmented and soft, performs great wet or dry (up left in quad).
• Warm peachy satin ivory. Very soft to touch and great color pay-off, similar to orange copper shade, great wet or dry (up right in quad).
• Warm brown leaning slightly plum, satin finish. Not very pigmented, looks darker but drier to touch and color pay-off is rather poor if used dry (bottom left in quad).
• Metallic peach shade with silvery gold micro shimmer, this shade performs OK, somewhere in between the upper shades (copper and ivory) and darker plum shade. Can also be used dry (bottom right in quad).
• Dark plum, matte and rather dry eye liner, performs best wet (right most in quad).

Swatch under full sun light: Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette

For the following look, I used all the eye shadow shades dry (only eye liner shade is applied wet) to show the rather "nude" look it gives. I used the copper shade all over the lid, ivory shade on the inner corner and brown shade to define the crease. I applied the peach shade along the lower lash line and the eye liner shade is used wet along the upper and lower lash line. As you see the eye liner is performing rather subtle. If you like stronger lined eyes, then you should consider using it as eye liner setting powder on top of the eye liner you regularly use. Also using a black or brown eye liner and setting it with this shade would soften it and give a slight plum hue. Shelynx from Der blasse Schimmer also have nice photos of eye makeup using this palette (and a nice review in German), so be sure to check that out too.

Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette in action

Clarins Splendours delivers one of the most popular color themes on the eyes for this season, "peaches and bronze".  Just recall Chanel Pearl River, Armani Quad #10 Mirage and Armani Face&Eye Palette (all three are compared previously here) or Tom Ford Escapade and Pink Haze (reviewed here) and you know what I mean. I find the second tier of Armani Face&Eye Palette to be the closest in color, thus compared them below.

Clarins Splendours Colour Quartet & Eye Liner Palette comparison with Armani Face&Eyes Palette Summer 2013

Three shades of Clarins Spledours palette are very close to Armani Face&Eye Palette as seen below. The one which stole my heart (orange copper shade) is luckily not there, which justifies my buy, sort of. Clarins Palette can also be used to recreate the eye look done with Armani palette previously here.

Comparison swatch with full sun light: Clarins Splendours vs. Armani Face&Eye Summer 2013

Final thoughts: Clarins releases another pretty palette with wearable trending colors for this summer. Orange copper and warm ivory shades on the top raw performs best. The darkest color has somewhat not very good pay-off once applied dry but this can be applied wet for a stronger eye look. I find the eye liner to be too subtle even with wet application so I prefer to use it to set my eye liner. All in all a nice summer palette. The product is currently sold out at most of the stores in Germany but available online at Clarins' web site. Compact houses 5,6g product and retails for 40 EUR/42 $.

Have you checked out Clarins Splendours collection? What are your picks?