Having seen some of fall 2015 makeup collections, I’m apprehensive, when it comes to seeing more of those. The only collection I liked so far this fall is Givenchy Vinyl. But I’m always open and ready for something new and, hopefully, good, so I’m making yet another attempt here with Clarins.

 

Their concept for this fall is pretty by day and pretty by night. So, it’s two sets of products, basically, divided by day look and night look. Obviously, more neutral and tender shades are day shades, and darker and bolder shades are night shades. Okaay, it’s not like it’s a super creative concept, but it’s a concept 🙂

 

In this collection we have:

Cream-to-powder matt eyeshadow in two shades. I do like cream eyeshadow in general and I like Clarins formula. It’s soft and nice and easy to apply and lasts a while. All good. I’m not sure I like the super lightweight plastic packaging though. Oh well.

 

The day shade is 08 heather

 

You call that a day shade???

 

It’s light, yes, but… it’s this muddy blurry beigish and greyish kind of lilac. Ouch.

 

Not a flattering shade, whatever you complexion is or hair colour or eye colour. This shade is just not nice, not becoming to anyone. Maybe, grey eyes. I don’t like this shade.

 

07 carbon

 

Dark grey with just a handful of sparkle in it.

 

My question is – why call your eyeshadow ‘matt’, if there’s sparkle in it? Given it’s just a little bit of sparkle, but still it’s there. Can you answer that? I can’t.

 

It’s a night shade, obviously, as it’s this dark smoky eye kind of charcoal grey. It’s Ok, but boring. We’ve seen it so many times. I guess, if you love smoky eyes and can’t live without this look, do it all the time, then you might want this shade 🙂

 

Here they are: heather is on the left, carbon is on the right.

 

A closer look:

 

There are two eye pencil shades to go with the two cream eyeshadow colours. One is black, it’s permanent, obviously, and is clearly meant to go with carbon cream eyeshadow.

 

The second one is Crayon Kohl Eye pencil 10 true violet.

 

Now this is interesting. Finally 🙂

 

It’s not a bright lilac, and not plum, it’s a dark bluebell like lilac. Sophisticated. Noble. Elegant. Sultry. Good job.

 

Almost everyone can wear this shade.

 

 

Hazel eyes – yes, sure. Blue eyes – absolutely, it will be interesting. Grey eyes – of course. Green eyes – yes, I do think so, it will probably be the most artsy in a good way combination. It will work.

 

The pencil is very soft, actually, almost too soft for me, so soft that you’re risking to get bits and pieces of it all over as opposed to smooth coverage. But maybe, as long as this kohl is so soft, you could create a super hot dark lilac smoky eye look with it? Now, that would be really something. I know, I know, Clarins means it to be a day look shade, but a girl can dream, right?

 

Please, this pencil and two cream eyeshadow swatch, left to right here there’s true violet, heather and carbon:

 

Rouge Eclat lipstick. There are two shades this fall, as you might have guessed 🙂 It’s my first try of Rouge Eclat and… I don’t light the plastic and golden packaging. It’s light, it’s flimsy, it’s just not luxury market level.

 

This lipstick has a very strong berry scent. If you’re sensitive this way, you might not be able to wear this lipstick. I am sensitive, and I can barely stand it. Couldn’t wear it for a long time. And this scent is not going anywhere, just so you know, it just stays there, big time.

 

The texture is nice and soft on the lips, kind of comforting and soothing, not quite lip care, which is an element of it, according to Clarins :-), but there is a little bit of something there, feels good on the lips, if it were not only for the OVERPOWERING scent. It’s too much.

 

Day and night. Two shades. You know the story by now.

 

In the day look territory we have 21 tawny rose.

 

A pretty pink beige shade.

 

Nude. This here is the right way to do nudes, guys. It’s so nice and so flattering and will look so good thanks to this generous helping of pink in it.

 

Great shade. I wish I could wear it. If you like nudes and can bear the scent, go for it. You’ll love it.

 

For the night look there’s 22 red paprika.

 

Oh, Clarins, you can call it Red paprika and try to cheat us, but we know only too well this shade to be red brick, which by all means is the lip colour of the season. Super trendy. Everyone has it.

 

Red and orange have a big fist fight in this shade with orange kind of winning. Red brick it is.

 

It’s a nice shade too. If you generally shun reds, but want to try some of this whole red brick trend, this might be it.

 

In the swatch here tawny rose is on the left, red paprika is on the right:

 

Let’s see it in detail:

 

Finally, we get to two eye palettes. Just as everything else, it’s day and night arrangement.

Let me say up front, I don’t think Clarins eyeshadow is the best one out there. It’s too soft, so that application precision actually suffers. It’s not that it’s bad. I’d say it’s somewhere in the middle in terms of quality in its niche.

I look at both palettes and see paper packaging – with an elastic band. Ugh. Clarins had a big Christmas eye palette last year with the same kind of packaging. Ugh. And ugh again. Paper packaging seriously is a no go in luxury market for me. And the rubber band – c’mon. Day palette is packed in gold. Night palette is packed in brown. I like that. Creative.

 

 

The idea of two five colour eye palettes with day shades and night shades appeals to me, so I’m anticipating seeing what’s in there.

 

01 pretty day 5 colour eyeshadow palette

 

Left to right we have in it:

 

 

A matt off white shade, a base shade, maybe, nothing really to speak of, not quite a shade.

 

An ever so light pearly beige. Another shade that is not really a shade. Maybe, just a touch of glow under your eyebrows. Two non-shades out of five is way too many, to my taste.

 

Pearly cool beige. Finally 🙂 Nice. It’s not that it’s special, but it’s a good thing to have and will bring out all the colour of your eyes.

 

Brown, matt, not too dark. Might be used as both eyeliner and eyeshadow. It’s good that it’s not too dark.

 

Pearly khaki with a golden sheen. Not sure how that’s a day shade, but I guess you could add just touches of it to your day makeup to make it special.

 

02 pretty night 5 colour eyeshadow palette

 

Left to right:

 

 

Matt light beige. Not a non-shade though. There’s something there. Might be used to achieve a well-groomed without being made up look. Or as a base, of course.

 

Bronzish brown, but not quite bronze. Golden brown, actually. Lush brown. A good one.

 

Khaki with a golden sheen. In a night makeup palette it actually makes sense 🙂

 

Matt plum brown. The only use I can imagine for this is eyeliner. It’s not going to work well as an eyeshadow on many people.

 

Matt marshy browny khaki. The same here. As an eyeliner, maybe? Why the second shade like this? This dark? I don’t know.

 

Again, those two shades being mostly eyeliner and the first one being mostly base shade, there’s just not enough nice eyeshadow in this palette for me.

 

Take a loot at the shades from both palettes together to see how close many of them are. Let to right there’s first pretty day swatched here, then pretty night. Wouldn’t you say they are too close?

 

Having seen both palettes, I can conclude that they haven’t really come up to my expectations. When you have only five eyshadow colours, you can’t waste more than half of them on base and eyeliner. I haven’t seen any shades here that I haven’t seen somewhere else ever so often. These palettes don’t get me excited at all.

 

And that means, if I look at the whole Clarins Pretty Day & Pretty Night collection, I’m not happy. I’m just not. What’s going on this fall? I keep waiting and waiting and looking and looking, and I can’t get this awesome collection, where I’m amazed and awed and everything else I want to feel about makeup collections. Maybe, it’s just this kind of season. And I’ll have to wait for Christmas for something splendid to come my way. Oh. Pity. I sigh, comfort myself thinking about Givenchy Vinyl, and start anticipating YSL and Lancome fall 2015 collections, that I haven’t seen up close yet 🙂 I’m incorrigible 🙂