A while ago I was killing time in Myers, swatching away with careless abandon LOL when I stumbled over this eye shadow quad at the Chanel stand. It was lust at first swatch! For some reason I just couldn't get past one intriguing purple shade and decided I needed to make it mine.

So it went on the birthday wishlist and lo and behold I received it last month :D - colour me excited!

...and so pretty!

....and that's where the super happy fun times ended.

The texture and overall pigmentation of these baked shadows is just so frustrating. While yes they're baked and therefore texturally different to a normal pressed shadow, these feel unnecessarily gritty, sand-papery and hard.

They apply with a tonne of fallout and next to no colour payoff unless you're extremely diligent and overall are basically a complete pain in the ass >.<

check out all the powder kick up after a gentle finger swatch >.<

The packaging of the palette is gorgeous and is probably the biggest highlight for me. It comes with two mini high quality sponge applicators and while I normally wouldn't use them, I've found I get the least amount of fallout and probably the best colour payoff using these damp instead of my normal brushes.

sleek and gorgeous Chanel packaging

*sigh* so beautiful

The baked shadow shades themselves are 1 light lilac, 1 mauve/taupe purple, 1 sheer white and 1 blue/black/deep purple.

Close up of all four under bounced artificial light

slightly blurry to show all teh sparkles/glitter bombs that these are

- Bottom left purple -

Is a soft shimmery lilac tone with silver and pale champagne glitter throughout. Its fairly easy to apply and kind of sheer - on the lid I found it fairly boring.

- Bottom right purple -

This is the shade that had me at hello in store, although I think the texture of the tester palette was somewhat different to my own =/

Anywho this is a matte-ish mid tone warm purple with gold glitter throughout, which results in this distinctly purple yet somehow taupe-y tone. My definite fave of the whole quad colour wise! It does have a decent amount of fallout due to the glitter, and its not as opaque/pigment as I would like but I don't have anything else like it in my current collection and that makes me love it even more. To be honest it was this shadow in Myer's that sold me on the palette.

- Top left blue/black/purple -

This is another matte base texture with a shimmer infusion. The base is a charcoal black that reminds me of dark based indie pigments that fade out to a smudgy matte black when you over blend them. Infused with it is a jewel like royal purple/navy blue shimmer that I think could be really pretty if layered right/ used with a stickier primer product to enhance it. I haven't played around with this one too much so I'll have to get back to you.

- Top right white -

Pretty much straight up shimmery white. Not overly opaque, not complicated and pretty generic - very much a "filler highlighter" shade in this quad.

I struggled to get a decent shot of these shadows. Below they are swatch over primer and with a damp applicator sponge (sprayed with MAC Fix+) and still they're really sheer and chunky :(

shot in indirect sunlight - L-R: deep purple, sheer white, sheer lilac, taupe/mauve

Overall, I love how luxurious this looks/feels as a compact and I do enjoy that warm taupe-y golden purple shade but I 'm glad I received this as a present and didn't invest in it myself.

For the cost of this palette and the overall pigmentation it's just not to my taste and not worth it for one colour that requires extra time and special handling.

it was all for you gorgeous mauve-taupe!

I prefer more opaque, pigmented, buttery and better glitter formula (like Urban Decay/MUG/MAC/Stila/Fyrinnae to name a few) eye shadows and doubt I would invest again in a Chanel baked eye shadow palette.

*Note: I did find out there is a reformulated version of this palette available in the US and I think Europe, however currently here in Aussie we can't get it. I think if we ever get the new reformulated versions of these palettes I'd be tempted to swatch and possibly buy a new version of Vanites but at this point in time I'm not keen at all on any Chanel eye shadow palettes.