So, upon the arrival of the holiday season just about every make-up brand was pumping out some kind of special set for Christmas. Honestly, this is my favorite time of year because, lets face it, it's cheaper and much more satisfying to buy a palette than a bunch of dinky individual sized products. I missed out on Tarte's treasure box, unfortunately, so I decided to go with Lorac's Double-booked set. Now from the looks of it, this seems to be a substantial set. 16 eyeshadows, 2 glosses, 2 blushers, 1 highlighter, 1 bronzer, a mini duel ended brush and a lip liner. Oh and it comes in that fancy little box to boot. And I'll say that initially I was happy with it. But the more I used it, the more I found issue with it. First off the glosses and lip liner are useless. The lip liner is harsh and dry, whereas the glosses are sticky and incredibly small. The colors of all three aren't anything to rave about. Same with the blushes, they're okay, fairly smooth to apply, but the colors aren't particularly anything special. So I basically never find myself reaching for this when it comes time to apply blush.. The bronzer is okay, may be a bit too ruddy for light skin tones and too light for really dark skin tones. I haven't used it much either, because I already have a better bronzer from this brand (Lorac's Tantalizer, which is HUGE and at an amazing cost, might I add). The duel ended brush is also basically useless, but I sort of expected that. The highlighter is good, though not as good as NARS albatross. And finally, the eyeshadows. Now, this is what I mainly bought the palette for in the first place. I rarely use shadows and I know that's because I skimp out on buying them. So I've resolved to get more. And a set of 16 seemed like a good start, right? Wrong. The eyeshadows are all I use out of this, but I'm beginning to dislike them more and more. The colors are fabulous and compliment each other well, they have a nice amount of pigment and shimmer. But, my god do these things get EVERYWHERE. Even with the color book closed, the shadows are running off into each other. Everytime I go to apply (note: with a primer, good brushes, AND tapping off the excess) it manages to get all over my face. I feel as though I get more shadow under my eyes than on my lids. They're very powdery and travel quite a bit (I've found some powder on my chin before). Which is sad, because the colors are so lovely. But alas, if I attempt any kind of smokey eye, I end up looking like I've been punched in the face because the powder has travelled all over. The best part about this kit? The box. I'm serious. The nice, additional make-up box is what I've gotten the most use out of. It's pretty spacious and has a magnetic seal, which keeps things from falling out. But just the box alone and some crumbly eye-shadows aren't worth $55 dollars.
Glossamer rating (out of five stars):
Price: *** (Retails for about $55, it would have been more reasonable had the products been better)
Size: *** (This is a full kit. The sizes of the individual peices aren't really listed well though)
Quality: *** (The products just aren't worth it, for just $20 more, a good NARS palette could be purchased)
Overall: *** (I would probably not purchase this again)
Also, I'd thought about returning this, but I'm not sure if I can (aside from it being used). I had my credit card stolen over Christmas (how very jolly of them, yes?), so I'd have to have the return credited to a different account as the original one no longer exists. Bah.
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