Swinging by the Charlotte Tilbury counter, I noticed that a display been refreshed with a new set of testers for the eye palettes, so here are some ninja field swatches of all eight. Retailing at £38 each, you can find them at Selfridges or here.
Most of the quads combined one sheer glitter, two frosts of good pigmentation, and a darkest shade in either a satin or metallic shimmer finish. The most notable exception was TheSophisticate, which paired two demi-mattes with two satins, and had in my opinion the best overall textures in the line -- silky smooth. The most interesting colour stories to me were The Rebel, a new and unexpected balance of jewelled greens, and The Vintage Vamp, in sumptuous ruby and gold.
In general I found these nice but unremarkable. The gradational neutral combinations (across five whole palettes!) are nothing we haven't seen before many times, and the textures did not sit particularly well on my dry skin -- as I think you can tell from the already-sinking-into-fine-lines edges of the swatches. Frosts aren't the most forgiving of my hooded eyes anyway, knocking out around two shades per palette, and I was particular disappointed to find most of the glitters (my favourite finish) dry, very sheer and fallout-prone (the emerald in The Rebel and pewter in The Rock Chick were the two decent exceptions). My experience with previous sets of hardened, almost unworkably dry and gritty testers (after two days on display!) also suggests that these may not be shadows that will age well with use.
Enough drivel, on to the (bazillionty) pictures! All swatches are pressed on with sponge applicators onto bare skin, as usual. My inner arm is neutral and significantly paler than MAC NC15. As always, click to enlarge.
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A look at all the quads, so you can see roughly how comparatively warm/cool the five neutrals are (though The Uptown Girl in particular shifts a great deal depending on whether it's in in/direct lighting with its cooler shimmer on warmer bases):
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Most of the quads combined one sheer glitter, two frosts of good pigmentation, and a darkest shade in either a satin or metallic shimmer finish. The most notable exception was TheSophisticate, which paired two demi-mattes with two satins, and had in my opinion the best overall textures in the line -- silky smooth. The most interesting colour stories to me were The Rebel, a new and unexpected balance of jewelled greens, and The Vintage Vamp, in sumptuous ruby and gold.
In general I found these nice but unremarkable. The gradational neutral combinations (across five whole palettes!) are nothing we haven't seen before many times, and the textures did not sit particularly well on my dry skin -- as I think you can tell from the already-sinking-into-fine-lines edges of the swatches. Frosts aren't the most forgiving of my hooded eyes anyway, knocking out around two shades per palette, and I was particular disappointed to find most of the glitters (my favourite finish) dry, very sheer and fallout-prone (the emerald in The Rebel and pewter in The Rock Chick were the two decent exceptions). My experience with previous sets of hardened, almost unworkably dry and gritty testers (after two days on display!) also suggests that these may not be shadows that will age well with use.
Enough drivel, on to the (bazillionty) pictures! All swatches are pressed on with sponge applicators onto bare skin, as usual. My inner arm is neutral and significantly paler than MAC NC15. As always, click to enlarge.
Abbreviations:
DV = The Dolce Vita
GG = The Golden Goddess
S = The Sophisticate
UG = The Uptown Girl
RC = The Rock Chick
GM = The Glamour Muse
VV = The Vintage Vamp
R = The Rebel
Natural Light (truer to colour)
Store Lighting (better indication of finish)
A look at all the quads, so you can see roughly how comparatively warm/cool the five neutrals are (though The Uptown Girl in particular shifts a great deal depending on whether it's in in/direct lighting with its cooler shimmer on warmer bases):
