Make Up For Ever Black Tango Collection for Fall 2012: Worth the purchase?

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Has anyone tried this yet? 

I’m still looking at the beautiful visuals, and haven’t popped by my Sephora yet. (It wasn’t in the past weekend.)

Here’s why you might want to go take a look at it:

1. The packaging is gorgeous. If you are a collector, the red and black lace case for the Aqua Creams is beautiful.
2. 4 dark aqua cream shades. If you love smoky eye looks, here are 4 perfect smoky colorful shades to jazz things up without getting too bright and pastel. 

Reasons you might not like it:

1. Make Up For Ever is more expensive than most brands available. The quality is good; don’t get me wrong. But does it warrant the price compared to other artist brands out there? I’m not 100% convinced.
2. Aqua creams work beautifully as bases and the colors and textures are great as far as gel/cream shadows go, but in the end, it’s still a cream shadow. On its own, it will look kinda patchy and uneven when you try to build up more intensity, and I find these better as bases. (In which case, they are very expensive compared to other brands.

Alternatives:

1. MAC Paint Pots - slightly less easy to blend, but cheaper and more accessible
2. Estee Lauder Cream Shadows - similar quality and price
3. Benefit Creaseless Creme Shadows - slightly better quality and slightly better price
4. Chanel Illusion D’ombre - best and smoothest quality I’ve found currently, but also slightly more expensive. (I’ll need to do a calculation, but for the amount of product you get, the Chanel might be equal or cheaper. I’ll double-check.)

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P.S. On the aside, I really love the look they did. Smoky purple-black eyes with dark rose-red lips.

Gold-Dust, Gold-Lust: Chanel Illusion D’Ombre in 89 Vision

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[**Update] I bought this at a Chanel counter, and realised it doesn’t seem to be available online at the moment. Do give your local Chanel counter a call to find out when they might have this in!

If there is just one item that I will recommend from the high-end collections (if you’re in the market to splurge on something this Summer season), it is Chanel’s Illusion D’Ombre in 89 Vision. 

And, yes - let me first say outright that this is ridiculously expensive and, YES - you can live without it.

BUT - if you want a translucent sparkle in a convenient gel/cream format that is MUCH better than the equivalent from Shu Uemura, AND you don’t mind the price (US$36, S$52), this is a lust-inducing option to consider.

As you can see from the swatches above, this is literally a pot of the most glorious sparkling gold flecks in a completely translucent base. If gold has always been too yellow for you to wear, you will not encounter that problem here because you’re not going to get a wash of solid yellow-gold.

This is a veil of fine but intense fairy dust that is going to stay on your lids rather than dust right off onto your cheeks. The silky, almost-dry texture also means that you can smooth this on over existing shadows or powders.

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This is probably the shortest tutorial I have.

Step 1: Smooth on with finger all the way from lash line up to the brow bone.

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Step 2: Apply black liner (I used Milani Liquif’ Eye) along the water line and extend into a short flick to add sultriness to the gold-laden look.

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Step 3: Apply black mascara to finish.

And that is literally all you need for a traffic-stopping eye look that takes 5 minutes to create.

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Tip: This is best applied with your fingers.