Christmas is fast approaching and with that comes this years beauty offering from Clarins. Every year, Clarins release a new Christmas eye palette full of wearable shades for the season ahead and I have the 2016 version to show you today. This is the fourth essentials palette from Clarins with a mix of mineral based, neutral tones that can be used wet or dry. This is the first palette I've tried from Clarins and when I unboxed it on my Snapchat my first impressions were not great but since I've had the chance to read more about it my opinion has changed.
The Essentials palette comes in chocolate brown eco-designed packaging embossed with gold flowers and includes a mirror and a birch wood, double ended brush sourced from renewable forests. I was very underwhelmed with the packaging until I read about its eco benefits. Clarins are committed to creating responsible beauty and limiting the impact their products make on the environment. With every purchase of this palette, a tree is planted in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest so I take back my distaste at the cardboard packaging. Plastic isn't all it's cracked up to be after all.
This palette isn't all about the packaging after all as it does contain ten beautiful, mineral based long wearing eye shadows. The collection includes six satin finishes, three matte finishes and one iridescent shade which can take you from sultry nude to smoky eye in a matter of brush strokes. Each of the shadows contain natural ingredients that offer your skin nourishing benefits meaning if you have super sensitive eyes, these would be perfect for you.
The first five shades in the palette are a mix of nudes and rose golds plus that pesky iridescent shade which I'm really not a fan of, I just can't get it to work for me, wet or dry. I've seen swatches of the first five shades on a couple of other blogs that make them look really pigmented but I just didn't get that myself. They do work better wet but I seldom use wet shadows.
The second half of the palette is incredible and more my kinda shades. They apply effortlessly although with some fall out as you can see from the swatches, but the pigmentation really is fabulous. Using the brush enclosed in the palette, I just pat the shades onto my eyes then use a blending brush. The Essentials Palette is such a great mix of warm based shades and it's so versatile if you prefer using your shadows wet. The palette retails at £35.00 and is available to buy now, it would make a great gift for that special someone or makeup addict in your life.
