You can do it: purple versus the black smokey eye

One look, two shades, with a totally different feel. 

A heft of bravery or a hankering for passion. Which path will you choose?

Black

Chanel's Mirifique

Purple

Chanel's Diapason

In both looks I applied Mirifique and Diapason in the exact same manner. It's amazing to see the differences in intensity.

Which one is it - black or purple?

This is not a Twilight fix: Chanel's Illusion d'Ombre in New Moon

Chanel's New Moon

I feel like a broken record whenever I review Chanel's Illusion d'Ombre. This particular eye shadow is a huge guilty pleasure of mine and I only splash out so long as the colour is especially unique. 

Let's take a closer look at New Moon (limited edition), one of three new Illusion d'Ombre shades from Chanel's Summer 2014 collection.

Close up of New Moon

New Moon is like a super fancy layer cake or even a fruit-infused molten lava cake. Rich browns mixed with golden flecks and peppered garnet captivate, tempt and truly leave me salivating from all this talk of cake and eyeshadow.

Swatch of New Moon

New Moon on closer inspection

For all of its gloriousness, New Moon isn't without its shortcomings; we're talking hellah fallout. But if you're ok with post-application clean up, well go forth, wield your mightiest brush and prepare yourself for top-notch sparkle and shine. 

Wearing New Moon on my eye lids atop Urban Decay's Limit

The rest of the look. Yep, I'm wearing MAC's Patisserie, too.

The Bagful breakdown:

Total amount for Chanel's New Moon:

• $48.00 AUS /  $36.00 USD

Value for money spent (performance and quality):

• 9 out of 10 bags — Fallout can be really annoying.

Would another purchase be on the horizon?:

• I thought I was going to purchase more, but I managed to restrain myself.

Chanel Spring Collection for 2014

Chanel Illusion d'Ombre in Diapason and Glossimer in Sonate

On my last day in Hong Kong I happened upon a Chanel beauty boutique and thankfully they cleared the shelves of their rather yawn worthy Winter 2013/14 collection to make way for Spring 2014. 

Photo credit: Scott (my stealthy husband)

I practiced some restraint and selected two items from Chanel's 14 piece collection -- Illusion d'Ombre in Diapason was scooped up first and then with toddler-like grabby hands I grasped ahold of Chanel's Glossimer in Sonate 178.

Diapason

Swatch of Diapason

Comparison swatches from left to right: Chanel's Illusoire, Chanel's Diapason, Estee Lauder's Electric Orchard, Armani's Eyes to Kill in shade no. 3 and Le Metier de Beaute's Tapestry (from their Silk Road quad)

Diapason is a brown based plum with glints of silvery/gold shimmer. I immediately gravitated toward this hue because purple plays up my eyes really well -- think peanut butter and jelly, it just works. Diapason's complexity lends itself to the myriad of ways it can be worn; alone, smoked out, or paired with woody browns. To reiterate, your options are endless.

I won't bang on about how lovely Chanel's Illusion d'Ombre formula is, but if you'd like to know more, search for my reviews on Mirifique, Illusoire, Destination and Apparition. Yes, I'm making you work hard for it, honey.

Sonate

Swatch of Sonate

Swatches of Sonate alone (left) and layered over Shanghai Suzy's Miss Claire (Fire Engine Red)

Sonate is a translucent watermelon red and is certainly nothing to write home about when worn on its own. Yet, with that in mind, my desire for buying Sonate was due to its aforementioned translucency and knowing full well it would look fantabulous over any of my red lippies.

Cue Shanghai Suzy's Miss Claire!

Wear time is pretty average for Sonate, definitely plan on frequent touch ups throughout the day.

Wearing a smattering of Chanel - Sonate on my lips and Diapason on my eyes (paired with a few UD Naked 2 shades)

The Bagful breakdown:

Total amount for Chanel's Illusion d'Ombre Diapason and Glossimer in Sonate 178:

• Diapason: $36.00 USD / $48.00 AUS
• Sonate: $29.50 USD / $45.00 AUS

Value for money spent (performance and quality):

• 8 out of 10 bags — pleased with my cherry picking skills.

Would another purchase be on the horizon?:

• La Diva reminds me of MAC's Candy Yum Yum. Must. Swatch. Now.

Blue Illusion de Chanel - Illusion d'Ombre in Destination and Apparition

I can't really settle on a theme for this particular topic. I've contemplated Kraft's Blue Box Blues  ... you know, "I've got the blues."

Or, there's the song How Bizarre which goes something like this:

"Destination unknown, as we pull in for some gas Freshly pasted poster reveals a smile from the past.."

But then I really got to thinking and decided to entertain you with a rendition of These Eyes, sung by Arrested Development's very own George Michael Bluth (Michael Cera).

And here you must be thinking where this is all going, but stay with me, please. My mind has been running amok since purchasing Destination and Apparition. After accidentally stumbling upon these baby blues, I took it as a sign that they needed to be mine.  Yet, how did I celebrate them? Well, by having a fiesta of pop culture references at the very beginning, of course! And now I digress.

Destination is a light icy blue with a silver shimmer and Apparition is a dark navy blue with flecks of black, silver and pink; I only noticed the different colours of shimmer after reviewing the photos I captured a few weeks ago.  Both Destination and Apparition have creamy formulas and colour payoff appears almost immediately.

I won't go into great detail or do a formal review on these.  If you want to get a better idea of Chanel's Illusion d'Ombre, please read my reviews about Illusoire and Mirifique.

Destination incites thoughts of Cindarella post-makeover; screw the pumpkin and hand her the glass slippers, pronto! Whereas Apparition is that perfect shade of navy.  Not too dramatic, but creates the right amount of smoulder, smoke, dimension and depth.

If you live in Australia, your local Chanel boutique might still have these in-store.  Chanel counters located inside of Myer and David Jones never stocked this particular limited edition collection.  As for the US, I spotted these on Sephora a few weeks ago, but I fear their stock's have since been depleted.

Tip: The best brush to apply Illusion d'Ombre shadows with is Chanel's No. 10 Concealer Brush; the synthetic fibres grab onto the shadow and lay it down better than any other brush I've ever used.

It's obvious I love Illusion d'Ombre and look forward to Chanel's future machinations with colour.

Did you spy that silver glimmer in my eye?  I lined my eyes with Chanel's Silver Light.  As for my lips, I'm wearing Giorgio Armani's Rouge d' Armani in Brown.

Reviews to follow.