As a lover of Charlotte Tilbury I got excited when I saw the new Instant Look In A Palette. Seemed like a neutral lovers dream.
It comes in the same burgundy compact like the eyeshadow quads. Charlotte states it's a 5 minute face on-the-go. "The NEW! natural, glowing look in a palette enriched with, radiance-enhancing, color-correcting magic ingredients. - it's the look that suits every woman and enhances the colors that nature has naturally blessed you with. An all-in-one, beauty palette that EVERY WOMAN NEEDS in her beauty kit for DAY TO EVENING makeup! You don’t need to give me an hour to feel the full force of my makeup magic. Just give me 5 minutes and I can show you how to get an instant, naturally gorgeous look. I have been working on this look for years and use on clients for anything from runway to the big day. It is the perfect a chic, effortless look on-the-go." The retail is $75.
"Including 7 of my makeup secrets for a natural-looking You-but-Better:
1. Eye Brighten: A youthful brightening eye shadow in a color correcting , brightening pale rose hue to prime the surface of the eyelid for an all-day application.
2. Eye Enhance: Adds a dreamy dimension to the eye lid in a natural glowing champagne shade that illuminates the eyelid.
3. Eye Smoke: For softly defined eyes in a universally flattering taupe shade, that can be built up to a very natural smokey eye.
4. Face Bronzer: To define the cheekbone hollows, jawline and nose shape in an all-natural, all skin tone bronze color in my best-selling Filmstar Bronze & Glow formula.
5. Cheek Swish: For a healthy, happy glow in a tea rose hue to be applied on the apple of the cheek and blended out.
6. Cheek Pop: For a natural lit-from-within glow, an uplifting pretty pink to be applied to the apple of the cheeks.
7. Face Highlighter: Candlelight for the skin in a candlelit shade to be applied to the outer C-section of the cheekbones, down the nose, on the bow of the lips and inner corners of the eyes."
Sunlight:
Top to Bottom: Eye Brighten, Eye Enhance, Eye Smoke, Cheek Swish, Cheek Pop, Face Bronze, Face Highlight:
The texture is awesome. It's a really finely milled, silky, smooth formula. It blends effortlessly. It does go on sheerer, while it looks pigmented it blends down to be more of a sheer look. The Eye Smoke especially. I thought this was going to really dark but it sheers out. The textures can be a bit powdery especially the two matte eye shades.
Eye Brighten is a matte creamy neutral pink, Eye Enhance is a shimmery warmer rose gold, Eye Smoke is a matte medium to deep neutral brown. The Cheek Swish is a peachy rose, Cheek Pop is a bright pale pink. Both blush shades have a hint of shimmer to them, but a much improvement on how shimmery her normal blushes are. The bronze has some shimmer to it like the Bronze & Glow but this shade seems a touch less warm, more neutral. I personally like this one better because of the more neutral shade. The highlight it a shimmery champagne and it's also less gold or warm than the Bronze & Glow. I don't have the Bronze & Glow anymore to be able to compare so I'm going by memory.
Overall, I love the shades, minus the bright pink Cheek Pop shade I'm not into those really candy pinks. It's so sheer it works OK on me. But I would prefer a double size pan of the Cheek Swish shade. I did notice that after ten hours of wear the eye shades were pretty much gone, faded away. The cheek shades were barely there. So that's the only thing I notice with these new textures. I still need to try the eye shades on straight eye primer without the Eye Brighten shade to see if they last better. But I guess it doesn't matter since it's a travel palette and you should have it with you to touch up? I'll post comparison swatches in a separate when I get around to taking them.
This photo is from Nordstrom's site to explain the shades:
Too warm eyeshadows and too cool & light pink blush. I just don't know. I believe that she worked on this for years, but I worked on my looks for even longer and I am not convinced this is the best color combination. I guess it is impossible to create something that fits everyone. I am very fair and it was supposedly created for my skin tone, but I can't convince myself to buy it, even if I want it. It is sold out everywhere anyway, only ebay and UK stores are left.
I think overall it feels more neutral than warm, except the light pink blush, that one is cooler. It's so sheer I guess it could fit light tones, depends how light you are and what you're preferences are. Maybe best in the light to medium tones but not deep or very fair. I'm surprised it sold out so fast honestly. I'm curious to see what the deeper palette coming out is like. I'm hoping that might be a Nordstrom anniversary palette. I guess overall it feels pretty neutral and would fit a wide variety of people, but as always depends on what you prefer and like.
I suspect that this palette is one of those that works great for extremely pale people (like me) but not-so-great on people with medium-to-dark skin tones. My coloring is very similar to the red haired model on the "see it on your skintone" feature on the CT website. If you click on her, the colors show up really clearly and compliment her skin tone really nicely, and I think they look good on the next 2 palest models as well. Beyond that, it starts to look like a "no-makeup" look on the models with darker complexions. For me it has become my default "everyday" look, and I love it so much that I'm crossing my fingers it becomes part of her permanent line.