As far as make-up goes, Clarins strength is in their lip products – they don’t do eyes nearly as well as they do lips. But, this palette genuinely does spring to life if you use it as a wet application. As a dry palette, it’s unremarkable really – I like the fact they’ve included a purple shade but otherwise, the shades are all conventional nude spectrum colours.
Here we are dry….
And now wet!
It took me a little while to find the right consistency – wet is all very well, but how wet makes a good application? You need a very tiny amount of water to spring these into action; I’d definitely recommend having a practice on your arm first because it’s well worth it to get these dramatic and moody neutrals absolutely perfect on the eye lid. There is, as you can see, a mix of matte, satin and shimmer in the palette and once you’ve got the wet consistency right, there are some intense eye looks to be had.
In terms of quality, the shimmering golden shade is very soft – do NOT dive in hard with your brush.. it needs gentle treatment not to kick up a storm of shimmer. Clarins is really having a charitable moment right now – this palette offers (unspecified) proceeds from the £35 price tag to Povos de Floresta which is a reforestation project aiming to plant 7,000 fruit trees to help Ashaninka Indians maintain their culture and economy.
When I first looked at the Clarins The Essentials Palette I thought it was a bit apologetic – but I absolutely love the shades when they’re wet. It launches on October 1st.
Model’BustWhile I was having a little look to see if the Essentials Palette had had a sneaky early launch on the Clarins site, I discovered this! The Model’Bust. So. Many. Questions. Apparently, it’s made up of three rotating showers – you attach it to your shower head – once you’ve placed it over your boob (and how do we know what size this will accommodate?) you switch on the cold water and have the worst shower of your life. The theory is that by massaging your breasts with rotating showers throwing out freezing water, you’ll get a little bit firmer and ‘healthier’ skin. You’ll probably also get a cold and I can’t even think what would happen to nipples…. AND I’m wondering how long it would take for your breasts to warm up again and go back to where they were. This just sounds like an avoidable torture to me that a nice bra could replace, and not turn your nipples into walnuts for a week.
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