Estée Lauder Illuminating Gelée Powder in Shimmering Sands

It was really hard for me to write this review because I approached the product with a bias, which means my opinion would be harsher than the product probably deserves. After enduring the horrible smell from my Bronze Sands palette, I wasn't very keen on putting something similar even nearer to my nostrils. Thankfully Estée Lauder Illuminating Gelée Powder in Shimmering Sands came without the horrid chemical smell. (In retrospect, I'm quite sure the Bronze Sands palette I received was defective.)

See, this is the problem, and why I hesitated for so long to publish this. There is nothing evidently wrong with this palette, but I don't like it. The texture is unique to Estée Lauder's gelée powder formula, where the closest description seems to be that it is "cream to powder" (it isn't actually cream but I guess that's the best word to describe the wet-but-not-actually-wet feeling you get when you touch the powder). It's smooth and bright and wonderfully metallic when swatched, but like the eye shadows lose its gleam when applied with a brush. 

Eyes: Estée Lauder Bronze Sands

Shimmering Sands is a metallic copper at the back of my hand, but becomes an odd reddish brown when applied on my cheeks. I'm not entirely sure if it is meant to be a bronzer, blush, or a contour color, but it doesn't seem to suit my coloring. I think someone with a darker skin tone would enjoy Shimmering Sands better. On me it's neither here or there, which makes it difficult for me to use.

I find it funny how I struggled to write all this - I don't have to like every good product that's available in the market, right?

Estée Lauder Illuminating Gelée Powder in Shimmering Sands retails for $42 and is available at Estée Lauder counters nationwide, as well as esteelauder.com. I purchased mine from nordstrom.com. 

Estée Lauder 'Bronze Goddess Capri Pure Color' Gelée Powder EyeShadow Palette in 01 Bronze Sands

You've probably heard the buzz Estée Lauder has been getting ever since they (made the best decision of their lives and) hired Creative Makeup Director Tom Pecheux. Mr. Pecheux (or Tom, shall I call him Tom?) shook the beauty world when he introduced the Illuminating Powder Gelée in Modern Mercury last year. Was it cream? Was it powder? Do we care since it's so good? Then a few months later he debuted eyeshadows featuring the same formula. It was as if a little volcano erupted in our part of the blogosphere, with bloggers hurling praises at Tommy and Lauder and all the goodness that resides within these gelée powders.

I regret not purchasing Modern Mercury when it was still around. I think it was the season I bought five highlighters and couldn't forgive myself if I went out to get another. As for the eyeshadows, none of the colors appealed to me. The offerings in this summer's Bronze Goddess collection, however, is right up my alley, and I clicked the order button as soon as Nordstrom put the items up on their website.

Estée Lauder's 'Bronze Goddess Capri Pure Color' Gelée Powder EyeShadow Palette in 01 Bronze Sands contain five highly metallic cream-to-powder shadows in white gold, gold, copper, light grey-blue, and chocolate brown. 

These pictures are true to color, I kid you not.

Truth be told, I didn't have a good impression of this palette when I first used it. There is an extremely off-putting scent emanating from the shadows, and my stomach turns a little when I catch the smell. Granted, you can only detect it when you're mere inches away from the palette. But still.

Anyway, I was thinking about a makeup look to go with this palette when I came across Burberry's A/W 2012 beauty look on my Facebook wall. So quintessential Burberry, so radiantly pretty. 

Cara Delavigne's eyebrows!

(Can I just go off-topic to say two things: 1. Every time I see Cara Delavigne I have a huge urge to go out and buy a trench coat; 2. I have so much feelings for Christopher Bailey. The man is a coat-making wonderman and I will do just about anything to own something from the Prorsum collection.)

I based my look on Cara because... I didn't see the Liu Wen photo until I finished snapping my pictures. I have such an odd eye shape that it doesn't really matter either way, I suppose.

The Burberry beauty look featured flawless skin (can't say the same about my own, sigh), a smoked out powder cat eye with illuminated inner corners, and just a hint of blush applied a little lower on the cheeks than "usual." I patted the white gold shade on my entire eyelid, followed by a little of the copper, then swept the brown shade all over and dragged it toward the outer corners of the eyes. I applied a thick line (of powder) on the bottom of the eye and finished up with the white gold shadow at the inner corners of the eye. 

There was a lot of blending involved with this look. The shadows are supposed to look as if they naturally melted into each other. To do this I used a flat eyeshadow brush (Shu Uemura Kolinsky/Sable 10) and applied everything in circular motions. I also used my finger to slightly smudge out the edges.

You might be wondering why the colors on my eyes look so tame compared to the swatch above. It was through doing this look that I found out you needed fingers to maintain the metallic sheen of the eyeshadows (a minus for me. I don't like using fingers for application). With brushes, the colors lose their vibrancy, though it worked in this particular instance.

Cheeks: Estée Lauder Shimmering Sands (to be reviewed soon)

While the scent is truly horrendous, I still declare this palette a win. After all, you get to have both metallic and "subdued" hues just by varying your application method. The shadows are pigmented and they blend well. But if I were to be entirely truthful, a part of me just really like how vibrant it looks in the pan. 

Estée Lauder 'Bronze Goddess Capri Pure Color' Gelée Powder EyeShadow Palette in 01 Bronze Sands retails for $45 and is already available at nordstrom.com.