Lancome eyeshadows

If you read my post A cheeky little beauty haul, you'll know that despite my better judgment I was out braving the sales and came home with some little beauty bargains. I completely expected to buy something, but not that it would be a little something from Lancome. I was casually browsing the very well stocked beauty department at Debenhams when I noticed some interesting little pans of eye shadows in beautiful pastel colors on the Lancome counter, that definitely needed to be investigated a bit further. After some swatching I quickly made up my mind and bought three shades of the Lancome Ombre In Love Eyeshadows (£9.50).

The In Love range was a limited edition for Lancome Spring 2013 collection so they may not be easy to get hold of any longer unfortunately, and the theme was about romantic natural pastel tones mixed with an urban edge and intensity. When I saw the shades in the store, they had been taken out of their original packaging so it was a complete surprise when I took them out of the lovely little silver box when I got home, only to discover that the packaging was in a rather flimsy paper format with a fold over lid. Admittedly it does have a little mirror in the lid, which is always great for when you're on the go, but it wasn't at all what I expected and personally I think that it's cheating a little bit to not present the product the way it's actually sold, and the packaging would definitely have been a let down for me if had I paid the full price of £18. Packaging isn't everything however, so let's move on and look at the actual product.

I don't know about you, but I often find that pastel shades look amazing in the pan, but sometimes don't give much color pay off when you're working with them - well I'm very glad to say that this is not the case with these Lancome eye shadows. The shades may look soft and delicate, but they are intensely pigmented and with the lightest sweep of a brush or applicator you have a wonderful coverage that lasts all day without creasing. The consistency of the formula is quite creamy and you can easily build up the color intensity without any fall out or smudging, but for the same reason it's also great to use as an eyeliner or to create a lovely blended effect. 

The shades have amazing names like Romance Tagada which is a a lovely warm rose pink shade, Pistachio Cream - a gorgeous cool ice cream color with a hint of mint and lastly Cosmopolitan Mint which is a blue toned, intense deep mint shade. All the shades have a beautiful shimmer to them although for me this is most most noticeable with the green shades, and if you don't like shimmer for day wear you might want to be careful since the shimmer almost borders on being sparkly. 

 Romance Tagada

 Pistachio Cream

Cosmopolitan Mint

From left to right:

Romance Tagada

Pistachio Cream

Cosmopolitan Mint

I'm very pleased with the shades and the formula and I think I'll get a lot of wear from them this Spring & Summer. I must admit that for some reason I don't usually spend a lot of time at the Lancome counter, but these gorgeous little eye shadows have shown that it's definitely worth a visit, and I'll be keeping a much closer eye on any future Lancome product releases.