Estee Lauder Ingenious Color Palette Review

Break khattam hui and its time for me to introduce to you what made me fall in love with Estee Lauder makeup.

As mentioned in my previous review, along with the loose powder, I bought something special, what? I bought a travel exclusive makeup palette – an absolute impulse buy out of frustration at not being able to find a couple of things I was looking for – namely Bobbi Brown lipstick in Cosmic Raspberry and eyeliner in Jeans!!

I love buying palettes, emphasis on buying rather than using because I have never truly been happy with one. I had some tacky ones as a teenager (till my mom put a stop to it saying – “if you want to use makeup, you will use only quality products on your face).  Alas, in those days, quality products translated only to Lakme!!

My first high-end travel palette was from Dior – ensconced in the well know Dior cannage – an absolute delight for the eyes, but yes, you read that right…BUT…not really suited for Indian skin tones.  The Dior Addict lipstick shades were all wash-outs for me. I wasn’t into eye makeup, so eyeshadows were a waste, the pressed powder, highlighter, contour powder were the wrong shade. The only thing I did use was the mascara – Extase! Rest was pretty much a waste!!!

I personally feel that travel palettes are a great way to test a brand – because you get to try a number of things from the brand – eyeshadow, lipsticks, lip glosses, blushes, mascara, eyeliner, concealers, pressed powder, lip pencil, kohl, etc. Its like you get to try so many things and can take a call whether you want to buy the full-sized versions of the same or not.

However, there are 2 big problems – not all brands make universally useable palettes – some times shades are more suited to Caucasian skin tones and the other grouse that I have is that some brands do not mention the products/shades used in the palette. I have Lancome Absolu Rouge lipstick palette with 6 shades of lipstick and 1 lip gloss. However, no shade names are mentioned on the palette or on the box. Same is the case with my Dior palette.

This is where the Estee Lauder palette stands out:

• Great selection of colours – suitable for most skin tones – light to medium to medium-dark.
• All products are identifiable and can be bought individually.
• Perfectly compact and has all things I need – except base makeup of course. I can actually go on a holiday carrying just this palette.
• The shades/colours are mentioned on the flip side of the palette – enabling the customer to know which shade they are using and can go and buy the same one if they like it. I did!!!
• This is excellent for office use also – something handy to carry in your laptop bag or something you leave in your office drawer for mid-day touch-ups.

I will share individual reviews of the full-sized products that I bought. This is a mini review of the products in the palette and the palette in general – in case you like something and want to try it yourself.

Product Description:

Great looks on-the-go in one sleek compact. Its like taking a professional makeup artist wherever you go.  Pure impact. Pure luxury. Pure emotion. Pure Color. Long-wearing color creates maximum impact.  
High fashion shades and luxurious formulas.  Color so incredible, it leaves you wanting more.

Price:

About INR 4000 (post conversion from Thai Baht).

Packaging:

The palette is compact and extremely user friendly. The packaging is typical Estee Lauder blue with EL written on top, its a sight to behold! Elegantly chic! Though a fingerprint magnet!

The palette opens up to reveal pressed powder on the left side and lipstick palette on the right side and a huge big mirror. The beauty of the palette is that these 2 products come with individual flip covers and can be individually detached from the palette and carried around.

The lipstick palette cover also ensures that no powder product enters into it (unlike my Dior palette where eyeshadow and lipstick are right next to each other, uggghhhh!!!).

The powder and lipstick palette slide sideways to reveal an eyeshadow quad, a blush and the applicators.

A sample-size bottle of mascara enjoys a place on the top!

The ingredients for all products are mentioned on the box, I have not included all in the snaps because it is easy to find the ingredients online.

Products:

Pressed Powder:

AeroMatte Ultraluscent Pressed Powder:
1W Transparent – 4.2gms – Content made in Italy.

The powder is finely milled and melts into the skin. I quite liked this and used it as a staple (in place of loose powder) while I was travelling. The powder controls shine and oiliness fairly effectively, providing me with a matte look for close to 5.5 hours.  Please note, this was during the summer months.  However, if you sweat, the powder will come off on your tissue when you try to blot your face.

Lipsticks:

4 Pure Color Long Lasting Lipsticks – Made in Belgium:

• Pink Parfait (reviewed earlier by Rati)–It’s a soft pink with very minute non-obvious shimmer (almost looks like a sheen). More suitable for medium to fair skin tones.
• Wildly Pink (will be reviewed shortly) – It’s a cream finish hot pink colour.
• Coral Fantasy (reviewed earlier by Rati) – My favorite from this line. Its again a cream finish, coral leaning towards pink. When swatched, it looks 85% similar to MAC Impassioned. Obviously, the finish is extremely different..
• Bois de Rose– Again a cream finish lipstick, the colour is similar to Bobbi Brown Heather Pink – its a dirty rose colour – excellent for office use and for fall.

Love the fact that the colours available are a combination of bright and wearable colours and are fairly varied.

The texture, feel, long-lasting character of the lipsticks took me by surprise and created a love that I went out and bought myself a new tube of Wildly Pink and Coral Fantasy and quite a few others which are going to be reviewed shortly.

The lipsticks are individually priced at Rs. 1750 for 3.8 gm product.

Eyeshadow Quad:

Pure Color eyeshadow – 1.1 gm.

• Glistening Gold – As you can see in the photographs, its an off-white colour with non-gritty extremely minute glitter. Works very well for general highlighting including the brow bone, etc.
• Sizzling Copper – My favorite in the quad – it’s a coppery gold metallic colour. I love using this as an overall wash of colour on the eyelids which results in instantly brightened eyes!
• Nude Fresco – the palest pink shimmer. Feels like butter to the touch! Its amazing!
• Chocolate Bliss – Matte chocolate brown colour – perfect for crease work.

The colours are amazingly pigmented, soft like butter – you feel as if you are working with a cream product. Honestly, the amount of eye-makeup I do (read – not much) – this is perfect in terms of colours and the quality of product.

Priced at INR 1950 onwards for 2.1 gm of individual product.

Blush:

Pure Color Blush in Peach Passion – 2.6 gm.

Peach Passion blush is a peach with micro shimmer, so subtle that it is barely visible and absolutely not obvious.
This could well be Estee Lauder’s answer to NARS famous “O*g*sm”. Perfect subtle shade which would go well with pinks, peaches and oranges – and especially well with the lipstick colours in this palette.

The only concern is that the blush is a little small and it becomes a tad difficult to pick the colour with a regular-sized blush brush.

Priced at INR 2865 for 7 gm of individual product.

Mascara:

Magnascopic Volume Mascara.

Designed to give up to 300% thicker lashes, with a special wide brush. This is smudge proof, does not feel heavy on the lashes and lasts you the whole day. I am not getting into details of this because it has been reviewed by Rati earlier.

Applicators:

This section talks about my grouse with the palette! The applicators are fairly rubbish – no surprise there. I think I will be surprised the day applicators actually work!

•  The powder puff (if you can call it that) is a  chit of a piece and can be barely used for touch-ups/
• The lip brush is okay.
• The eye applicators are useless – enough said!
• The blush brush is scratchy – I took it out to experiment only for this review, but in an emergency – it can be used to apply the blush, but will not do justice to the blush.

Since I have given all details in individual reviews, I am not doing a separate pros and cons.

Grande Finale:

IMBB Rating:

5/5

As a palette it’s a definite 5 – no, I do not deduct for the applicators because I did not expect much from the applicators.

As individual products – all items are top quality – be it lipsticks, eyeshadows, blush, mascara or pressed powder. Individually, also the products are 5!

Thus started my love affair with Estee Lauder makeup – more reviews coming up soon!

P.S – I know you might wonder why I write reviews in fits and starts – the reason for it is depicted in the picture below. Just as I am ready to take a pic – a tiny grubby paw comes to flick the product away! That’s my little one!

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