Whenever I travel somewhere, I make it a point to try and find local makeup brands to try out. Paris is home to many international beauty houses, but I wanted to find something more indie, less known – and I did. I went to a Makeup Atelier store (they also have a website). And I got, among other things, the Printemps eyeshadow palette to try.
The 5 Eyeshadow T29 Printemps palette shades are, from left to right:
- a light shimmery yellow green;
- a medium to light yellow based green, also shimmery;
- a medium teal with a satin finish and few shimmery specks throughout;
- a satin, greener-leaning, dark teal;
- an almost black, grey toned green with a near matte finish.
Texture & Application: all the shades feel like a thick, not too firmly pressed powder. Due to this, they are quite powdery, with the lighter two shades being the worst offenders. The least powdery is the middle shade, which is also the one that has basically no fallout. The two darker shades can have a lot of fallout if I’m not careful. And as you can see from the swatches, the two darker shades (far right) are somewhat patchy. They apply a bit patchy on the lids too, and it takes quite a bit of effort to blend out the patchiness.
Pigmentation: The lighter two shades are quite sheer. So much so that you can’t tell them apart when applied to the lids. I have no problem with a sheer, shimmery shade that I can use on a light makeup day, but I do take issue when there are two in the same palette – that makes me think that the intention was not for the shades to be sheer, but rather that is a poor quality issue. The two lighter shades are not really buildable either, and they start to look very powdery on the lids if I pack on more. The other three shades are decently pigmented (even though it doesn’t look like it in the swatches) and can be built up. The most opaque of the palette is the middle shade.
Even though the shades’ faults are evident in the swatches, fact is that the eyeshadows perform better on the lids, particularly when it comes to pigmentation. The difference is so stark that I found it necessary to post a look I did using this palette exclusively, just so you could see the difference.
This photo was taken with a phone, and the light is more blue-leaning, but you can see how the eyeshadows look a lot better than on the swatches. The patchiness of the darker shades are still visible, in the area where I try to blend them out above the crease.
Longevity: the only aspect in which these eyeshadows did not underperform. I wore them over a primer (as I do with all my eyeshadows, so that’s my baseline for comparison) so I can’t tell how they would last without it, but they did not fade, migrate or creased for the whole time that I wore them – not even the lighter shades!
Packaging and other info: The packaging is very sleek. I think the lid and hinges could be sturdier. There is no mirror, but with such a slim compact, one would not be useful. Total amount is 12,5 grams, which makes it an average of 2,5 grams per pan – that’s quite a large eyeshadow amount. These palettes cost 33€ each.
Final Thoughts: I’m torn. From my review it’s obvious that quality is not amazing. The only really good eyeshadow is the one in the middle, and I lucked out because it happens to be my favourite shade in the palette. The fact is, I always enjoy the looks I come up with when I do use this palette, and I love the colour story (teal is one of my favourite shades), but objectively speaking, it is not worth the money. Too expensive for what you would expect to get from a drugstore palette geared towards pre-teens. For this amount of money, you could probably build a 5 pan custom palette with single shades from higher quality indie brands (Lethal Cosmetics and Inglot are two that I’m familiar with, and that are a lot better than this).
Also, not directly related, but customer service from their store was not good. The girl there looked like she was being very inconvenienced by having to serve us (me and my husband were the only customers in the store), and did not make the slight effort to speak to us in English (not my native language either, but I don’t expect foreigners to speak Portuguese to me). And once my (hero!) husband started to speak in French with her, she only asked what we wanted and blankly stared at us. She could have shown us around the store, recommended something, talk about best sellers. I was prepared to spend quite a lot, I like to support local brands, I’ve done it before in Greece (polar opposite experience). Nope, nada. “What do you want”, get in, get out, let me get back to my Candy Crush.
Bottom line, I don’t recommend it.
