Chanel has released a new beautiful palette to celebrate the opening of one of their new boutiques in Paris. The palette is called Ombres Matelassées 51, Montaigne ($80 for 6g/0.21 oz, Made in Italy). It comes with five stunning soft silky-smooth shimmery eyeshadows embossed with the classic quilted pattern. The colors aren’t all that unique to Chanel’s prior releases but the texture is amazing with an ultra-smooth finish and satiny feel. Pigmentation is medium, like most Chanel eyeshadows. The shimmer is very soft and subtle. At $80 this is extremely pricey (especially when you consider the fact that the Ombres Perleés de Chanel from Spring 2011 was $65). I fell in love with the beautiful presentation and packaging but I’m not really comfortable with the price. (I skipped the Vegas de Chanel face highlighter and so felt this splurge was justified.)
The colors, left to right: soft iridescent ivory, pale gold shimmer, satiny warm gold, khaki olive shimmer, soft greyed-black with a tinge of navy. A few more close ups.
Swatches:
Comparisons to a few other shades, Chanel Ivory, Chanel Blazing Gold, Burberry Midnight Black, Chanel Black Star and Chanel Noir-Ivoire. (The greenish/olive shade wasn’t compared because I don’t own any of the Chanel khaki shimmers.) As you can see the theme is not extremely unique, but still extremely beautiful.
I’m not sure exactly where this will be available. My guess is this will be available at the counters and stores that receive the special exclusive launches (such as Les Jeans de Chanel, Vegas de Chanel, etc.) I know Nordstrom in Seattle has received the palette and have seen reports of this being spotted at various Boutiques and select Neiman Marcus counters. I’m assuming it will be launched online at Chanel.com eventually but at this time I’m not sure. I purchased mine at my local Neiman Marcus although they did not have any testers. See other photos at Best Things in Beauty and Luxury-Makeup Livejournal.
Overall beautiful presentation and extremely high quality. There is a lack of originality with the colors (I found them to be repeats of prior/existing shades) but the palette is a classic and I really love it. The texture is better than some of the singles, which I’m a huge fan of, but sometimes can be a bit chunky in feel. I personally cannot envision wearing all 5 shades at once. I’ve tried a few combinations and prefer to use 3 at most at one time. I find it wears very well and adheres well to the lids like the classic Chanel eyeshadows do.
Bottom line, it’s a true luxury product, not a necessity. I love it but I don’t think it’s a must-have for those who have a lot of other Chanel eyeshadows. I simply think you will find this redundant. I like the convenience of having all shades in one palette and felt the presentation is just exquisite. At the price it’s definitely a splurge. If I could only have 1 palette this season, I think it would still be Dior Grège 734 (reviewed here), although a few photos of summer collections have been surfacing and I’m kinda dying over the NARS trio coming out for summer (see it on Specktra.net here).
Have you seen/tried this yet? What are your thoughts?
