For the eyes this fall, Chanel has released one quad, two eyeliners and a number of single shadows. First up is Chanel Premier Regard #38 Quadra Eye Shadow ($58 for 6.8 g/0.24 oz). This is a subtle, soft and understated palette of sheer warm taupe-brown shimmer, pale dusty satiny pink, pale satiny peach-champagne and a muted black-grey matte. In the compact there appears to be a mix of satiny-shimmers and soft mattes, on the eyes these appeared mostly matte for me.
This quad took me three tries to get a decent application. By itself with only 1 base (I used Edward Bess’s eye primer), this was a disappointment for me. The colors were too sheer and the only color that had good pigment was the black-grey. I felt like the colors went on chalky and too sheer. The third time I finally found a good method of application. Note this quad needs a bit of extra work to show up (at least on my olive Chanel B30 skin).
Step 1: Prep with a good dose of eye cream on the lids and then apply your usual cream base/primer (I used Cle de Peau and Edward Bess).
Step 2: Mix the pink and peach together and blend over lids to soften the skin (this will be sheer but you can apply with a heavier hand if you want them to show up more).
Step 3: Use some kind of a tan/taupe/light cream shadow and blend along lashline and upwards (this serves as the base for the taupe shade, so apply the cream where you want the powder to go, I used Tom Ford’s Platinum Eye Shadow)
Step 4: Take the taupe-tan shade of the quad and dust over the cream eyeshadow (the cream eyeshadow helps the color adhere and blend well, using just a regular base was too dry for me to get any blendability out of the color)
Step 5: Apply the grey-black as a smokey liner (or as a crease shade, or wherever you prefer!)
Under different lighting:
Swatched, three views:
Right now, I only had time to pull two comparisons. When I first saw the promo photos of Premier Regard, I thought it looked strikingly similar to Winter Nights and possibly Dreams (I think both are discontinued in the US now?). The overall effect/theme is similar but the quads are still different. Here they are below.
Overall lovely and understated. At a glance, this seems to be a quad that is goof-proof and easy to apply. I was disappointed in the pigment by itself. The pink and peach look identical on my skin and borderline dusty. I need a moisturized eye base to prevent them from looking chalky on my eyes. A bit of tweaking and this worked better for me. I will definitely need to experiment more.
Have you checked out Premier Regard? How do you use it?
