I’ve been eyeing Tom Ford’s Cocoa Mirage Eye Color Quad ($75 for 10g/0.35 oz)
for quite some time. It’s one of the few in his line that don’t have the glitter/sparkle finish. However the high price and borderline boring color combination prevented me from ordering sooner. A trip to Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills last month
pushed me over the edge after a few minutes of swatching.
for quite some time. It’s one of the few in his line that don’t have the glitter/sparkle finish. However the high price and borderline boring color combination prevented me from ordering sooner. A trip to Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills last month
pushed me over the edge after a few minutes of swatching.
A quick peek at the Tom Ford Beauty counter at Neiman Marcus Beverly Hills (photos by me):
Cocoa Mirage‘s palette is very basic but the pigment is phenomenal for a powder shadow. The texture of the powder is smooth and finely milled. Any brush picks up an impressive amount of pigment and they blend beautifully on the lids for a natural but nicely defined/contoured look. The colors in the palette include a rich matte vanilla, a soft neutral tan, a warm chocolate shimmer, a dark bark matte brown.
The colors will shift from neutral to warm depending on the light. With any kind of flash the swatches turn significantly warmer. On the skin these apply more neutral than red/warm. I have two sets of swatches to help show you the difference. First is with flash:
In direct sunlight:
Tom Ford Cocoa Mirage contains a basic cream and three neutral browns. It’s quite likely you will find dupes out there. I pulled a few neutral palettes to compare but did not have time to search through all my singles. I hope this will help for now. Below is Edward Bess Island Escape and Burberry Mocha.
$75 for an eyeshadow palette is insanely expensive however Tom Ford does provide quite a bit of product in the mirrored quad. At $75 for 10 g for four shadows, the price breaks down to $18.75 per shadow which is 2.5g. Compare this to a few others and the price seems to be similar to put together a quad:
- MAC singles are $12 to $15 for 1.5g each (a quad with compact will be around $57 for 6 g)
- Bobbi Brown singles are $21 for 2.5g to 2.8g each (a quad with compact will be around $94)
I’m overall thrilled with Cocoa Mirage. It’s basic but the colors are high quality shadows. This is a wear-to-the-pan kind of quad although I do suspect most will find it too basic. I’m not happy about the high price but given the prices of other brands and singles, Tom Ford doesn’t seem to be too out of line with his eye shadows (still would love the quads to be in the low $60ish range). Out of his whole entire line the strong points still seem to be his lipsticks, blushes and brush range.
I purchased my quad from Neiman Marcus. Also available at Nordstrom, Bloomingdales and Saks. Have you tried Tom Ford Eye Shadow Quads? Which is your favorite? (Mine is Enchanted which was limited-edition.)
