Friday, November 20, 2009

Tarte Treasure Chest

So I have to admit with a certain degree of difficulty that I've fallen pretty far behind on swatching..the problem being that I'm pretty much not awake during the day anymore except at odd hours like this where the sun really hasn't risen out of the sky yet...so I've made you guys promises I have yet to keep...the last big thing I swatched was the Tarte Treasure chest close to a month ago and just let sit for a while as laziness overtook me...my bad, and my apologies...
Anyways, today's topic is one of the more decent sets this holiday, the Tarte Treasure Chest. This baby retails for $52 at Sephora and unlike Tarte's more recent palettes and last year's failure of a holiday palette, the quality's actually pretty good (Though I will admit that the blushes in last year's holiday palette were so nice I almost kept the darned thing just for those) This year's palette is also a lot bigger than last years; with 32 full sized eyeshadows instead of 16.
The palette comes in bejeweled casing that imo, is somewhat cute, but in a tacky way. (I find it kinda festive...it reminds me of Christmas tree ornaments) There's unfortunately a near fatal flaw to this packaging; if you tilt this forward at all, the "drawer" like design of the palette sends the lipgloss and cheek color layers flying out at you at a somewhat alarming speed. Luckily, this palette has some redeeming qualities, so it missed getting the axe. Nevertheless, this is definitely not a travel friendly palette.

Here's the palette all opened up...it's certainly a lot of makeup in one go...
There are two layers of eyeshadows in this palette. The top layer contains the more colorful, shimmery shades. I swatched these in columns this time. Pictures were taken in warm indoor lighting. All shades were fairly soft and buttery. Pigmentation of the shadows is excellent and they swatch pretty close to what they are in the pan on my arm, but turn muddy on my eyelids for some reason. I know one other person with the same problem, while others have no issues with them
column 1 contains a shimmery, slightly bronzy gold, a brown with gold shimmer, a peachy pink with gold shimmer, and a dark taupey color with gold shimmer.
column 2 contains a warm brown with gold shimmer, a shimmer gold, a light, frosty peachy pink, and a lightish purple with gold shimmer
Column 3 contains a shimmery red, a black based dark gren, a slightly olive green with gold shimmer, and a black based blue
Column 4 contains a black based wine color with lighter burgandy shimmer, a light turquoise with gold shimmer, a red based purple with purple shimmer, and a somewhat sparkly light silver
Layer 2 contains the most buttery matte shadows I've ever come across and are IMO the highlight of this palette. These, unlike the layer above it, do not turn muddy on me. They're also the reason why I keep this palette despite my disappointment with the layer above.
Column 1 contains a matte beige, a dark purple taupe, a matte peachy pink, and a warm brown shade
Column 2 contains a purpley taupe, a warm taupe, a blackish purplem and a tan eyeshadow
Column 3 contains a matte light pink, a pinkish purple, a warm grey taupe and a dark blue that looks slightly greyish in the pan
Column 4 contains a pinkish tan taupe, a red based brown, a matte white, and a matte grey
The 3rd layer contains 16 potted lip glosses and are the top layer of the pull out drawer. These apply easily with a lip brush and are a lot nicer than the ones in last year's palette. They are harder to apply with your fingers. I chose not to swatch these. They few that I've tried have been fairly nonsticky and nondrying. Because of how the palette is designed this year, it is possible to access this drawer without opening the powder layers, or keeping just this section closed while you access the powder layers, making it easy to keep the powder products from mucking up the lip products.
The last layer contains the cheek products; 4 blushes, a bronzer, and a luminizer/highlighter
All 4 blushes are shimmery. From left to right the colors are a light, slightly peachy pink with gold shimmer, a mauvy pink with silver sparkle, an orangey peach with gold shimmer, and a red/rust colored blush with gold shimmer. The luminizer is light pink. It's ok, but I don't care for it it much myself. The bronzer is Park Ave Princess, which I usually like, but I feel like the one I own separate from the palette is a slightly different color.

Overall, the palette is pretty nice, though I wish that at least 1 of the blushes had been matte. Either way, it's a great buy for the price and I feel like it'd make a nice gift for someone without a lot of makeup.

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