The product: Yves Saint Laurent Marrakesh Sunset Palette (Ombrés 5 Lumières/5 Colour Eye Shadow Summer Look 2013)
Summer may be over, but I couldn’t not share this gorgeous YSL palette with you anyways. From the packaging, to the formulas, to the eyeshadow shades, this is one palette that really can’t be missed — um, so I’m really very sorry that I’ve taken so long to get this post up.
The packaging: To start us off, this palette is packaged in a gorgeous gold case, unique to this collection. The same in size and function as the regular 5 Colour Eye Shadow palettes, the Marrakesh Sunset Palette features a Moroccan arabesque design on the front, “engraved with golden satin contrasting against shiny golden reflects.”
Their words, not mine. You know palettes mean business when they come engraved — and though this one fingerprints like crazy, I have to admit: it’s pretty unique.
YSL Marrakesh Sunset 5 Colour Eye Shadow Palette packaging
YSL Marrakesh Sunset Ombrés 5 Lumières Eyeshadow Palette
The eyeshadows: The shades of the Marrakesh Sunset palette are, well, made to be representative of a beautiful Moroccan sunset, and they do a wonderful job of it.
The centre highlighter and bottom two shades create the impression of a warm, hazy sky, brightening and lifting the eye area with shimmering finishes and peachy undertones. The highlighter, softer than the other four shades, swatches almost like a shimmer finish within a frost — from a distance, it has a watery, metallic effect, and it makes a beautiful inner corner highlight.
YSL Marrakesh Sunset Palette swatches: bottom left, centre, bottom right, top left, top right
The top two shades are the accents of this palette, but while both are gorgeous, I felt like they could have used a little more pigment.
The medium brown has green-yellow undertones, and on the lids (where the gold shimmer is more diffuse than in the swatch), the undertones make my eyes look rather haggard. On someone warmer, darker, more peach, or even just a little bronzed, I think they’d have worked much better.
YSL Marrakesh Sunset 5 Colour Eye Shadow Palette swatches
Finally, the violet. Oh, god — this one is absolutely beautiful both swatched or in the pan, but like the bronze, it doesn’t quite work. It’s a medium-opacity shade with most divine undertones, perfect for both warm or cool skintones, and they’re complemented with absolutely mesmerizing fuchsia and blue (!) microshimmer.
The shimmer, however, has a terrible tendency to fall down during application — it actually has less shimmer than the other four shades, but it was the only one that speckled my cheeks as I blended. While beautiful, at the price point, I was left wanting more from this one: more pigment, a more buttery texture, more adhesion to the skin.
The verdict?
At $72 CAD, this palette isn’t a must-have. I love the shades in theory, but they’re best on warmer, darker, more bronzed skintones — on anyone who can pull off sheer golds and peaches well.
The violet (oh, the beautiful violet!) has a tendency to produce shimmer fallout during application, and none of the shades were as pigmented or buttery as I would have liked them to be. Though beautiful, Marrakesh Sunset simply doesn’t make enough of an argument to justify its price tag, and I think it can be skipped.
Availability: $58 USD/$72 CAD where still available. (Limited edition Summer 2013).
YSL Marrakesh Sunset Palette packaging
The ingredients:
Talc, Nylon-12, Boron Nitride, Magnesium Stearate, HDI/Trimethylol Hexyllactone Crosspolymer, Polyethylene, Pentaerythrityl Tetraisostearate, Hydrogenated Polydecene, PTFE, Dimethicone, Dilinoleic Acid/Butanediol Copolymer, Octyldodecyl Stearate, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Isopropyl Titanium Triisostearate/Triethoxysilylethyl, Polydimethylsiloxyethyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer, Glyceryl Caprylate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Dimethicone/Methicone Copolymer.
+/- Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Iron Oxides, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Carmine, Ultramarines, Manganese Violet, Silica, Ferric Ferrocyanide, Blue 1 Lake, Chromium Hydroxide Green, Calcium Sodium Borosilicate, Yellow 5 Lake, Chromium Oxide Greens, Aluminum Powder, Bismuth Oxychloride, Tin Oxide.
