Guerlain Ecrin 4 Couleurs Eye Shadow Palette in 06 Les Fumes Review

So sorry I've been MIA lately; real life has been stressful :) But I'm back with swatches and reviews of three of the palettes released in Guerlain fall. I'm starting off with Les Fumes, a quad of gray, taupe, and pewtery goodness. This one has been a favorite in the beauty blogging world for obvious reasons.

I think the main selling point of Guerlain eyeshadows is their aesthetics; the gold casing is very beautiful (albeit difficult to photograph, which is why I decided to leave out a picture of its cover) yet doesn't look tacky at all. The casing is fairly heavy for a quad and includes a large mirror, in addition to a double ended sponge tipped applicator.

That being said, I think the quality of these eyeshadows are great, but not as good as they could be. They're certainly better than drugstore eyeshadows. Compared with mid-end eyeshadows such as Inglot or MAC, they're comparable if not slightly subpar in pigmentation but better texture-wise (which translates to: easier to blend & work with). Compared to luxury high quality eyeshadows they are comparable in pigmentation but subpar when it comes to texture. The eyeshadows are still soft to the touch, don't get me wrong, but not as soft as Hourglass's (which can sometimes be a bit too soft) and don't have that "bounce" of LMdB eyeshadows. I feel that Guerlain could make up for it with a big more pigmentation, but they're still great - I suppose I'd give them a grade of B+ to A-.

I did check out a few of Guerlain's other eyeshadows and while Guerlain's eyeshadows can be quite hit-or-miss, these quads are on the better end of the range. I'm glad to see that quality among the new quads is more consistent, and Les Fumes is no exception. Les Fumes includes an ashy beige-gray (satin with tiny sparkles) on the left, a darker cool charcoal gray-taupe (satin-matte) on the middle bottom, a mauvey rose (matte) on the middle top, and a light taupey silver (shimmer) on the right side.

Les Fumes, swatched - swatches built up with a few swipes

left to right: left, middle bottom, middle top, right

Les Fumes swatched more heavily, same order as above

As shown in the pictures above, you may need a few passes if you really want to build up an opaque color but overall this is a very nice quad suitable for both work in the daytime or a night out. Les Fumes is a great quad; I would personally give it my seal of approval and recommend it to anyone :)

-k