Charlotte Tilbury is giving us something a little different this time. We’re used to seeing soft, romantic, rosy colour stories from the brand, but then they released The Icon Palette.
This palette aims to deliver 4 high-pigmented, hypnotic eye looks to take you from day to date to diva to disco.
The Icon Palette comes housed in this rad David Bowie-inspired packaging. It comes in a mirrored gold compact with 3D-looking eyes and a pink, silver and blue lightning bolt. Inside you’ll see dark burgundy packaging with the Charlotte Tilbury text at the base and a big mirror.
This palette contains a mix of 12 shadows, with each pan containing 2 g of product. The palette is mainly metallic shadows, with a few mattes and a shimmers sprinkled in.
The palette is divided into four sections. Starting at the top and going down you first have the Prime shade, the Enhance shade and the Smoke shade. In the top row, going from left to right, the looks are called Day Eyes, Date Eyes, Diva Eyes and Disco Eyes.
First up is Day Eyes which has one shimmer, one metallic and one matte shade, all from the mauve family. I applied these shadows as recommended, by using the top shade as the primer, the second shade on the lid and the bottom shade to smoke it out. I didn’t see a huge benefit to using the top shade as a prime shadow, in fact, I think covering it up with the enhance shadow was a bit of a shame because it hid the beautiful seashell colour. Using it as a prime colour and stacking another shadow on top actually made the shadows crease, so I’d recommend applying the shadows however you please for best results, while trying to steer clear of too much layering.
Next up is Date Eyes which has shimmer and metallic shades from the warm and rusty shade family. This colour family was pretty impactful, especially that yellow gold. Like many metallic shades the best way to get the most colour payoff is by applying it with your fingers (you see Charlotte Tilbury herself applying many shadows on models with her fingertip). I did experience fallout from that gold, but wow is it a powerful colour – like a shiny new loonie!
Diva Eyes is a mix of 2 metallic shades and 1 matte brown. This combination was my favourite – it was powerful yet wearable.
Last up is Disco Eyes which has 1 metallic, 1 shimmer and 1 matte. Probably the farthest from my comfort zone, this night look is the kind you might reach for when going out to the club. Sticking to just these 3 shades made for a tough journey to get a clean look. Who knew a matte black wouldn’t be a good transition shade for me? The blue was pretty patchy and required about 3 dips of my finger to build up the colour. I think if you pull in 1 or 2 of these colours while using shades from other looks in this palette you could make for a unique look.
If you’re in the market for a high-end mainly metallic palette, this one could be for you. What I like about this palette is that it includes 3 matte shadows to help make a nicely blended base. While this palette might not be your every day, 12-months a year palette, the shadows are rich and reflective enough to fill your need for a luxury rockstar palette.
