Charlotte Tilbury Instant Eye Palette “Pillow Talk” – Review, Swatches, 4 Looks

There’s no more fitting day to talk about this *dreamy* palette than on Valentine’s Day.

This is the Charlotte Tilbury Instant Eye Palette in Pillow Talk. The second I saw this palette, I instantly fell in love. Two holiday seasons ago the Charlotte Tilbury Instant Eye Palette in Stars-In-Your-Eyes was released and to this day it is one of my favourite palettes that I use on special occasions, so I knew that I needed to get the Pillow Talk palette in my hands.

This palette comes in a quilted baby pink cardboard box with gold accents.

Once you open the box you see a mirrored gold palette that captures the light oh-so-beautifully.

Once you open the palette you’ll see a mirror and a mix of 12 matte and metallic shadows divided into 4 sections for a combined 7 g of product.

Compared directly to the Charlotte Tilbury Instant Eye Palette in Stars-In-Your-Eyes, Stars-in-Your-Eyes is purple-y mauve and Pilow Talk is definitely from the red family. In addition to the colour story, the biggest difference between the two was that Stars-In-Your-Eyes was mostly metallic shadows with a few mattes and Pillow Talk is the opposite.

Each trio of eyeshadows has a Prime, Enhance and Smoke shade. I found with the Stars-in-Your-Eyes palette that applying the shadows with those directions didn’t always work for me, so for the below looks I used the Smoke shade in my crease and my under eye, the Prime shade on my lid and the Enhance shade in the outer v.

First up is the “Day” section. The most demure of the looks, this trio which includes 2 metallic shades and 1 matte shade is aptly named, being the perfect toned-down look for the day with a shimmery pop.

“Desk” is an all matte look from the coral family. No complaints here because this trio was the easiest to apply and the colours blended into each other without much work.

“Date” was the deepest of the trios with 3 matte brown shadows. I found the darkest shade to be a bit muddy on me, but it kind of gave me an unexpected grunge kind of look. Very 90’s!

Finally, the look I was *most* excited about – “Dream”. I never met a red shadow I didn’t like and this trio with 2 metallics and 1 matte was no exception. This look packed a crazy amount of punch. Wow, wow, wow, I looooved it.

All the shadows were pigmented, applied easily with my brushes and had a lovely colour payoff on my fair skin tone. The mattes blended without a problem and the metallic shades gave the right amount of dazzle (and sometimes a little bit more!). While the Date trio was a bit tricky for me to use, I think with a smaller brush and a more careful and targetted application, the trio would be more up my alley. Like many similar shadows, the metallic shades had a bit of fallout (not a lot, though), so I’d recommend doing your eyes before your face so you can clean off the fallout.

To no one’s surprise, I am smitten with this palette. I’ll be holding this one tight, for sure.