Tom Ford SS18 Soleil D'Ambre Palette

Friday, February 23, 2018

I was doing so well on my low-buy. So well. I'd manage to go about a month without picking up any more skincare and hadn't really lusted after any new makeup. Then I spied the spring/summer Tom Ford Soleil Palette called Soleil D'Ambre, and I immediately liked it more than the previous year's SS17 Solar Exposure. I managed to stomp all over my low-buy with just this one item.

Why am I such a sucker for quads with one ruby color? I can name two more that I've purchased off the top of my head - Kose Visee Glossy Eyes PK3 and Charlotte Tilbury The Dolce Vita.

Tom Ford seems to have a formula for these palettes as all of them have one glitter shadow and one cream highlight. I think the texture of all of the shadows are improved compared to Solar Exposure (save for the glitter, because those are very similar in feel), they're butterier and blend better. Pigmentation is also noticeably improved.

Swatched in direct sunlight, over primers; shadows over eye primer and blushes & highlight over face primer.

The light shadow is ever so slightly pink. It's sheer, but packed with silver shimmer. The taupe looks satiny in the pan, but scatters to a nice fine particled shimmer on my lids. The burgundy eyeshadow swatches a bit more rusty than I was anticipating, but when paired with the pink shadow, it looks cooler (see below).

Initially I had said on IG that the blush had an opalescence, I guess that's not quite the most fitting description. The base cool red is more wine colored satin, but there's a lighter pink sheen and it's the contrast of these two finished that gives it a lot of dimension. This blush is also super pigmented, I used an ultra soft squirrel brush to tap in the tiniest amounts into the apples of my cheeks. The highlighter is not super different from the one in Solar Exposure, but slightly more pink and not as pearly.

I'm wearing the blush as well as the pink and burgundy eye shadows.

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, but a lot of blushes look the same on me in photographs because they tend to wash out a little while taking photos. I have a few options; to either apply it more heavily before I take these photos or touch them up later. Or my preference: to just have faded looking blush in all my photos that don't quite look true to eye.

I've owned taupes and burgundies but truthfully, I never thought of using them together or blending them to create mauve. until these two colors were right next to each other in the palette. Here I've used the burgundy, the taupe and the seashell pink.

This photo was taken with flash at night, but I feel like it shows you how the taupe can look more shimmery as opposed to satiny. I used only the pink and taupe shadows, plus the Viseart Cool Matte palette.

I like how these shadows don't crease or fade on me at all, I wore each of these looks for a solid 12 hours without any eye shadow migration.

Soleil D'Ambre is $155 in the US from department stores. I purchased mine from Selfridges. The base price was £80, which is about $112. The international shipping to the US is quite enormous at $30, but it saved me in taxes (for my state it'd be $12, so I paid $142 instead of $167).

Definitely a beautiful palette that makes a full face look easy to accomplish in just one palette. A nice self treat for sure!

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