Duty Free Beauty: Guerlain’s Make Up Palette

When I saw the Guerlain Travel Makeup Palette in the Paris airport duty free shop, I picked it up without giving it much thought. At $48 Euros (roughly $61 US Dollars), this was my most expensive purchase. With the 5 eyeshadows, 2 lipsticks, 1 blush, 1 face powder and 1 mascara it has, I thought I had everything I needed for a full face on the go.

Well, sort of. I love the design of the palette, it’s pretty small and has a ton of stuff in it. It’s a little longer than a credit card and about 1/2″ thick. When you open it up, the top portion slides out to reveal the powder, blush and mascara below. You have to appreciate that this palette is definitely convenient. If you were traveling, you wouldn’t need much more to complete your look.

That’s not to say this palette is all roses though. Luckily the face powder works with my skin tone, the blush is a shade I can wear and the lip colors are versatile. What is disappointing about this palette though is the eyeshadows they included. At first glance these eyeshadows seem pretty, the shades lean towards the pink side more than the neutral side and I was fine with that when I picked this up. When I actually went to use them, I found that only 2 of the 5 shades seemed usable… that would be the 3rd and 4th from the left.

The remaining shades are a bit of a mess for me. Ordinarily these would be beautifully shimmery shades with the last one featuring more chucky sparkles than the rest but unfortunately they just didn’t blend well during usage. They do not seem to be milled as finely as they should be so they appear somewhat chunky on the skin. That’s a look I’m not really that fond of. The bottom line is you can say I’m suffering from a little buyer’s remorse with Guerlain’s Travel Makeup Palette.