Guerlain A Night at the Opera for Holiday 2014: Petrouchka Palette for Eyes & Cheek

Guerlain is always the brand that I look forward to the most each year when the holiday collections start rolling out, and the last 2 years’ Liu and Crazy Paris collections contained some of my personal favorites from Guerlain ever. With such a strong track record, my expectations were so high that I fell short when I saw the early images of the collection. So much so that I could not even find the motivation to drag myself to a counter to check them out in person. Big mistake, huge!

This year’s Un Soir a L’Opera (or A Night at the Opera for us Anglophiles) brings us back to the grandiosity of the theater, where men dress in tuxedos with bow ties, and the ladies are decked out in gold and glimmering jewels. It is sadly a bygone era, I can never find someone to accompany me to the opera, and my husband could not even tie his own bow tie on our wedding day. So I loved the fact that Guerlain has chosen to celebrate and bring back to our collective consciousness the beauty of that golden age, when people dress up to go out, and opera is regarded as a form of high art.

As always, makeup collections revolve around the eyes, and for Guerlain’s A Night at the Opera collection, this takes the form of the Petrouchka Palette for Eyes & Cheek. I was disappointed that Guerlain chose to name such a key piece of A Night at the Opera after a ballet, but I suppose both theatric art forms are lost today. What is (hopefully) not lost, is the beauty of the sleek golden compact that is Petrouchka. It is the same shape and size as Guerlain’s Parure Gold Powder Foundation and Madame Rougit blush. It is 2-tiered, with 5 eyeshadow shades on the top layer, and 4 blusher and highlighters on the bottom. This is also the only multi-product holiday palette this season that does not feature a cream lip/eye product! Petrouchka Palette also comes with a red elastic bow wrapped around it, which is the first time they have accessorized their palettes, and instructions on the box indicate the bow may be used as a hair tie or wrist band.

Whenever I look at a new collection, I somehow always gravitate towards the eyeshadows first. And these eyeshadows from Guerlain Petrouchka Palette were the reasons why I stayed away from the collection for as long as I did. To be completely honest, they were very unexciting, boring even if you consider the similarities with both the Crazy Paris and Liu palettes. Sara at ColorMeLoud has done a very good job with the comparison swatches so I shall not replicate her work. Even if you do not already own either Crazy Paris or Liu, chances are you already have dupes of these shades in your collection.

From top to bottom, the eyeshadow shades are:

• Pale champagne with a shimmery finish
• Light gold with shimmery finish
• Medium copper with a shimmery finish
• Medium-deep bronze with a satin finish
• Dark chocolate brown with a satin finish

All the shades are soft and creamy to the touch, are well pigmented and applies well. The only exception to this is the pale champagne which seemed to apply slightly patchy on my dry lids. The shades stay on my lids well, but when applied to my lower lash line, I did experience some fallout . They blend like a dream, but being as soft as they are, the eyeshadows did start to fall into my eye crease after the 6^th hour, and I also noticed some fading by the end of a long day. Before I scare you off completely, I must state that I am unusually harsh here because I expect absolute perfection from Guerlain.

What IS exciting about the Petrouchka Palette is actually the blusher and highlighter tray hidden in the lower tier.

Until recently, I have only owned 1 Guerlain blush (Madame Rougit from Fall 2013) and whilst it is incredibly pretty, it felt hard to the touch and needed more than the lightest feather touch to show up on my skin. Imagine my excitement when I swatched the Petrouchka blushes and found them soft and creamy to the touch, and very pigmented! So pigmented I over did it yesterday, and spent all day waiting for my red cheeks to fade (which they never did!).

Having experienced much angst trying to lay my hands on the Tom Ford Contouring Cheek Color Duos not too long ago, I was really excited to see 2 pairs of blusher and highlighter in one compact! Swatched from top to bottom:

• Sheer light pink highlighter with faint shimmers
• Medium rosewood with a matte-satin finish
• Medium peach-brown with golden shimmers
• Medium coral with matte-satin finish

The way to wear these is to apply the blush shades in the bigger pans along the top of your cheek bones, then dab the smaller highlight shades on the apples of your cheeks for a bit of pop. You can of course use the smaller shades as blushes too, and the medium peach-brown is lovely but you may find the light pink too sheer.

There has also been a lot of complains about how small the sizes of the pans are, and how impossible it is to pick them up with a proper cheek brush. May I suggest using a flatter cheek brush with rounded edge like the Hakuhodo B5519 and just sweep not swirl. And for the smaller pans, I use a highlighter brush like my Hakuhodo S116. These are really pretty blushes, and of a quality that has yet to be seen from Guerlain so far, and makes the entire Petrouchka Palette worth the money even if you completely disregard the eyeshadows!

I’m wearing Guerlain Orchidee Cream Foundation on face; Guerlain Petrouchka Palette on eyes and cheeks; Tom Ford Lip Matte in Flame on lips

There are plenty more to Guerlain’s A Night at the Opera Collection, and you can read more about them HERE!