French Week Day 6 - Chanel Illusion d'Ombre Luminous Eye Shadow

The latest Chanel fall collection has me teeming with anticipation for the cooler weather and I have already began to collect pieces from it.  In addition to picking up items from the current fall collection, I purchased one of the major products from last fall's makeup collection, the Illusion d'Ombre Luminous Eye Shadow.  This product was the big hit of last fall and quickly became a sell-out cult favorite, when I went to the counter last year, all the shades that I wanted to try were sold out so I had to wait quite a long time to purchase them.  Illusion d'Ombre is one of the most unique eye shadow formulas on the beauty product market and is a product that French women have worked right into their style and culture.  French women love long wearing, high quality makeup formulas that will take them from day to night with minimal touch ups.  When I have both work and then school in the same day, I am very interested in long wearing products since I will have going for over 12 hours.
Chanel has had so many cult products over the years that it nearly impossible for me to list all of them here.  We have looked at many of them over the years and this product has quickly reached the same status as Le Vernis and Le 4 Ombres.  This might be one of the products that has reached cult status fastest for this company, it is very unique and extremely high quality.  I originally thought that this would be very much like a traditional cream eye shadow, however the texture is much spongier and the application method and wear is more like a high quality powder eye shadow.  After using and wearing this product all day long, I can honestly say that I have never tried anything quite like this eye shadow before!
"This intensely shimmering long-wear eye shadow offers true versatility.  An innovative gel texture that is both soft and cushiony allows it to be worn as eye shadow or eyeliner.  Includes a specially designed shadow/liner brush, developed specifically for this unique formula.", states the Chanel website when describing this product. 

I have tried this product as both an eye shadow and a liner.  I prefer it as an eye shadow, it is a nice eyeliner but is nothing amazing and I really reaped the benefits from using as a shadow.  When using this on my eye lids, I have used it with the included brush and with a finger mode of application.  Either way will work, but I found that the fingertip method allowed me to build the color quicker and the application control was very much the same as with the brush.  I used both of the shades that I tried with Urban Decay Primer Potion underneath (as I would any eye shadow formula), the shadow applied smoothly and blended with next to no effort on my part.  I have only used these shadow shades blended with each other, I have not yet tried to mix and blend them with any other formula shadow and I have not found any reviews on other blogs were people tried to blend multiple formulas.  Based on all the reviews that I read, I made sure that the two shades that I bought could be worn together or stand alone.

This formula eye shadow is currently available in six shades.  All of the shades are very shimmery and have full pigmentation with one application.  If you don't feel comfortable with full shimmer on your eyes, then this might not be the best formula for you.  These are the original shades from the release, I was hoping that more shades would have come out over the year but nothing else has been released. 

- Fantasme - bright white with white and silver shimmer
- Emerveille - soft peach with champange shimmer
- Illusoire - deep gray-purple with silver shimmer
- Epatant - deep olive green taupe with gold shimmer
- Mirifique - deep black with multi-colored shimmer
- Ebloui - deep burgundy with red shimmer

I was originally taken with the Illusoire shade, this deep gray-purple shade was like nothing that I have ever seen before.  I believe that this was the best selling shade of last year since I saw it in every magazine and beauty blog last year.  I planned to purchase that shade and the Emerveille when I went to the counter and I held fast to this thought for about two weeks before I went.  After looking at the products, I thought about not seeing any posts about mxing this formula with others so I decided to buy Emervielle and Epatant instead, these two shades could be worn alone or blended together. 

Emerveille is a very easy shade to wear during the day, it applies a soft peach shade with champagne and gold shimmer.  I mostly use this shade alone when I don't want a full eye makeup look and I have used it to blend with Epatant.  This shade is best used for blending, if you only want one shade from this product line, this is not a must have product but it is good solid shade that I will get a lot of use from.  Epatant is simply beautiful, the shadow applies a deep olive khaki and the gold shimmer pops out.  This is one of the most amazing and unique shades that I own and I don't think that I have every seen a shade like it before.  If you are only going to buy one shade, this one is worth the purchase.  I do plan to buy Illusoire at some point but I do want to see if there is a shade in this collection that I can blended with it.  I am hoping that a silver or gray shade will come out within the next few months...

This is one of my favorite eye shadow formulas that I have ever used and I can count on a company like Chanel to consistently release great new formulas and shades to keep me coming back.  One of my dreams is to visit the massive Chanel store in Paris.

We have one more day left in French Week and we will be wrapping it up with a classic French perfume from Guerlain!

photo courtesy of Nordstrom