"A sweetly tempting array of 16 matte and shimmer shadows scented with real chocolate. Too Faced Co-founder and Creative Director Jerrod Blandino learned of the healing properties of cocoa while getting a chocolate facial in Maui. With Chocolate Bar, he created a first-of-its-kind palette that combines the healthy benefits of chocolate with richly pigmented, velvety smooth shadows. Chocolate has been used for centuries for its soothing properties and to protect, condition, and heal skin that has been damaged by sun and wind. Studies have shown that the scent of cocoa powder can increase memory and brain power.", states the Sephora website when describing the palette.
The shades that are included in this palette are...
- Gilded Ganache - deep chocolate brown satin
- Milk Chocolate - medium brown matte
- Black Forest Truffle - deep warm brown shimmer
- Triple Fudge - deep warm chocolate brown shimmer
- Salted Caramel - warm brown matte
- Marzipan - medium champagne shimmer
- Semi-Sweet - medium brown matte
- Strawberry Bon-Bon - pale pink satin
- Candied Violet - bright violet purple satin
- Amaretto - medium warm brown shimmer
- Hazelnut - medium neutral brown shimmer
- Crème Brulee - medium warm golden shimmer
- Haute Chocolate - deep chocolate brown matte
- Cherry Cordial - deep plum satin
- White Chocolate - cool champagne matte
- Champagne Truffle - cool champagne shimmer
We will start with a quick recap of my first impressions and initial thoughts on the palette and then I will explain my thoughts in more depth and if my initial thoughts have changed. I still love that the White Chocolate and Champagne Truffle shades are much larger than the other pans, I use White Chocolate to set my eye primer and Champagne Truffle on both the lid and inner corner. I hope this is something that we see in more Too Faced eye palettes and I wouldn't mind seeing other brands follow this brand's lead. I still love the mix of shimmers and mattes that are contained in this palette, the mattes work well in the crease and on the outer V, the shimmers apply well to the lid. The range of brown shades is very nice and I can use this palette for both day and night.
All four of the matte brown shades perform well; Milk Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Semi-Sweet, and Haute Chocolate are true to the colors that they appear in the pan and blend out nicely. Haute Chocolate is too dark for the crease and I only use it to really deepen up the outer V and along my lower lash line. I get the majority of use in the crease from Milk Chocolate and Salted Caramel, Semi-Sweet is best used in the crease only when creating a nighttime brown smoky eye, I only use in my outer V when creating day looks.
All of the neutral shimmers perform very nicely on the lid, my favorite shades are Marzipan, Crème Brulee, and Hazelnut. The two best shimmer shades for daytime looks are Marzipan and Crème Brulee, the rest of the shades are richly pigmented deep brown shades and work best for more dramatic brown smoky eye looks. I can't say that I can tell much difference between any of the warm brown shimmer shades and the same issue holds for the cooler brown shimmer shades. When applied on the lid, there isn't much variation in the shades and I took pictures of eye looks that I made with each of the brown shimmers and there was little to no difference in most of the looks. Cherry Cordial is described as a "deep plum satin" but applies as a plum brown shade on the lid. It applies as a mildly different shade than the brown shades but still pulls more brown than plum. Too Faced could have reduced the amount of brown shimmer hues in this palette and I still could have created many of the exact same looks that I already did.
There are two shades in this palette that are complete duds. I am aware that every palette has a few duds but I was really disappointed with which shades were the issues in the Chocolate Bar palette. Candied Violet was simply awful, I tried using it on the lid and there was little to no pigment payoff. I then used it along the lower lash line and it came out as a muddy brown hue. I can't use this shade at all and I was so excited at how pretty it looked in the pan. The other really disappointing shade was Strawberry Bon-Bon, this pink matte shade applied very chalky and had no pigment. I wasn't happy that the only two shades that aren't neutrals in this palette can't be used and this palette has even less of a shade range than I originally thought that it did.
I go back and forth on the chocolate fragrance of the palette, I originally loved it but I have found that it made a headache worse one morning when I tried to use it. I can't use this palette when I have a headache or any other type of sinus issues. I am sure that many people do love the fragrance of this palette but there are a few people that can't stand the fragrance and it would make the palette unable to be used for them.
Overall, the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette is a solid neutral palette with a great mix of matte and shimmer shades. This company could have reduced the number of browns in this palette and either made it smaller or added a few more pops of color to this palette. The two pops of color are the two the weakest shades and I don't plan on trying to use either of them again. The fragrance could be a huge selling feature to some but a deal breaker to others. I know that I will use this palette throughout the rest of the winter and into the beginning of spring but I think many of the hues are too deep to use in spring and summer. Chocolate Bar is a very good choice if you are looking to add another neutral palette to your collection and/or you are a die-hard Too Faced fan and I would recommend purchasing it if these are the types of eye shadow shades that you enjoy wearing.
photo courtesy of Google
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