If I Ever Went For A Midnight Swim, I’ll Be Wearing Lancome Hypnose Star Eyes Bain de Minuit

I don’t think I have ever owned a Lancôme eyeshadow palette. I have one of their mono eyeshadows but never even picked one up at the L’oreal Luxury Division Warehouse Sale. Then this Lancôme Show by Alber Elbaz Hypnôse Star Eyes was sent to me for review and although I was excited, I wasn’t as excited as when I actually used it.

Of course I could immediately see that it would be great and useful for creating a smoky eye look what with the dark and cool shades, icy blue, denim blue, charcoal black. Some shades have more shimmer than others, that I could tell even without swatching the shades. Some have a frosty, metallic shimmer texture while others were more matte but on first glance, I knew the shimmer wouldn’t be too much like some Korean brands.

The palette itself is attractive as the colours of the stars really complement the shades inside. All 5 shades are well put together. I have seen some eyeshadow palettes with 5 colours and one or two of the shades seems so out of place but that’s certainly not the case with this palette. The palette has a magnetic clasp so you don’t need to click it shut. It shuts automatically even before you push it all the way down. Nice feature! Another unique feature is that the applicators won’t drop even if you hold the palette upside-down as they are held fast by magnet. Cool or what!

Excellent pigmentation and pick-up, excellent colour pay-off. The palette contains a brush and a dual-sponge applicator which I tried to use but didn’t find as effective as using my fingers. I wish they’d provided another brush instead, perhaps a brush for blending and another one for application and liner? Besides, sponge applicators disintegrate very quickly.

The palette also comes with a how-to-apply guide and there’s an illustration of which side of the applicator and the brush is to be used with each shadow. There are illustrations of 3 looks – you can go with 3, 4 or 5 of the colours (Soft Intensity, Medium Intensity, Deep Intensity). In my look below, I have used all 5 of the shades as per the how-to-apply guide’s 3rd look (Deep Intensity).

Shade #2 is a beautiful highlighter, it seemed almost creamy and I think this will be an excellent base for my other eyeshadows. It’s hard to pick my favourite shades in this palette but if I had to pick, it’d be #1 and #4 as they are truly gorgeous on my eyelids. Generally, textures are smooth and easy to blend even with fingers.

You can use the darkest shade #3 to line top and bottom lids but I’ve only lined the top. It’s a matter of preference, I’d just rather keep liner to the top lids to avoid the smudging problem. This is a palette which I could grow to love very much. It may look like an ordinary palette at first but you’ve got to try it out to believe how seriously good the pigmentation and effect is. You can use the shadows wet for more intensity but I didn’t feel the need to as they already give such strong colour pay-off when used dry.

Yup, this is THE palette I’d be wearing if I ever took a bain de minuit!

Lancome Hypnose Star Eyes Palette retails at RM140/2.7g.

Lancome Hypnose Star Eyes Bain de Minuit was provided by Lancome Malaysia for review.