Dior Fall 2009--Smoky Jazz and Night Butterfly

This year I went absolutely nuts at the Nordies Anniversary Sale. From Dior I picked up a Diorskin Forever Compact and the two palettes that are available for Fall 2009. I didn't pick up the Nordies exclusive palette Purple Jazz. (it was too reddish for my tastes) I'm not usually a huge fan of Dior, but this Fall's collection made me plop down my credit card after maybe 5 minutes at the counter. Both of the palettes for fall are gorgeous and lemming worthy to me. (Though I will admit they aren't must-haves)


Smoky Jazz is a cute little palette with 4 e/s, a brow powder, and a cream eyeliner. It comes with a double ended floam applicator and a double ended brush with an angled brush on one end and a thin smudge brush on the other. At first glance, I feel that this palette doesn't really look very smokey, but trying this on my eyes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it works very well as a smokey palette. The plastic insert in the palette calls the white shade a "Topcoat" This color is a pretty shimmering white which can be applied to be an opaque, glittering white, or sheered out over the lid to have a nice shimmer. This is a great hightlight color and makes a passable base color as well. The next color over is a shimmery taupey silver. The color next to that is a warmer taupe. The last e/s shade in the palette is a really pretty matte taupey purple grey. I like this color the best probably out of the colors in this palette, but it definitely seems a bit out of place. The taupe color next to the black liner is labeled as a brow powder by the plastic insert. It looks too light to be of any use as a brow powder for ladies with black hair, however, when I gave it a try on a whim while I was playing with the palette, it worked surprisingly well for me. I guess it's good to know that in a pinch I can get away with using this as a brow filler. It also works just fine as an eyeshadow. The cream eyeliner is a basic black eyeliner. It applies just fine, but never fully sets like gel liners do (remains smudgeable). It does last an awfully long time though..it took me 2 days to get this one off my arm. This palette retails for $65. for that price it's a "nice to have" item, but not a must have.


The 2nd palette I picked up was a beautiful quint of purples, Night butterfly, which retails for $56. The texture of this quint differs from Dior's regular quints in the sense that it's not super buttery, however, all of the colors in the quint (except the black maybe) still apply smoothly and blend just fine. It's also much less shimmery than Dior's permanent quints, which I really like. The black color was chalky to the touch, but I'm not sure I'll ever use it since I tend to ignore blacks in palettes) The colors in the quint are a beautiful cool toned purple with blue shimmer, a pinky lilac color, black with silver glitter, a mid toned grey, and a red based plum. Put together, I can create a really nice purple smokey eye with this palette. Out of these two palettes I think I am definitely more drawn to the colors in this palette, although I don't think that the colors in the palette are wholly unique. Because of this, I'd also say that this is nice to have, but definitely not a must have item.