Wednesday 11 May 2011

Fred Farrugia module palette


Left to right: palette top and accessories drawer, powder blush in 08, pearly/shimmery eyeshadow in 15, 04 and 14



Before I start my review I need to explain what this set really is. The brand has been recently established by Lancome's former creative director Fred Farrugia. We certainly cannot deny him creativity as he designed a range of make-up products in a form of ingenious modules, each of them bought separately can be assembled together to make a customized make-up palette of your own choice. It takes one click to fix one module on top of another, they rotate and open like a fan. The palette bottom contains a mirror and a drawer which hides small applicators and brushes. There are also two pouches, which I forgot to photograph, one resembles a knitted mobile phone pouch, the other one is plastic and hides a finger sponge (used to apply powders). The idea is brilliant, especially for people on the go. The variety of products to choose from is almost unlimited, of course you need to narrow down your choices cause you can't pile these modules without end, the kit turns impractical if you stick more than 5 modules together. Definitely it was this module system that attracted me to this product.

But unfortunately this is where the advantages of this product end. First of all I must say that while each module is relatively inexpensive (compared to other brands sold at Sephora), but the outer case of the pallette together with the equipment is sold separately at 20,00€. Quite expensive, isn't it? And the set won't work without it, you need something to cover the top pan.
As far as the products are concerned I'm going to comment only upon the eyeshadows and the blush, I haven't tried any other products. The eyeshadows appealed to me with their gorgeous, quite unusual colours. No 14 is a lovely shade of light and dark denim blue, the colours complement each other, they are good for base and contouring type of make-up. The trouble is they are very glittery, actually they are all glitter. The fallout is immense and the shadows are extremely hard to manage. I somehow disregarded this glitter at Sephora and thought would reach for the shadow every day, in fact I never use it. You can see how messy it is by the marks it leaves on the white case.
Number 04 is a duo of glittery yellow and pearly violet. I never use the yellow, and actually never intended to, but the violet disappointed me in terms of colour on the lid. I expected it to be deep plum violet, on the eyelid it looks like some sort of dark patch in no particular shade. And again it's horribly messy, so if I want to use it I need to do my eyes first, but even then, throughout the day there's still a lot of fallout.
No 15 is a combination of warm white with pearly finish and extremely glittery dark metallic colour with a bit of violet hue. The white makes a nice highlight for the brow bone or the corner of the eye (party look), the dark one is again too glittery and messy.
You may wonder why I'd bought all of these messy shadows, well, there was a promotion at Sephora like buy 3 and get the bottom and lid for free, these three seemed the most wearable shades and they didn't dupe anything I had at home so I got them. Also when swatched in the shop they seemed highly pigmented and just shimmery. It's a pity they are so difficult to apply cause I still think the colours are lovely.
The pink blush, on the other hand, is quite nice. I'm not absolutely sure the shade suits me, definitely looks better on untanned skin, so I'll stick to it in winter, but the quality itself is decent. It's quite sheer, when you look at it it seems matte, but when applied it makes your cheeks glow really nicely, though there's no shimmer or glitter visible. It's buildable and what is important it's not the glow or shimmer that builds up (like in the case of ELF blushes or bronzers) but the colour. The only drawback is the aplication, you need a flat, narrow brush whereas I prefer the round and fluffy ones.
The reasons why I didn't try out any other products were that first of all I wasn't satisfied with the quality which didn't match the price tag and also I think the shape of the pan makes many products extremely difficult to use, it's hard to manouvre any decent brush along this container.
Generally I think the idea is good, but they still need to work on their product a lot.


Disclaimer: I bought the products myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

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