Giorgio Armani’s 4-in-1 Multicolor Eccentrico Illuminator Face Palette Is Full of Surprises

Oh, boy. I’ve been procrastinating for the past 45 minutes. I don’t even know how it’s 6:45 right now. It’s like, I took these goofy-@ss pictures, watched 15 minutes of Flowers in the Attic on Netflix (so bad it’s good), played with the new MAC Masterclass Brushes for a second, did some swatching, and now it’s almost 7, and I have absolutely nothing written except for a bunch of crazy talk.

Whatever. We’ll just call this phase of the blog, “The ramblings of a crazy cat lady,” or “The eccentric ramblings, and occasional blush reviews, of a formerly somewhat sane woman with a penchant for felines.”

Anyway. This palette. Giorgio Armani. Holiday. “Eccentrico.”

I feel like that’s a metaphor for my life right now.

I walk around looking relatively normal…

But I feel like this inside…

Yeah.

This looks like a pretty standard peachy pink highlighter when you open it. I expected something, I dunno, more like MAC Mineralize Skinfinish in Soft & Gentle, or a warm rosy gold like the new BECCA highlighter.

But then I brushed off the top layer, a very pretty golden overspray with a warm golden sheen finish, and all hell broke loose.

Which reminds me, I watched four episodes of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding yesterday, and the words “bling” or “bling-tastic” were spoken at least 15 times. I loved it. And those cray-cray dresses, OMG!

But enough about that. Back to the pan…

When I brushed off the overspray, I actually went, “SHUT UP!” Things got really, really interesting.

Was it $88 interesting? I don’t know, but stuff was hiding under that overspray — beautiful sections of bright, beautiful hot pink, white, orange and lavender, like totally frickin’ rad street art or something.

Well, I’ll be damned… I actually left bite marks on the palette. Crap. Anyway, there’s a pretty decent brush under the pan, not the usual throwaway kind. Good enough to do your cheeks in a pinch. Just swirl it around the pan, swish it on your cheeks and that’s that. I guess you could use something with a smaller brush head instead to grab the individual colors, but really, who’s got time for that?

I like Eccentrico because I think it’s beautiful, but I don’t know if it’s $88 beautiful. I mean, if I got it in my Christmas stocking one year, I would absolutely FLIP-THE-EFF-OUT. With that red lacquer packaging (unlike Armani’s standard black) and the product itself, it’s way sassy and cool. The pan starts off looking like a basic highlighter, but then you remove that top layer and get a crazy-looking pan of hot pink, lavender, orange and white.

And surprise! — they’re actually pretty wearable. No clown cheeks at all.

With this, it looks like you’re layering multiple products, but it’s actually just one. If I were trying to get a similarly glowing, very natural-looking effect without this, I’d probably start with a layer of highlighter and add a matte on top, to have some of the highlighter peek through the matte. Here, you get that same look from a single product. Easier.

But it’s $88. Sh*t is expensive. Really, you could find something similar, or otherwise improvise this look for less, but then you wouldn’t get the red lacquered cheese wheel. 🙂

Available now at Giorgio Armani counters and online.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen