The Clarins Neo Pastels Collection Turns Down the Lights

I wonder what would Neo from The Matrix would think about the new Clarins Neo Pastels Collection. Would he consider ditching his black cloak and brooding persona for its uplifting makeup in pink, purple and peach?

I highly doubt it, but ya never know. 🙂

SCI-FI SIDE NOTE: Now, my girl Trinity would probably dig that pop of black liner the Neo Pastels model is wearing on her lower lash line, but I digress…

Back to makeup in three, two, one…

Available now on counters and online at clarinsusa.com, the new Neo Pastels Collection features 21 new and repromoted items consisting of an eye palette, six blushes, 12 lipsticks, one mascara and a wrinkle-smoothing primer in a palette of primarily soft pinks, purples, peaches, with a sprinkling of neutral brown, beige and black thrown in for safe measure. To me the colors seem like typical (in a good way) spring/Easter shades.

With the collection, Clarins says they wanted to celebrate the annual spring renewal by interpreting pastels in a new way. Like Chanel did with pearly finishes in Les Perles de Chanel, Clarins tried to play with varying degrees of sheen, shade and shine to give faces, eyes and cheeks a subtle radiance — almost like a halo of color.

At least that was the idea. Looking at the swatches now, the concept might have been lost on me, but I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing. I do like many of these colors, but they’re darker than typical pastels — a good thing, perhaps, if darker also makes them wearable on a wider range of skin tones.

Take the Eye Colour & Liner Palette ($40), for instance, and I’m hoping its brown, pink and violet shades will be wearable by pale princesses and tan temptresses alike.

Still, gals who had their hearts set on pure pastels might want to look elsewhere, like to Dolce & Gabbana’s Secret Garden, with its more traditional pastel greens, violets and pinks.

Grays have been showing up in several of this spring’s collections from lines like Chanel, Dior, Dolce & Gabbana and Laura Mercier, but I was quite surprised not to find any in Neo Pastels. Nada. Zilch. Zero. You won’t find any gray here, folks!

But while you won’t find any gray, you will probably spot some fingerprints. I can already tell that trying to keep this packaging pristine will be a useless endeavor because prints are easy to notice sitting on the surface of these shiny gold compacts. Not a big deal, but it might be something for the super spies with secret identities to consider. 🙂

The first time I saw the model in the promo pic at the top of this post, I fell in love with her eyes. The ethereal purples and pinks suck you in and then POW! — there’s that black liner along the waterline. She’s like a biker angel. All she needs now is a leather jacket to ride her winged hog into the sky…

It was awesome of Clarins to include so many blush (six) and lipstick colors (12), too. Each of the blush pans contain four blushes (like kitchen tiles?) designed to work either separately or together. You could use the matte blushes to contour and sculpt, and the shimmery ones to highlight. Cool, right?

The product I’m least excited about is the new Instant Smooth Line Correcting Concentrate ($32), a creamy, colorless primer for filling wrinkles.

I like the idea of the pen, but it has that smooth, slippery texture I see with products containing a lot of silicones (ahem, Smashbox Photo Finish Primer); I’m not a big fan because I can feel the product sitting on my skin (my pores are suffocating!).

Clarins Neo Pastel Swatches on NC35 Skin

Eye Colour & Liner Palette with the flash, $40

Without the flash

Rouge Hydra Nude Smoothing Cream Lipstick swatches with the flash from the left: 01 Nude Rose, 02 Nude Coral, 03 Nude Beige and 04 Nude Caramel, $24 each

Blush Prodige Illuminating Cheek Colour swatches with the flash from the left: 01 Lovely Rose, 02 Soft Peach, 03 Miami Pink, 04 Sunset Coral. 05 Rosewood and 06 Spiced Mocha, $28 each

Top row Jolie Rouge Perfect Shine Sheer Lipsticks swatches from the left: 02 Rhubarb, 03 Guava and 08 Pink Sugar (not pictured are 01 Melon, 04 Praline, 05 Papaya and 06 Fig), each $24; bottom: Instant Smooth Line Correcting Concentrate, $32

Wonder Perfect Mascara with the flash, $24

Swatches with the flash, first row: Rouge Hydra Nude Smoothing Cream Lipstick; second row: Blush Prodige Illuminating Cheek Colour; third row: Jolie Rouge Perfect Shine Sheer Lipsticks; and fourth row Instant Smooth Line Correcting Concentrate

Swatches without the flash

And because I can’t get enough sci-fi…

Have you seen Being Human yet? It’s a new (I think it’s new) show on the Syfy channel. Picture Three’s Company if Three’s Company starred a werewolf, a vampire and a ghost. They share an apartment and help each other through the kinds of day-to-day troubles that plague supernatural creatures, like, ya know, trying to resist killing relatives/coworkers, etc., etc.

There’s a British version of the show with a different cast. I’ve seen that one, too, but not surprisingly I get more of the pop culture references in the American one. In last night’s episode the ghost asked the werewolf and the vampire if they were “gonna go all Twilight on each other.” Hehe… 🙂

I’d recommend it, but what do I know? I watched the entire first season of Jersey Shore (three times).

So what have you been watching lately? Anything I should know about?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen