Swatch-o-rama: Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist's Palette Comparisons

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I had the Laura Mercier Artists' Eyes Arty Art Eye Eye Art Artist's Palette on my Christmas list last year mainly because I loved Plum Smoke, which works as an easy, warm neutral on me (and is a pretty good dupe for the horrendous Maybelline Color Tattoo in Vintage Plum, reviewed here). The single is $25, while this whole palette is $55 ETA: Now half price at Nordstrom Rack. Since I'm not likely to get through any powder eyeshadow ever, and the other colors in this palette looked pretty too, I figured the palette was the better way to go (at least when I was imaginarily spending someone else's money).

My mother-in-law generously obliged--except she bought me the Eye Art Caviar Palette, an understandable mistake, since the names are not very descriptive or distinctive. Luckily I was able to exchange it without any problem, and so here I am with this dreamy, purpley palette that's unlike anything I already had (in contrast to the the bronzey Caviar palette). It's flattering and versatile for my coloring, and though I wouldn't say it's so amazing as to be worth a small fortune, it doesn't feel like it's exorbitantly overpriced for what you get. As you'll see from the swatches below, though, this isn't your trendy, super-pigmented eyeshadow palette. Most of the shadows, especially the light and medium shades, apply fairly sheerly, though they can be built up without trouble. I'd say that the most disappointing shade is African Violet, because it looks stunning the pan. It tends to stay on the sheer side on my eyelids, and the gold shimmer doesn't show up much. I haven't tried it over glitter primer yet, though, and it's possible that would help, like it has with other shimmery eyeshadows that don't contain actual glitter.

Here are some closer views of the pans:

The main reason I decided to write a post about this palette is that I wanted to compare some of the shadows to others that I already had, particularly those in the Covergirl TruNaked Roses palette (reviewed here), so I'll share those swatches with you, along with some other comparisons. It turns out that I don't seem to have dupes for the more interesting colors here, which makes this palette a nice addition to my outrageous makeup hoard.

First, here are swatches of all the shadows in the Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist's Palette. All the swatches in this post were done over Wet N Wild primer (reviewed here), because I wanted everything to stick well enough that I could clearly compare colors.

(1) Sparkling Dew, (2) Guava, (3), African Violet, (4) Plum Smoke, (5) Kir Royale, and (6) Violet Ink.

The top row contains most of the pinks and purples. The first three shades are a little sheer but, as I said, they can be built up, and Sparkling Dew and Guava seem invisible mainly because of how similar they are to my skin.

(1) Vanilla Nuts, (2) Primrose, (3) Fresco, (4) Bamboo, (5) Truffle, and (6) Espresso Bean.

The bottom row has the peaches and browns. Again, the peculiarly-named Vanilla Nuts is decently pigmented, but too close to my skin tone to show up well on my arm.

Below are some comparisons swatches I made. I only compared the shades that I thought were more interesting, which means I skipped the lightest two shadows (also because you wouldn't be able to see anything) and the darkest browns. I didn't find anything comparable to the two darkest purples (yay me), so they haven't been included either.

First up, the shimmery pinks/rose golds:

(1) Laura Mercier Guava, (2) Laura Mercier Primrose, (3) Covergirl Roses Champagne, (4) Covergirl Roses Rose Gold, (5) Wet N Wild Silent Treatment Trio (browbone shade), (6) theBalm Cindy-Lou Manizer, (7)  e.l.f. Enchanted (reviewed here and here), and (7) Urban Decay Fireball.

No dupes for me!

(1) Laura Mercier African Violet, and (2) purple from Paula's Choice Four Mattes and a Glam.

You can see here what African Violet looks like when it's built up a bit more. The Paula's Choice purple with gold shimmer looks almost pink in comparison, but it's definitely purple in its pan.

(1) Laura Mercier Fresco, (2) medium warm brown from Juvia's Place Nubian Palette, and (3) Wet N Wild Comfort Zone palette (brown eyelid shade).

Fresco is an awesome, unusual color. Depending on the lighting, it can look peachy or rosey, or taupey or clayish. I didn't have anything remotely like it.

(1) Laura Mercier Plum Smoke, (2) Makeup Geek Fairytale (reviewed here), and (3) Covergirl Roses Copper Rose.

Plum Smoke, my favorite shadow from the palette, looks absolutely purple in the palette, but next to Fairytale, you can see where its name comes from. The warm taupe in it makes it both smokey and plummy. It's another unusual shade.

(1) Laura Mercier Bamboo, (2) Maybelline Color Tattoo in Bad to the Bronze (reviewed here), (3) BareMinerals A-ha, and (4) Wet N Wild Nutty.

Bamboo, unlike the others, is not unique. Bad to the Bronze looks a lot different in a swatch, but that's mainly because it's a cream that I applied with my finger. I find that all of these look very similar on my eyelids, though Bad to the Bronze can be intensified more easily. (The smearing is from Nutty, which is a bit messy, like most Wet N Wild shadows.)

This exercise was very useful for me in the end! Despite the repeated layers of primer all over my arms and the resulting dryness. It confirms that the Laura Mercier Eye Art Artist's Palette has, if not completely unique colors, a lot of shades that are unusual not duplicated in my unnecessarily large collection of eyeshadows. I've got a lot of use out of the palette already, and it's not something that I expect to get sick of in the future. The name is pretty stupid, though.