Spring 2011: Esprique Precious Dual Gradation Eyes D-3 and D-4 (Blooming Liberty Collection)

Anyone ready for springtime? I know it´s not even Christmas yet but the first spring 2011 collections from Japanese brands have started popping up in the online shops!
Esprique Precious released an interesting new line of eyeshadow palettes and since eyeshadows are always the most attractive items from a beauty brand I had to pick up couple of pieces to see how they´d perform.

The cases of the new eyeshadow palettes look simple yet elegant as they are colored in a shiny pink-tinged silver metallic color.
The eyeshadow colors are arranged like a lucky clover and are engraved with clovers all over, too.
Each palette contains a cream highlighter base, 2 colors in a medium and deep shade for the upper lids and a color duo of a light and medium shade for the lower lids. The medium shade is always a shade of pink, apricot or peach as it´s supposed to be just dabbed on the middle of the lower lids to make one´s eyes look bigger.

The texture of the eyeshadows is very soft and buttery with great color pay-off  (the main colors at least). They are actually so smooth to the touch that I first thought all colors are cream shadows but only the base is cream, the others are powder shades.
The finish of most colors is metallic, especially the lid colors and the lighter shade for the lower lids.

Despite the creamy texture the staying power is great when applying the powder shadows on top of the cream base, I wore D-3 yesterday for about 15 hours and it didn´t crease at all. 
The only little drawback I see is that the shadows need a little more effort to blend compared to some other shadows but therefore they stay pretty color-true without mixing up too badly and getting muddy.

D-3 is the color featured in the main look. I actually ordered this by mistake and when I first got it I thought of selling it but curiosity won me over and actually I really love the palette. It contains a metallic rusty reddish brown, a deep slightly shimmery red-tinged brown, metallic sheer pale peach and medium shimmery sheer peach for the lower lids and a shimmery pale golden cream base.

(swatches to be updated)
I like that this color combo enhances the slight greenish tinge in my brown eyes.

2 looks with this palette:



D-4 is a taupe combo so you knew I´d pick that one up, right? =P It contains a medium metallic taupe gray, deep metallic taupe brown, sheer metallic pale pink and fleshy pink for the lower lids and a white shimmery cream base. 


I use the lower lid shades on my upper lids as highlighter on my browbone and below brows, too. 
2 EOTDs created with this palette:




Overall these are high-quality palettes very worth checking out. All 4 colors are on the neutral side (the other 2 palettes are pink and olive-themed).
I got mine for US$36.95/each from Alphabeautyuk on eBay. Retail price is 3675 Yen in Japan (~US$44).

Rating 4.5/5