Suqqu Blend Color Eyeshadow Part IV

Yesterday, I saw the newsflash via fudejapan that Suqqu Blend Color Eyeshadows will be discontinued by next Friday, January 20, to make room for the brand new Designing Color Eye quads, which, by the way, will retail at 6,800yen, same price as the outgoing Blend Colors, ouch!

So I'm going to jump the queue a bit to review my newest, and probably last, Blend Color acquisitions: 15 蜜茶 (Mitsucha), 16 花菖蒲 (Hanashoubu), and 17 蓬色 (Yomogiiro).

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

I've been eyeing these 3 quads for a long, long time, especially having played with quads 15 and 16 aplenty while in Tokyo. But I never took the bait. The Japanese retail of 7,344yen after tax was just too much considering on average 2/4 pans actually have any color! Over the holidays though, Selfridges ran a promotion for extra 10% off of the UK retails excluding VAT, which was all the push I needed ^.^ I ended up paying ~$41.25 a piece for quads 16 and 17, and I bought quad 15 separately via phone with the Suqqu UK counter at Selfridges UK (an entirely different operation than Selfridges UK Online, so the GBP30 international delivery charge does apply). Well worth the wait, I think. Screw e(vil)bay and their gross, predatory prices.

Since this is an ongoing series, I'll just go straight to describing the colors.  

- 15 蜜茶 (Mitsucha): a warm gold and chocolate palette. I expected to like this one the least. It appeared quite warm with reddish undertones when I swatched it at the counter. But that was also in indoor lighting, which I know can greatly alter how the colors appear on my skin. I'm so glad I gave it a chance as it turns out to be my favorite out of all three! It's very wearable and doesn't turn red on me at all, not to mention the colors make it appropriate for pretty much any setting, even for the office.

Clockwise from top left:
- Lid: semi metallic, low intensity. A lovely warm gold that shows up really well. I love wearing this as a wash all over the lids with just liners.
- Medium/crease: shimmer, medium intensity. A camel color (or caramel, you decide) that I was most iffy about. It turns slightly copperish on my lids, but nowhere near the red I was fearing.
- Base/highlighter: shimmer, very sheer. A transparent wash of soft white. This actually works as an eye-brighter on no-makeup days.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. Chocolate.

- 16 花菖蒲 (Hanashoubu): despite appearing to lean warm, this palette of suede and purple applies neutral on me. Aside from that gorgeous purple though, this is sadly my least favorite, solely because of that suede. Even worse is the two base/highlighters, which means there's really only one color in this palette that I can use :(

Clockwise from top left:
- Base/highlighter: shimmer, low intensity. Ivory. I think this was meant to be a lid shade, problem is that it applies pretty much off-white.
- Medium/crease: satin, medium intensity. A suede brown. It does have shimmers, but the shimmers are so extremely fine that it swatches a satin on the back of my hand and applies a soft matte on my lids. And you already know I much I love mattes. Not. They hate me to begin with. I can tolerate a matte base/highlighter, but a matte medium/crease shade? A muddy smudge is all the love I get. Boo. Hiss.
- Base/highlighter: shimmer, very sheer. A whisper pink in the pan but applies totally transparent, so it might as well be a veil of softly shimmery white. This also works as an eye-brighter on no-makeup days.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. Gorgeous true purple and is sadly the only redeeming quality for me in this palette.

- 17 蓬色 (Yomogiiro): the green and pale lilac make this palette appear cool, but the subtle gold sheen in both the green and bronzed brown pulls the whole thing neutral. It was the green that drew me to this palette, but the bronzed brown is a lovely bonus.

Clockwise from top left:
- Lid: shimmer, low intensity. Pale lilac that applies true to how it appears in the pan. I still haven't figured out how to wear this color without getting eyes that look, well, pale.
- Medium/crease: shimmer, medium intensity. A pretty bronzed brown with a subtle gold sheen.
- Base/highlighter: shimmer, very sheer. Translucent off-white.
- Deep/liner: shimmer, high intensity. An evergreen green with olive undertone, also with a subtle gold sheen. Boy I love this green, because it's such a wearable green for a warm-toned person like me, when most greens would just give me a sickly yellow cast. When I swatched this at the store, I thought it was an olive green, but in natural light it's much too green, though the olive's definitely in there somewhere. 

See my previous posts:

- Suqqu Blend Color Eyeshadow

- Suqqu Blend Color Eyeshadow, Part II

- Suqqu Blend Color Eyeshadow, Part III