In the fall of 2018,
Addiction released a large collection named
Empress Orchid. Among the collection were six(!) nona eye shadow compacts with inspiration drawn from the film
The Last Emperor,
Compact Addiction Chinoiserie: 001 Last Emperor, 002 Eastern Jewel, 003 Rain, 004 China Girl, 005 Shanghai Breakfast, and 006 Trust Me. Each palette was said to have existing colors from the current lineup
of 99, palette-only limited editions, and re-issues from previously
discontinued colors.
001 Last Emperor
002 Eastern Jewel
003 Rain
004 China Girl
005 Shanghai Breakfast
***Stock photos courtesy of
Addiction JP.
Out of the six though, I was drawn only to two: 002
Eastern Jewel and 005 Shanghai Breakfast. Meanwhile, 001 Last Emperor
has unique colors that I would never wear, 003 Rain is too pastel which doesn't work well on my yellow-saturated skin tone, 004 China
Girl is pretty but is dominated with similar-looking pinks and grays,
and 006 Trust Me is plain yawn-inducing.
Even 005
Shanghai Breakfast has only 3 unique colors, the pale pink, bright pink,
and gold. The other 6 are way too close, all in the
mauve-bordeaux-burgundy-wine-purple family. So I ended up with just 002 Eastern Jewel, because all the colors in this palette look differently enough.
All remaining pictures taken in natural light without flash.