Chanel’s Venice Collection Rings Deep for Fall

OVERALL, Chanel’s Venice Collection has a lot of wearable colors and shades, particularly in the lip department, as well as a fun and creative glossy quad of eyeshadows. I found myself gravitating towards the easy-to-wear lip colors more so than the eyeshadow quad, oddly enough! I really wanted to fall in love with Tweed Sienna, but I found it just looked dirty on my coloring.

My favorites from the launch were the two Glossimers, both of them equally lovely. Courtisane is easy to wear by itself, and Arlequin is my favorite to pair with my new everyday lip color (Urban Decay Naked lipstick). I liked the Murano eyeshadow quad, but I didn’t fall in love. I decided to pass on it, because I just know I won’t reach for it enough. (That’s me trying to resist temptation!)

See product photos, swatches, and individual reviews by product…

Eye Gloss

Eye Gloss

The Eye Gloss ($65.00) is a stunning mix of silvery-white with gold, gold, deep vampy red, and glossy black. I didn’t pick one up, so I can’t fill you in on wear time, but they did look fun to play with. They’re pretty creamy, so I doubt that they’d work as a great base nor standalone color, unless, perhaps, you had fairly dry lids that were crease-resistant themselves! The colors seemed to run cool except the gold (but that felt neutral). One thing to note is that when you mix a little of the red with the gold, it makes this gorgeous peachy shade. It’d be awesome on the lips!

Murano Eyeshadow Quad

Murano Eyeshadow Quad

The Murano Eyeshadow Quad ($56.00) is classic Chanel eyeshadow: soft, silky, and ultra smooth. The shades include a deep, medium silver (reminded me of MAC Silver Ring), a light, not-too-pale pink with a bit of a gold frost, a lighter blue-toned silver, and a deep shade of forest-green with a little bit of teal mixed in (think MAC Deep Blue Green pigment). The colors work well together, and they’re easy to blend. I find Chanel eyeshadow quads to be decent to good, but not all of them are created equal. This one is a good quad, because the texture is right on target. (If you love smooth, silky shadows, I suggest looking at Chanel’s eyeshadow singles or duos, because those are nearly always great!)

Acqua Alta Eyeshadow Duo

Acqua Alta Eyeshadow Duo; Peche Caresse; Fresque

The Acqua Alta Silky Eyeshadow Duo ($40.00) is a classic combination of light, silvery-gray and smoky gray. I didn’t love this one, just because I felt like it could be a tad more pigmented. I will say that the tester I used was well-tested so there was some eww-yuck-gross build-up which may have prevented top-notch pigmentation.

Peche Caresse

Fresque Blush

Tweed Sienna Blush

Peche Caresse; Fresque; Tweed Sienna

There were three face products launched with the collection — a pressed powder, powder blush, and tweed blush.

• Peche Caresse Soft Pressed Powder ($50.00) is a pale peachy shade, and it looks a bit chalky on me. For fairer skin tones, I could this working better as a pressed powder. On me, it’s just a little ashy.
• Fresque Powder Blush ($42.00) is a pretty shade of light peach. It’s not as pale nor chalky like Peche Caresse. It doesn’t go on ultra pigmented on my skin tone, but it can layered for a nice, natural look. I like that it’s nearly matte, maybe just a little bit of satin-ness to it.
• Tweed Sienna Blush Duo ($45.00) is a light-medium warm-toned brown shade. This just didn’t do it for me; it came out looking dirty on my skin as a swatch, so I have a hunch it would do much of the same to my face, unfortunately.

Comedia, Amusing, Clandestine, Captive, Instictive, Intuitive

Amusing, Clandestine, Comedia, Instinctive

Clandestine, Comedia, Instinctive, Intuitive

Six shades of Rouge Allure Lip Colour ($30.00 each) ranged from a brick red to a soft coral.

• Amusing is a beautiful shade of rosy-pink.
• Clandestine was a reddish-brick shade–more wearable than you think. It’s red without being flamboyant, and yet not too brown.
• Comedia is a semi-sheer soft rose-pink — it’s not as deep or pink as Amusing, but they’re similar.
• Instictive is a semi-sheer coral-pink with a glossy sheen.
• Intuitive is a pinky brown with a semi-sheer opacity.
• Captive is a semi-sheer brown with just a touch of pink in it. It’s much browner than Clandestine and much darker than Intuitive.

Intuitive, Arlequin, Courtisane

Courtisane Glossimer ($27.00 each) is a gorgeous brightened-up pink with a little bit of red and gold shimmer. Arlequin Glossimer ($27.00) is a beautiful shade of shimmery golden-toned gloss. I really LOVED Arlequin on top of Urban Decay’s Naked lipstick, too.

Gondola, Intermezzo

Gondola Le Vernis ($23.00) is a shimmery shade of raspberry-wine. Perfect for fall, but relatively dupe-able amongst other polish brands. Intermezzo Le Vernis ($23.00) is a semi-sheer shimmery concoction of creamy white with pearlescent pink and purple glinting in it. I liked Intermezzo as a color, though it’s not the easiest nail color to pull off.