Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette ($60.00 for 0.24 oz.) is one of two limited edition summer eyeshadow palettes from the brand, and while Aurora soared, Swimming Pool sinks (couldn’t resist!).
The upper left shade is an iridescent pink-peach with sheer color. It had a powdery texture, though it wasn’t as bad as other shades in the palette. Tarina Tarantino DIamond Dusk is similar but has no peach. Bobbi Brown Black Ruby ends up looking similar because it’s also very sheer. Make Up For Ever #940 is very similar but has a much stronger duochrome.
The upper right shade is a pale silver with sheer color payoff and a powdery finish. Tarina Tarantino Lovely has a similar silver but has a more frosted finish. Guerlain Les Aquas is similar but has a more metallic finish.
The center shade is a light-medium sky blue with a mostly matte finish. It is very powdery, and it’s one of the most pigmented out of the five–but it’s still on the sheer side and impossible to build up on the lid. I wore this in the crease, and I kept going back (four times!) to get mediocre color payoff. The powdery texture makes this extremely easy to blend into oblivion–it just disappears as soon as you attempt to soften the edge. Buxom Husky is a smidgen lighter. NYX Cool Blue is darker. MAC Styledriven is very similar but has a frosted finish. Inglot #367 is lighter.
The lower left shade is a seafoam green to the eye, but when applied, it’s a sheer iridescent aqua that seems to bunch up on itself and disappear in sections. It doesn’t like to blend, and it doesn’t apply evenly. Giorgio Armani Airy Jade was the most similar, though it’s more metallic. Cle de Peau #112 doesn’t have the same finish. Lancome Fashion Forward is greener.
The lower right shade is a pale, frosted beige–the high metallic finish makes it appear almost white, though. This was the other more pigmented shade in the palette, though it’s still on the sheerer side. The texture was also the least powdery. Dolce & Gabbana Jewels seemed the closest.
This palette is characterized by two things: sheer and chalky. Let’s throw in powdery, too, because nearly every shade kicks up a ton of excess powder even when you barely touch your brush to the pan. When I applied these eyeshadows to the lid over a primer and over bare lids, I still couldn’t get much color payoff, and they didn’t want to blend. The aqua shade disappeared and looked so uneven. The blue shade insisted on looking like a pale, pasty blue. I’m about medium in color, but it’s horrific on me–the chalkiness is just emphasized and exacerbated with the genuine chalky base of the shades. I think the only people who could possibly wear this would be really pale skin tones. What little manages to apply to the lid wears so-so; it seems a little faded after six hours or so both with and without a primer.
Swimming Pool may be one of the worst palettes I’ve come across from Dior. I can’t get over how powdery the finishes are, how sheer the colors were, and how they didn’t want to stick to the eye at all. I can only think of one compliment: it was a nice combination of colors in theory, but the execution was awful. I typically don’t return products I buy for review, since I get my “use” out of them, but this makes me want to reconsider that policy and get my $60 back. I’ll have to settle for letting all of you know to check this out in person first!
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Diffused Flash)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Studio Lighting)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Diffused Flash)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Studio Lighting)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Diffused Flash)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Studio Lighting)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Diffused Flash)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Studio Lighting)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Diffused Flash)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (Studio Lighting)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (with Tarina Tarantino Spark of Envy as eyeliner)
Dior Swimming Pool Eyeshadow Palette (with Tarina Tarantino Spark of Envy as eyeliner)
Holy christ that’s awful, If I were Dior would be ashamed to charge 60 bucks for that
… I nearly cried at this review. It looks so gorgeous in the pan and translates the name really well, IMO. What were Dior thinking!?
Ahh, shucks this doesn’t look like a keeper. Thanks for sharing 🙂
I saw you comment on twitter how you loathed this thing and now I can see why! This thing is just awful and what a waste of money! Shame because I really did like the color combo and it was something I could have pulled off. I guess I shall remain Dior free because this certainly isn’t worth it.
Yikes, this looks miserable! Such a shame, because it’s such a pretty color combination that’s so pleasing to look at in the palette.
that is absolutely appauling! how can they charge you that price for that!?! I’d rather get a £4 mua paletter 🙂 xx
what a disappointment! The shades are so beautiful!
Such a shame!! Dior… u usually so buttery and smooth… and F?! what happened!
Oh, YUK! Even your beautiful face can’t pull that garbage off! I understand your tweet last night now. Ugh! Dior gets an F? FOR SHAME!
If this was a wet n ?Wild palette it might have been a reasonable price point for a sheer wash shades. Actually the colours in this reminds me of e.l.f. Studio Eye Transformer which are nothing but aura pigments.
do return this pls, it’s your right, and coz it’s so damn awful too!
Return it! Then you can use your refund to purchase something else for review – I’d love something spontaneous like a Guerlain blusher or YSL lipstick!
Thanks for warning me for this one it looked gorgeous in the casing though but for the price you’re paying it’s just terrible
for $60 this isn’t pigmented at all. Would have to pass on this
Aw. Too bad, I looked at the picture of the palette and thought the colours are so pretty.
This is terrible!! It looks to have so much potential in color combo, but such abysmal quality! 🙁
Return it. Seriously. When the prettiest thing in the photo is the eyeliner from *another brand,* it’s time to make an exception to your general rule. $60 is not a tiny amount. Think what fun toys you could get for Mellan in its place! 😉
@Kafka She didn’t pay for it- it was sent to her by Dior
Megan – I DID pay for it. I stated so in the post but if it had been a sample, it would have been disclosed underneath the post (which it wasn’t since I bought it) 🙂 Dior didn’t send me any products from their summer collection – they said they did not have anything to send, so I purchased the two eyeshadow palettes myself.
@Christine (Temptalia) Too bad! Waste of $60. I say return it and treat yourself to something nice 🙂
@TeeL0veBeauty They were probably scared to send it to Christine..lol
The eyeshadow look she did with the colors is simply stunning though.
I would have at least swatched it at a counter *before* laying out that much money for *any* powder product, regardless of brand (which is why I very rarely buy online).
Whoa! Tell it like it is, girl! I love your no-holds-barred willingness to say what you think. This is a great quality to have in all aspects of life. This palette does indeed look on the eye like something generic you would buy from the drugstore for a $1, marketed for tweens as something like “Girlz Kool Blu Kolor-eyez” LOL!
I actually made a sad sound when reading this review. It looked so pretty in the palette :c
Thanks for being honest about it!
Oh, definitely deserves the grade it got. Can’t believe how weak the colors are and that they expect people to pay $60 for such an uninspiring palette!
Dior should be ashamed of themselves for putting something like this on the market and charging $60 for it.
There’s no excuse for this. If this was ~intended to be sheer washes~, the colors should have been much, much lighter in the pan. The last color is the only one that seems to pay off near to the pan. I have some lip transformer palette from Pop that has no payoff but iridescence, but it’s not an issue because the colors in the pan are barely there. I knew what I was getting into!
I’d be mad if I paid $5 WnW prices for a palette like this, let alone $60. Because, let’s get real–WnW, Jordana, Milani–their regular line of eyeshadows are all better than this thing. 🙂
I was so excited for this palette that I actually bought it from Saks. It is really powdery and hard to get a good color payoff. Its possible if you keep layering but not easy. Personally I think the YSL No. 13 Palette is a similar idea with a much better color payoff (and more color combination options) than Swimming Pool. This palette was more of a sink than a swim.
‘…more of a sink than a swim.’ Great analogy!
I bought this a few weeks ago and was so disappointed. I ended up returning it. I was so excited because in the pan it’s beautiful! Oh well.
This palette would do better in the Asian market. Before I left, I saw many ads featuring sheer+pastel washes of colors on the eye and this totally fits. hehe
What a disappointment! I was excited to see this one swatched, it looked so pretty in the palette! This looks sooo much worse than my least favorite dry crumbly drugstore shadows!
to me Swimming Pool is a great palette. of course shades are light, but not chalky at all when I apply them, I think the lighter the skin is, the better it is for wearing Swimming Pool, I do agree colours are very very soft.
@Dominique33 I agree I have this palette too and like it very much you have to learn how to play with it but like you said the colours are soft but that I knew when I bought it.
Had it tried on me instore cause wasn’t sure after the review and the girl put some skinflash concealor on then the eyeshadow and the colour was intense and beautiful! I’ve had it on all day and not only has it not creased but I’ve had so many compliments! Highly recommend trying it out =)
:NO:
I agree I use it in combination with the 1 colour eye glosses and the colours really intensify.
Wow these do look awful. I was surprised when I saw the “F” because I SWEAR I saw a tweet from you that said something along the lines of “I LOVE the Dior Swimming Pool…” Maybe I’m just imagining things haha!
But yeah, chalky chalk.
@John 3D If I remember correctly, the tweet said “I LOATHE the Dior Swimming Pool . . .” – quite the opposite sentiment!
@Emi at Project Swatch
LOL! Yep my brain totallly read that as love. Guess I’m a lover, not a hater… Bahaha.
I really don’t like a lot of products from Dior…they seem to disappoint me a lot.
Ahh man, that’s a bummer! I bought this palette online at Nordstrom over the weekend. In store, the palette seemed to have decent color pay-off but sometimes the testers get gunky.
The good news is, I’m as pale as they come and the palette seems similar to MAC’s Cutie quad which I LOVE (but a majority of people, including you and your review, frowned upon). Sooo with those in mind, I’ll give it a go anyway! I’ll play with this palette and see if it works for me but in the end, thank goodness for Nordstrom’s return policy!
Return it. Dior should know better than to damage their brand by releasing such a substandard palette.
Oh my goodness! I feel like it’s been quite a while since you’ve given an F on Temptalia, save for the NARS Soft Touch pencils – and it’s so disappointing to hear that it was from a brand like Dior. (If they’re going to charge $60 for a palette, I’d hope we’d be able to expect at least a B+ from every product!) Anyhow. Thank you for the frank review, Christine! And also: sinking puns, tee hee ^.^
Wow. Horrible. It definitely warrants an F.
That looks like a truly epic misfire from Dior. It’s surprising – normally the beef with Dior shadows is excess frost, not problems with pigmentation and texture.
I’d return it, too – or exchange it for something that might actually be useful instead of just taking up space. I can’t imagine you’d ever take this palette out of a drawer again, and $60 is a lot for a paperweight.
Wow, normally I’d say that some sheerness isn’t necessarily bad if they wanted a softer look, but if they want that effect on a $60 palette, than there has to be more obvious nuance to the colors. I thought my scroll down bar was acting up at first because I couldn’t even tell until I got to the blue color that I was looking at three different shades. Even then, it’s only in the diffused flash that you can really see the color come out. What a shame. 😐
Go get your money back girl!
Wow an F? I disagree, sorry. I have this and love it! I don’t like an overly bold eye and this palette gives me just enough color. I didn’t find the texture chalky at all. I do agree that it would work best for us paler gals.
@DebbieOstrander I’m glad you like yours – I wish I didn’t have as many problems with this. It’s not just that the color is sheer. There’s a difference between soft colors and poor quality, IMO – though for me, this was more the latter – chalky, powdery, difficult to blend, and fading 🙁
Such a pretty palette too.. but a failing grade for a $60 product says a lot particularly since you hand them out so infrequently. I admired this palette but cannot wear colours like this as they virtually disappear on my face. danger safely averted! But I still keep thinking about that Tarina Tarantino palette..darnit!! :0)
shocking! thank you for sharing this. 🙂
I work at a Dior counter … We have not gotten these in yet. How embarrassing!
the colour combinations seem very unbalance to me . too much pastel . anyway thank you for sharing about the product 🙂
That’s the best dior its my fever cosmetics very nice & natural I never chance that’s the best choice
I brought the other summer palette Aurora, and I love it! This one is a bit too cool for my complexion
…I wanted this palette but it has disappointed me…I bought aurora palette!!!
I completely agree with you! I sometimes work at the Dior counter and I swatched the shades and they are so pale and almost indiscernible from each other, I don’t know how I’m supposed to sell that kind of palette! Shame, it’s so pretty in the pan.
Definitely agreed. I bought it, but ended up returning it because I found find better pigmented shades elsewhere for cheaper. I couldn’t even tell the light blue was supposed to be blue. I thought it was silver! The only color I liked was in the center…
trolling level:Dior :/
even made in china stuff is way better than this
I swatched the palette today at a Dior Counter and I can’t share your opinion at all. Which doesn’t mean I don’t believe you, don’t get me wrong, seeing your swatches I totally see that the color payoff etc is below acceptable for a pricey high end product.
But when I swatched it the texture was buttery, the colors well discernible from each other and pigmentation was just fine.
So I was thinking that maybe there has been a faulty charge released in the US? I’d definitely try to return this and see if another palette works better.
Had a similar thing with the Guerlain Pucci Bronzer btw, couldn’t get any! color off the tester, almost had to scratch it off. Nothing I would have expected from Guerlain. So I’m assuming the tester has been pressed to strogly.