Noir Petrole (812)

Chanel Noir Petrole (812) Ombre Premiere Longwear Cream Eyeshadow ($36.00 for 0.14 oz.) is a deep, smoky brown with subtle, warm undertones and barely-there red pearl. It had semi-opaque pigmentation, which was buildable to opaque coverage. The consistency was smooth, thin but not too thin, and dried down quickly. I found it hard to blend the color out evenly and felt like it was best used as a base rather than a standalone eyeshadow as it was hard to get it to appear even at less than opaque coverage. It was still going strong after twelve hours of wear.

Chanel describes the formula as a "smooth-textured cream shadow [that] glides on effortlessly" and is "long-wearing." There are eight shades (view swatches) released with one (Obscur) being limited edition. Overall, the consistency has moderate slip--emollient but not greasy or overly wet in feel--and feels more like a traditional cream eyeshadow than Chanel's Illusion d'Ombres. They go on as a thin layer but have fairly good pigmentation. The formula dried down quite quickly leaving little time for blending or diffusing edges, even when working one eye at a time, which was where I struggled. I think some of them tended to work better as lid colors and using something else for a more diffused/blended out crease color. They did, however, wear impeccably for as long as fourteen hours on me--no creasing, fading, or flaking.

FURTHER READING: Formula Overview, which is a detailed review of the range as a whole.

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