Happy Valentine’s Day!

I know I’m a little late to the party with this review, but the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette is new to me even though it’s been out for ages. I waffled back and forth between the original Chocolate Bar, the Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar and the Chocolate Bon Bons palette. The Semi-Sweet palette probably has more “me” colors in it, but that also means that it has more colors that I already have in my collection. Plus the original Chocolate Bar has Cherry Cordial and Marzipan (both of which looked AMAZING when I swatched them in store).

All swatches are done with three passes of my finger over the product and a single swipe. All swatches are over bare skin.

As  I’m sure you know, the Chocolate Bar Palettes smell like chocolate and are “infused with cocoa powder”. It cracks me up that they have to put a warning label letting folks know that these eyeshadows are, in fact, inedible. Who tried to eat their makeup? Because you know that totally happened.

The palette itself is in a metal case with a magnetic closure.

The palette has a small but decent quality mirror. You get 16 eyeshadows, two of which are 2.2g/.07oz., the rest of which are .95 g./.03 oz. There are 6 matte shades and the rest are fairly shimmery.

Gilded Ganache – In the pan, this looks like a golden olive shade but on the lid it looks like a golden brown. This is a pretty shade but if you’re hoping for a green, you’ll be disappointed. There is a fair bit of fallout and it tends to sometimes go quite muddy looking.

Salted Caramel – I used this shade in the majority of the looks I did with this palette. It’s very powdery but also very blendable. (I didn’t do a look to showcase this shade in particular just because this is a transition shade for me)

Hazelnut – There are two eyeshadows that I completely spaced taking photos of on my eyes. Hazelnut is one of them. Sorry about that! But Hazelnut is nicely pigmented, smooth, blendable, it’s one of the best shadows in the palette when it comes to overall quality.

 

White Chocolate – White Chocolate is a good enough base shadow or matte highlight shade. I used this in every look. It isn’t overly pigmented and tends towards a powdery texture but it gets the job done.

Marzipan – This is the shadow that ultimately made me decide to get this palette over the Semi Sweet palette. It just swatches like absolute magic! It’s  a metallic shade and while it doesn’t look quite as magical on the eye, it’s still really beautiful.

Creme Brulee – Another metallic shade that is quite smooth and blendable.

 

 

Semi-Sweet – this swatches fairly patchy and if you were to try to pack it on to the eyelid I suspect it would apply patchy as well. I tended to use this shade as a crease shade and it worked well with no problems when used in that capacity.

Haute Chocolate – Honestly, this might be one of the best shades in this palette. It is smooth, pigmented, blendable and easy to work with and has minimal fall out. Sadly this is the second of the shades I forgot to photo on the eye.

Milk Chocolate – You’ll notice that most of the matte shadows really don’t swatch very well. I used Milk Chocolate as a transition shade and it worked beautifully with none of the patchiness in the swatch.

Strawberry Bon Bon – This shade was kind of a dud for me. In the palette it looks like an actual pink shade but in reality it is a base shade or matte highlight shade and honestly it doesn’t read any differently on the eye than White Chocolate.

Cherry Cordial – I’m such a sucker for dark red or plummy shades so this is the shadow that initially drew me to this palette in the first place. But man is this guy a bugger to work with. It’s a matte base with glitter and this sucker is patchy, and muddy, it creased on me and faded and had boat loads of fall out and was generally just not so hot. If, like me, this shade is the main draw for this palette for you, I’m going to suggest checking out the new Wet n’ Wild Au Natural Palette in Nude Awakening. It has a deep red shade that actually reads as red on the lid and is a dream to work with.

I did try this same look with a sticky base and had much better success with regards to the application and creasing but it still looked quite muddy.

 

Black Forest Truffle – Ok, I lied. I forgot to take pictures of three shades. Black Forest Truffle is a really pretty shade on the lid but it does read as mostly a shimmery brown. This also had fall out for DAYS. It was actually kind of impressive in a horrifying sort of way.

Candied Violet – This shade was alright. It is a bit patchy and has fall out but it isn’t bad. I’m very “meh” about this one.

Champagne Truffle – I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to try a look that features this shade as a lid shade. I bet it would turn out really nicely! As it is, I used this in almost every look as an inner corner highlight. It’s a great shade and I have zero complaints.

 

Triple Fudge – out of the matte shades in this palette this shade actually does the best as far as pigmentation. I did find it a bit more difficult to blend and apply and I did experience a little patchiness but that might just be the nature of this type of shade, I’m not really certain.

Amaretto – This is a really lovely shade and ended up being one of my favorites. It applied well, didn’t crease, didn’t do anything else weird and it’s only downfall is that it does have a bit of fall out.

Overall I really enjoyed using this palette and I enjoyed most of the looks that I came up with. However, I feel like the overall quality of this palette is fairly mediocre. There are some hit and miss shades as far as quality goes and a lot of the colors tend to look very similar on the lid. There was also a pretty consistent problem with fall out. I think that if you’re in the market for a palette in this price range, there are options out there that have a much better overall quality (the LORAC Pro Palettes come to mind). If you’re interested just in the shades I think that there are some drugstore options that give you similar colors at a much lower price point. (I don’t have any palettes that completely work to “dupe” this palette but you could get one of the Maybelline Nude Palettes and the Wet n’ Wild palette that I mentioned and basically have all of these same shades). I’m not saying you shouldn’t get this palette if you want it, because it is fun to use and I think you can get a lot of use out of it, but…I don’t think anyone actually needs this palette and I would recommend other palettes before actually recommending this one.

The Chocolate Bar Palette retails for $49.00 and is available from the Too Faced website, Sephora or Ulta.

Do you have this palette? Do you love it? Hate it? I’m always interested to know if you have a similar experience with a product or if our opinions differ wildly.

Tidbits:

• We went to the vets office yesterday. Twice. The fur babies were just falling apart! First Thing Cat became Sneezy Cat so there was that. Then later that day Gray Cat spiked a fever and got some intestinal issues so that meant a trip to the emergency vet since our regular vet was already closed. Luckily they both just had bugs and are feeling much better. They are trying to convince me that they don’t need to take their medicine but I’m not buying it.
• We still haven’t painted anything other than our living room and hallway but we DID get a new bed yesterday which means that we officially have a guest bed in a guest bedroom now! I feel very grown up and sort of feel like we’re living in a mansion.
• We’re going to go see Deadpool this afternoon (like everyone else in the world I suspect) and I’m stoked.