Is the little Viseart quad worth your time and your money? Here’s the Viseart Petit Fours Lilas review that’ll help your decide.
Viseart is a brand that couldn’t catch my interest for a long while. I didn’t like their humongous palettes, I didn’t like the price point, and when I actually did try them, I didn’t like the formula and gave my mini palette away. (Here’s more about the brand, and here’s my initial review of the Petit Pro Palette.)
Viseart has since branched out from their original concept and produces smaller eyeshadow palettes for the regular consumer. They popped up on my radar again when they released a quartet of mini, four-pan quads in a variety of colour schemes, one of them actually being a cool-toned taupe one. Which is, yes, my kryptonite, and how long do we actually have to wait until we see cool-toned palettes again?!?!?
(And while we’re on it, what happened to single eyeshadows? All we’re seeing nowadays is palettes. Why?!)
What it is
“Inspired by dainty pastry delicacies, these miniature treats feature mouthwatering-mattes perfectly paired with sparkling sugary shades within four scrumptious eyeshadow quads! Expertly crafted and baked to perfection, these charming color-stories create delightfully decadent eye-catching confections!”
Viseart
Official description
Lilas: The creme de la creme of luminous luxe
Fondant – Iced silver rose with a shimmer finish
Lilas – Light muted mauve with a matte finish
Tiramisu – Light cool taupe with a matte
Argentée – Silver with a shimmer finish
Swatches alone will make a wrong impression when it comes to Lilas. The palette swatches gorgeously, but when it comes to creating looks, there’s no doubt that all shades are rather similar and lack depths. All shades run together into a mauvey, taupy look and desperately need either a coloured base or an accompanying palette to create more complex looks.
The fine print
Each quad comes in paper packaging with a magnatised clasp and a paper sleeve. The four shades come up to 6g/0.21oz and retail for $22. They’re manufactured in the USA.
Application
When I did looks with Lilas, I used the shadows over a primer (Mac’s 24h Extend-Eye Base). (I also experimented with coloured bases like paint pots and stick eyeshadows.) I tried a flat synthetic brush (Hakuhodo i-127) for the shimmers, and a soft domed brush for the mattes (Hakuhodo J142). THAT didn’t work well. The mattes, while lovely and pigmented, tend to be dusty while you blend them (my initial looks were shimmers on lid, mattes in the crease blended upwards), and the shimmers have a LOT of fallout.
The winning combo for me was: Too Faced’s Glitter Glue, and finger application for the shimmers, and a brush both firmer and squarer (Mac’s 234) for the mattes.
Wear
With a primer and glitter glue, the four shades did hold up well during the day, although I found glitter migration on my undereyes and cheekbones after a long day no matter what.
And while I might be barely able to tolerate that from effect shadows like Clionadh’s, with a run-of-the-mill silver and taupe I’m less tolerant.
Effect
I like both matte shades a lot: both mauvey Lilas and putty-coloured Tiramisu. I’m much more critical of the ‘shimmers’: I find silvery Fondant to be sub-par silver glitter and don’t see any pink undertone from its official description. I also find the glitter particles rather coarse. It’s the worst shade from the quad: there’re much better and smoother silvers out there. Argente is rather a brownish-taupe pewter with a darker base and a smoother glitter.
For me, the Petits Fours palettes are supposed to be travel palettes or a palette for either a makeup newbie or someone who wants to branch out into a specific colour family. The thing is, in my opinion Viseart doesn’t deliver that. Sure, you can do an easy two-tone look with Lilas, but for that I don’t want to faff around with special bases and glitter glue. If you want to do a more elaborate look, you’ll definitely need a darker matte.
Worth it?
If you love the Viseart texture and, while you’re a warm-tone aficionado, want to branch out to cooler realms, maybe. But I can’t imagine that Lilas would work on all skintones: I’d imagine it would look ashy on darker tones. Also, Tiramisu BARELY shows up on my pale skin – I don’t want to imagine how someone with a medium-dark skintone would struggle with it. (Have a look at Christine’s look, for example, where the only interesting and appealing shade is Clionadh’s Gleam.)
The other three Petits Fours Palettes (Chocolat, Praline and Framboise) are easy warm-toned colour schemes that’re nothing special. If you’d be eyeing Praline, I guess that one suffers from the same affliction like Lilas: very similar shades that’ll run together into one samey shade on the lid.
Please note that this review is not sponsored in any way. We buy products ourselves, with our own money, and don’t accept exchanging goods, or money, for reviews. We are completely independent, and our reviews reflect that.
