#FrenchFriday : Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes


Affiliate Links

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches


I know, my #FrenchFriday series could be renamed #LancomeFriday based on the last few months, but I promise, next week we'll talk about another glamorous French brand! For today though we'll take a look at Lancôme's exciting Fall 2016 makeup collection, created in collaboration with Sonia Rykiel. I was doing some research about Sonia to write a short bio, and I learned that she actually just died yesterday (August 25) at the age of 86. RIP Sonia, let's pay our hommage by entering her universe as she shared it with Lancôme.


Who is Sonia Rykiel?

She was a famous French prêt-à-porter designer that started her career in the 1960s. She opened her first store in Paris in 1968, and her first hit was tight ribbed knitwear that hugged the body, worn sans bra (1968 guys). It quickly became popular, and US fashion editors called it "the poor boy sweater". She's also known for colorful stripes, her signature, and words knit on sweaters. The style of her brand is casual, comfortable, modern, and playful. She was a self-taught fashion designer who didn't believe in rules and codes, sometimes wore her clothes inside out, and wanted her creations to bring women joy. Her fashion shows were meant to be happy and fun, with models often walking down the runway in groups, chatting and laughing. She always wore black and sported a fierce mane of orange hair with heavy bangs.

The makeup collection created with Lancôme includes two Maxi Palettes, four double ended lip crayons, two permanent shades of Blush Subtil Cushion in limited edition packaging, and four shades of nail lacquers. I got both eyeshadow palettes - long story short, I only wanted the one with the blue shades but Ulta sent me the other one by mistake - and a nail polish from this collection, let's take a closer look!


Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 makeup collection: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches



Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Rive Gauche Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches


Called Rive Gauche at some retailers, this is the palette I really wanted. How beautiful does this combination of blues, grays and green look? The colorful drawings on the palette represent the atmosphere of St-Germain-des-Prés, the neighborhood where Sonia Rykiel opened her first store, a place of joy and freedom.

Both palettes are sleek and sturdy, featuring 6 eyeshadows in regular pans, and 3 extra shades in smaller pans covered by an inner metallic lid. This type of separate compartment is typically used to protect cream products from getting specks of powder to mix in, but here all the shadows are powders so I have no idea what it's made for. The 3 separate shades are a light base or highlighter and two liners.

I absolutely love the cool harmony of muted blues, greens and grays in this palette, with a mix of finishes from matte to sparkly. There's something to it that's very... urban? It speaks to my "big city girl" self. The shadows swatched pretty well, and knowing that Lancôme isn't Urban Decay, I did expect more subtle shades. I thought I was in for a treat. Yet I ended up being very disappointed by this palette.


Swatches Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Rive Gauche Eyeshadow Palette review, photos
Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches


The problem isn't the pigmentation of the shadows: as you can see in the swatches, it's pretty good. The issue is more with the lack of saturation of these color. Okay, they're muted, but so much so that they turn out to be very muddy on the lid, and they all tend to blend into a dirty gray. 

The second color from the left, a grayish green with a satin finish, was my absolute favorite in the palette, but it's very hard to get it to show up on my lids. It's just not vibrant enough to look like anything but gray once blended. The third shade is just pressed sparkles, and the fourth, a matte muted blue, is the biggest let down in this palette. Not only does it look sheer on the lid, it's impossible to build up the color, it turns gray when blended, and it creases... The last two shades of the main section, both sparkly, look very different in the pan, but they both blend into a dull gray on the lid, again. There's just no luminosity, no vibrancy to be found here. Gray gray gray.

The base/highlighter shade under the metallic lid feels a little out of place, being a pale pink, and I preferred using the very first shade in the palette for that purpose, an ivory. Both performed okay for blending. The two liners worked decently on the lower lash line, with the deeper, slightly shimmery one on the right looking better than the sparkly version. There's no information on the palette about using the liners wet, so I didn't try. It would probably help them adhere to the skin better.

All the shadows felt soft to the touch (another reason why I thought this palette would be amazing) although a little powdery, so there is a lot of fallout, especially with the sparkly shades. Like, a LOT of fallout.

There are two looks suggested on the mirror of the palettes, and I tried both for this one. As you can see, the day look turned out okayish, if not very exciting, but the night look is a disaster. It's muddy and sad!


Wearing Lancome Sonia Rykiel Saint-Germain Rive Gauche eyeshadow palette eotd fotd


You know that I love Lancôme, so it pains me to say what I'm about to say, but this is not a good palette. The color combination looks fantastic in the compact, but the shadows just don't work on the eyes. Now I can see why Lisa Eldridge used the deepest liner shade as an allover base in her video presenting this palette. Yeah you can make anything look dramatic with a dark base, and that shadow is the only one that's decently intense. I do not recommend this palette, and I'll try to return mine.



Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches

Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches


Sometimes called Parisian Fresh Spirit (don't ask me why the names vary by retailer...). Since the palette I really wanted was such a bitter disappointment, I was not too excited to try this rose-toned version that I received by accident. I don't like pink on the eyes in general, and warm roses don't usually look very good on me. And yet, against all odds, this palette surprised me!

This one features Sonia Rykiel's signature colorful stripes on the lid, and the shades are supposedly inspired by the 60s, for a trendy retro touch. The 6 shades in the main section are warm-toned, while the base and liners under the silver lid are all very cool.

The texture of the shadows is similar to what I experienced with Saint-Germain: very soft but powdery, with lots of fallout for the sparkly shades. The thing is that there's a lot less sparkles in this palette. Shade 3 is, again, pressed glitter in a transparent base, but the other shimmery shades are a much less chunky than they were in Saint-Germain. I did not experience any creasing with these shadows, even with the mattes, and they lasted all day on a base.


Lancome x Sonia Rykiel Fall 2016 Eyeshadow Palettes: review, photos, swatches
Swatches of Lancome Sonia Rykiel Parisian Fresh Spirit eyeshadow palette for fall 2016


This palette just works considerably better than the other one on the eyes. While the colors are still muted, they don't lose all vibrancy when blended, and the looks I was able to create with them were a lot more luminous. There is more contrast between the shades (read: not everything looks gray on the lid), so they're much easier to combine for different looks. The fact that the darkest shade is a matte also helped me define my eye shape more easily. I didn't expect to like these colors, but they did flatter me. They don't make me look ill, not even when I use the matte plum in the outer corner. Now the choice of colors for the liners is a little odd. Two cool purples in a warm rose palette? I wish they would have replaced one with a matte brown. It would have been more versatile!


Wearing Lancome Sonia Rykiel Parisian Fresh Spirit eyeshadow palette eotd fotd
Day and Night looks: at the bottom I'm also wearing Lancome's new
Grandios Bendable eyeliner, review here.


A word about the included double-ended brushes: the quality is decent, but it doesn't work very well with the texture of the shadows in these palettes. The eye shader side is stiff and doesn't pick up the powdery shadows well, and the liner side is too soft and not dense enough to do a very good job with dry powders.


The rest of the collection

I have the nail lacquer in Café Philo, a khaki brown, but I haven't found the time to try it yet! I'll do a quick review when I find a moment to give myself a manicure. Or if... There's also a beautiful muted blue, a white and a red polish, everything you need to recreate Sonia Rykiel's colorful stripes on your nails.

I swatched the double-ended Parisian Lip Crayons at a store, and I wasn't super impressed. They have one highly pigmented matte side, but the other side, a balm, is basically clear. I think they're a little pricey for what you get.

As for the Blush Subtil Cushion, the two shades are part of the permanent range but dressed in special packaging. I reviewed this cushion blush not too long ago, take a look at my post for swatches and details about the formula!


Where to buy?


See online retailers below. If you want to grab something do it right now, Lancôme has a 20% Friends & Family sale that ends tomorrow night (Saturday) on their website, and Nordstrom is price-matching!


The products featured in this review were purchased by Lulle. I received no compensation to write this post, which only reflects my personal opinion. This post contains affiliate links.


No comments

Unfortunately the comment system does not work on mobile phones at this time :( If you see this message and leave a comment, I will be unable to approve it, I'm really sorry about this issue!