La Prairie Colour for Summer 2011: Les Calla Lilies Eye Colour Ensemble by Raychel Wade

Raychel Wade's stunning new color collection for La Prairie has a fabulous, limited-edition eye palette, Les Calla Lilies Cellular Treatment Eye Colour Ensemble ($70). The pretty neutrals will work for many skin tones.

When I saw the palette in late February, and before I played with it, my initial thought was that the shades would be too pink for me. I shouldn't have doubted Raychel's eye for color. The shades really aren't pink! It's interesting to me that they are more neutral on my skin than they appear in the pan. There are tones of violet, muted rose, and mauve in the colors, but they work perfectly for me.

Cellular Treatment Eye Colour, La Prairie's eye makeup classic, with its winning combination of colour and skin care, offers the option of wet or dry application, depending on the effect you wish to achieve. As an ultra-fine powder eye shadow, it produces a subtle natural wash of color. Applied with a damp sponge or brush applicator, it saturates the lid with a more intense tone. Either way, it produces a luxurious, silky-smooth finish and radiant color that retains its clarity and finish throughout the day.

I swatched all four shades for you, left to right at the top and left to right on the bottom of the quad, meaning that for some reason, I didn't swatch in a clockwise order that day. What was I thinking? My photo was taken in full sun. I applied each shade with a sponge-tipped applicator.

You can see - or not see - that the neutral base shade is almost the exact color of my skin, very fair with pink undertones on my arm. It's basically invisible in my photo. The color to its right in the compact is a browned violet shade - very wearable for me. The shade in the lower left of the quad is a subtly shimmering taupe (totally gorgeous), and the shade in the lower right is a mauve-leaning brown. That speck you see in my photo is a paper cut.

These shades are like chameleons in the sense that they look different on my skin in different lights - more so than I would normally expect. That's one reason I like them so much. They have a unique character that adapts to the lighting. Very clever!

You can purchase Cellular Lip Colour Effects at La Prairie counters or at La Prairie's Web site. I purchased mine at Neiman Marcus. If you try Les Calla Lilies, please let me know what you think.

Photo at top courtesy of La Prairie