Lancôme Color Design Eye Brightening All-In-One 5 Shadow and Liner Palette in Golden Frenzy from 29 St Honoré for Fall 2011

Do you like gold? I don't mean the kind that's selling for about $1,750 per ounce right now. I mean gold makeup! I like both, but for now, I'm sticking with golden makeup. It's all I can afford.

Lancôme's 29 S^t Honoré Fall 2011 Color Collection by Aaron de Mey, named after its original Parisian boutique at 29 St. Honoré, revisits the classic femme fatale era when timeless cult makeup products were born. The seductive color statement for fall captures the glamour of the 1940's with luscious red lips and seductive smoky eyes. I'm not sure how the Golden Frenzy Color Design Eye Brightening All-In-One 5 Shadow and Liner Palette ($48) snuck into the collection, with its gleaming golds.

Lancôme’s new versatile, all-in-one palette conveniently creates a full eye look for day (with restraint) or night. The newest generation of Lancôme’s luminous, silky, lustrous powders transparently "wraps the skin," allowing a seamless layering of pure color for a silky sheen and radiant finish.

Golden Frenzy comes with directions and a plastic overlay to show you how to apply the shades in five easy steps (all-over base, lid, crease, highlighter, and liner) or design your customized look. You'll shine in this palette. The long-wearing formula will not fade, and I found it stays color-true over time.

The all-over base shade is a metallic white. The shades below it in the palette are, left to right, a lid shade in metallic gold, a crease shade in matte brown, and a highlighter/illuminator shade in metallic copper-brown. The liner, which spans the bottom row, looks black to me. Lancôme suggests in the directions that you apply the highlighter shade in the inner corner of the eyes and on the ball of the eyes. I think it's too dark for use in the inner corner (for most of us), but that might work for some. However, it's a glamorous lid or crease shade.

I took my swatch photos in full sun. I applied the eye shadows with a sponge-tipped applicator. They are swatched with the base shade at the top, the "highlighter" shade below, the brown crease shade third from top, and the lid shade at the bottom.

The all-over base shade is extremely metallic. I would not wear it as suggested. Rather I would use it as a highlighter (in the inner crease) or on the lid only. The actual highlighter shade will provide a gorgeous metallic copper look wherever you apply it. The matte brown shouldn't be constrained to use in the crease. You could also use it as a liner if your coloring is fair. The golden lid shade is metallic, bright, and glimmering. I love gold (of all kinds). It's vying with the copper shade for my favorite in the palette.

The liner shade is shown at left. I applied it with a slanted liner brush. It's a matte black to my eye. I would have preferred a dark brown with this palette, but we can all use black. I like the texture of the liner.

What do you think? If you need to add some pizzazz to your eyes, this may be your eye shadow palette! I bought mine at Neiman Marcus. It should be available at all Lancôme counters. It is shown at Lancôme's Web site as "out of stock," but there's a "notify me" button, so they must expect to receive additional stock.

Photo at top courtesy of Lancôme; other photos by Best Things in Beauty