Beauty Product Junkies

Something I learned today: Karl Lagerfeld uses Shu Uemura pressed eyeshadows in his sketches for Chanel.

This should not be surprising, because the quality and the colour range at Shu Uemura (which the websites cannot nearly capture) is second to none, and it's an enormous shame as well as a mystery why the brand has pulled out of the United States, yet remains available at counters throughout Asia, not to mention Australia and (I think) Europe.

The sad thing is that Shu Uemura cycles in new shades and phases out old ones with great regularity. I wouldn't be surprised if their total number of colours is comparable to MAC's. But because SU doesn't give their eyeshadows or lipsticks names, only a letter and number (common to brands for which Asia is a big market, since numbers are easier to remember and identify for non-English speaking SA's and customers), it makes it more difficult for the collector and makeup enthusiast to keep track.



This is a Shu Uemura 16-pan palette that I bought in Shanghai more than 2 years ago. The 8 shadows in the top half, with the exception of the metallic taupe/brown (possibly ME 850, but Shu has made and discontinued so many shades like it that I can't be sure) in the upper left corner, are all very difficult to find now. The olive cream shadow in the top right and the metallic bronze beside it were a limited edition duo called Tantalizer, but for the rest of them, I don't even remember what their names were. And no one at the Shu Uemura counters I visited could help me, because they couldn't remember either.

It is very hard to blog about an eyeshadow that: a) you don't know the name of, and b) even if you did know the name of it, nobody would be able to track down to buy it. This is the only reason I can think for why I only rarely see beauty bloggers raving about Shu Uemura. This is a terrible shame because if Karl Lagerfeld loves Shu Uemura, then so should you. *g*

Coming back to my old school Shu palette (which comes empty, with a large mirror on one side which you can leave in or cover so both halves are filled to capacity). I went to the Shu counter in Parkson on Huaihai Lu, Shanghai, a couple of days ago to play with their extensive colour range, taking my palette with me. All the pans in the bottom half (5 shadows and 1 powder highlighter) are new, and this time I remember to write down the names before the SA depotted them into the palette.

From the top-left, going clockwise, they are: P Purple 750, P Pink 110, IR Purple 700, ME Yellow 335, P42 Glow On (great as a base shadow on the eyes), and ME Brown 810. I left an empty space because I have another single back in Sydney (M Black 991).

Shu Uemura has just brought out their new Colour Atelier Collection, which introduces these refillable 4-pan custom cases. It has an accompanying iPhone app to help you coordinate your self-designed palettes, but I wish they would just bring back the beautiful 16-pan custom cases.

My thanks to Dain at Ars Aromatica for (re)introducing me to periwinkle - that beautiful, versatile blue-violet colour, so complementary to brown eyes. On a recommendation from Dain, I tested and bought today Stila Mambo, a pearly periwinkle with pink and blue duochrome.

( Swatches, comparisons )