Veracious Product Review: Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette

Hi, everyone! If there are two things that I'm a huge sucker for, it's makeup and chocolate (and cats, but that would make three things). It's no surprise, then, that I picked up the Too Faced Chocolate Bar Eye Shadow Collection during the Sephora VIB Sale last month. I'd been waffling on this product for a while because, let's face it, I own quite a few neutral eye shadow palettes. Upon close and repeated inspection, however (yes, I did stalk this for a while), I realized this was quite unlike anything I had in my collection. The Chocolate Bar palette includes a great selection of matte, shimmer, and glitter finishes, a nice mix of bronze, taupe, and plummy hues, and- the kicker- smells like chocolate! What's not to love!?

The Chocolate Bar comes in a pink and gold decorative box, reminiscent of a package you'd find nestled in a candy shop. 

The back of the box illustrates the 16 shades of shadow inside and provides a description of the collection. It mentions that these eye shadows are formulated with real cocoa powder, hence the amazingly decadent smell :)

The palette itself resembles- what else?- a chocolate bar. It's made of durable plastic and looks good enough to eat! It isn't the sleekest of packaging, but the novelty of it makes it ultra unique. 

The palette itself contains a decently-sized mirror (see first pic) and a sheer overlay that provides the names of each of the shadows inside. You can see that the two palest shade have larger pans, which I think is absolutely brilliant! I always go through highlight colours much quicker than deeper ones, so this will ensure that these everyday shades will last. 

In line with the theme of the palette, each of the shade names is rather mouth-watering. As mentioned, there is a fabulous selection of 16 shades in this palette. More than most! They are:

Gilded Ganache- a cool, mid-tone, shimmery taupe
White Chocolate- a matte ivory
Milk Chocolate- a warm, matte lighter brown
Black Forest Truffle- a deep plum with sparkle
Triple Fudge- a deep, neutral matte brown
Salted Caramel- a warm, matte butterscotch
Marzipan- a shimmery champagne
Semi-Sweet- a mid-tone matte mahogany
Strawberry Bon Bon- a matte candy pink
Candied Violet- a shimmery, cool blueish-purple
Amaretto- a warm, shimmery plummy gold
Hazelnut- a warm, mid-tone shimmery brown
Creme Brulee- a true, shimmery gold
Haute Chocolate- a neutral chocolate brown with subtle shimmer
Cherry Cordial- a warm, matte magenta
Champagne Truffle- a shimmery, silvery pale pink

And here are swatches of all 16 shades on my inner arm (MAC NC15 skin tone), placed exactly as they appear in the palette:

And some close-ups:

(Left to right, Top to Bottom): Gilded Ganache, White Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Marzipan, Semi-Sweet, Hazelnut, Creme Brulee, Haute Chocolate

(Left to Right, Top to Bottom): Milk Chocolate, Black Forest Truffle, Triple Fudge, Strawberry Bon Bon, Candied Violet, Amaretto, Cherry Cordial, Champagne Truffle

So many deliciously pretty shades! Now for the full breakdown of the pros and cons of this yummy palette:

Pros:

• Great variety of matte, shimmer, and glitter shades
• Nice balance of warm and cool tones
• Includes bronzes, taupes, plums, and pinks all in one palette!
• Shadows are easily blendable and apply smoothly
• The shades are quite pigmented and long-wearing
• Smells like chocolate!
• Cute, cheeky packaging, that's also quite sturdy
• Cruelty-free, which is huge in my books!
• At $59 CAD, I actually find this to be a great value as it contains 16 shadows. Imagine how much 16 MAC eye shadows would cost?!

Cons:

• Packaging is bulky, and thus, not travel-friendly if you want to pack light
• If you prefer chic, elegant, minimalistic packaging, this is not the palette for you!

So there you have it! As you can tell, I'm so loving this palette. The variety of shades and finishes is incredible, the textures are soft, blendable, and pigmented, the formula is long-wearing, and it smells like chocolate! The packaging isn't super travel-friendly, but it is incredibly unique and adorable, which makes up for its clunkiness in my books. I'll be posting an entry featuring 4 separate looks with the Chocolate Bar palette soon, so keep your eyes open for that!

Have you tried the Too Faced Chocolate Bar palette? Have I tempted you? Other favourite products from Too Faced?

Have a wonderful weekend :)