Bird of Paradise Colours from Shiseido’s Tropicalia

Shiseido’s Luminizing Satin Eye Color Trios have been on their counters for a few good months now. I was passed the Tropicalia or YE406 palette for review which happens to be one of my favourites, the others being Jungle and Opera.

Looking at the bright and striking colours, I would have thought the colours were inspired by the plumage of birds of paradise in some tropical jungle but Dick Page was actually inspired by a vividly coloured plant in a garden in LA, California.

This palette has really good colour pay-off and you’d have to use it with a light hand to avoid looking like a disco goer from the 70s or 80s. Out of the three in-your-face colours, I like the fuchsia pink the best even though I tend to stay away from pink eyeshadows. This colour is quite extraordinary as I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else.

Lovely as the colours were, how was one to put them all together without looking like a clown? I happened to be at the Shiseido counter at Pavilion to collect the Wrinkle Resist24 samples and I asked the make-up artist for some suggestions to pull together a toned down look.

More than a few suggestions, I got a mini makeover with the Tropicalia palette. She applied a highlighter (an icy white mono eyeshadows) just below my eyebrows as a base. Then, she applied the yellow (middle colour) in the middle of my eyes, dabbing upwards.

Next, the green colour was applied on both sides of the yellow, i.e. inner and outer corners of the eyes. The trick is to blend the yellow and green so well that the colour looks neither as yellow or green as what you see in the palette.

The fuchsia pink colour was used to line the bottom of the eyes using the pointed tip of a sponge-tip applicator. To top off the look, she lined the upper eyes with Maquillage Dramatical Gel Liner in GY831, a lovely gray with fine glitter.

To top off the look, she curled my lashes and applied The Makeup Long Lasting Lifting Mascara. I loved this look as it’s suitable for wearing to work and not at all loud.

The Luminizing Satin Eye Color Trios are 3g/RM105.