For those only interested in the review, feel free to scroll further down to that specific section.

My History with Clé de Peau

In 2011, I was not interested in luxury makeup. In fact, makeup didn’t play as large of a role in my life until several years later. Despite that, it was still impossible to avoid hearing about how, “Kim Kardashian loves Clé de Peau’s concealer.” Mario Dedivanovic’s “triangle concealer technique” was the talk of the makeup, fashion, and celebrity gossip world.

Being the curious person I am, I did some research and was absolutely floored by the prices of everything. At that time, drugstore makeup was all I had experienced, and MAC was considered the crème de la crème among my circle of friends. We were all broke college kids and I didn’t dare look at the legacy brand makeup behind the beauty counters of our mall because they were so far out of my price range. I was shocked to discover brands like Clé de Peau existed with price-points surpassing even those!

Since Clé de Peau was the first non-designer luxury brand I’d ever heard of, the name stuck with me. It wasn’t until the end of 2013 that my makeup obsession began. I started dabbling into mid tier and prestige brands, but beauty subscription boxes are how I was able to try a lot more products in those days (and this is where the “Unbox” part of my blog name comes from as I used to make unboxing content). In 2015, I tried my first Cle de Peau product via the Choix subscription service. I had a small container of the brand’s translucent loose powder. I remember it working so beautifully, but I only used it on special occasions because I knew I would always have a hard time justifying spending over $100 on any single makeup item.
I have the majority of my YouTube videos listed as private, but I’ll make the Choix and Clé de Peau unboxing temporarily visible through the link for those who would like to see it HERE. Also, perhaps 1.5x or 2x speed for the video would be best.

In 2016, I received the Clé de Peau concealer brush and a tiny sample of the concealer in the shade Beige. This was thanks to the blogger nouveaucheap (who unfortunately passed away).

I’m not a fan of paddle shaped flat concealer brushes, so I rarely used this, and stored it in its original box as if it was a collector item. I guess it technically is one now because this style of brush has been discontinued. As for the concealer, it was too light, so I didn’t bother putting it on my face.

2019 was the year I finally started hearing about the Clé de Peau holiday launches. The packaging was always gorgeous, but it wasn’t until 2021 that I started pining after the Luminizing Face Enhancers.

The standard packaging for those highlighters was beautiful enough, but the limited edition ones were truly exquisite. Because the finish is glittery and the brand doesn’t make any in my shade anyway, I didn’t buy them. To clarify, pretty much every reviewer I have seen talk about the highlighters say they look smooth and have such fine shimmer particles that they don’t look glittery. However, what I see in their videos under their lights from my computer screen still looks too visible in my book. Apparently the double digit numbered luminizers are subtler than the triple digit ones, so 22 is the darkest one I could potentially try. Perhaps the luminizer would be like Guerlain Météorites (04 Amber) and surprise me, but I don’t want to spend a minimum of $70 on a refill to test it out. The only place I’m aware of that ships those refills to Germany is YesStyle, and not even on the official CPB website.

At some point the brand started releasing eyeshadow quads as part of the holiday collections, but the options didn’t appeal to me. To spend so much money on a color story I didn’t like would have been no different from buying it for the packaging alone.

In 2023, I started to get my hopes up because Clé de Peau launched a full permanent line of refillable quads. This meant that even if I didn’t like what was in the holiday cases, I could replace it with a more appealing color story. If I didn’t like the options in the permanent range, I could still wait for an expansion to the line and buy a prettier refill in the future.

There was still an issue of the price. In 2023 and 2024, the products sold out before I could catch them on sale. Although customers can purchase eyeshadow refills and the standard case separately, CPB does not sell the limited edition cases on their own. $116 for a quad is still a threshold I’m not willing to cross. It pained me enough to buy the Chanel Boutons quad at full price.

This year, luck was on my side! Douglas started carrying Clé de Peau products, so I kept my eye out in the hopes that they would stock the holiday collection. They do, but the launch didn’t coincide with the timing of any discounts, and the items became unavailable after a few days. Although I was disappointed, this turned out to be a good thing because I remembered that Niche-Beauty also carries Clé de Peau. So, I was able to buy the quad at 20% off, in addition to using reward points. Sometimes this retailer offers 25% off promo codes, but I didn’t want to take my chances on it selling out, which it did a week later! I felt even more confident that I made the right call when I saw the quad return to the Douglas website for €13 higher than the price was before! So, I’m ecstatic to have this quad at a price that I’m at least able to swallow. It’s less than the Chanel Boutons quad, which I am still salty about paying full price for! Or as they say in Germany…

Holiday 2025 Review

Clé de Peau Beauté Dreams Express Eye Color Quad in 504 Pastel Tea Safari

This isn’t a color story I would normally gravitate towards, but I saw some interesting eye looks on the website, especially on the model whose foundation shade could be in the NC46 range from MAC. I figured that as long as the brown shade was truly as dark as it appeared in photos, I could probably make these colors work together. So, checking the pigment level of these eyeshadows was the first thing I did.

Also, I am aware of the Asia-exclusive version of this holiday quad with the 505 Jeweled Horizons color story, but I prefer the one I bought.

I found this photo from a seller on Ebay, but I’ll also link a video by Serina.

On dry skin with no primer (which is the condition I always swatch eyeshadows in), 3 of the 4 shades look as weak as I feared. Thankfully, there are two ways to get them to show up better. The first is to use the priming shade, always located in the bottom left corner of the Clé de Peau quads. The second way is to apply them damp, like I did in the right half of the photo above.

The brand refers to the pink color as “pink sparkle.” It’s easy to see those shimmer particles on my bare eyelids because there’s so much darkness underneath, but if I try to apply it on top of the other shades in the same way I use a highlighter to amp up the shimmer, it can barely be seen. The only way for me to use this as a topper, and get some impact, is to wet it.

When I use Pink Sparkle as a primer, as intended, I get more color payoff and shine from the other eyeshadows. This also makes the colors look more cool-toned though.

The texture of Pink Sparkle reminds me of Surratt’s duochrome formula within their Artistique Eyeshadow line because of how much creaminess it has. Pink Sparkle doesn’t have as much slip as a Colourpop Super Shock eyeshadow, but I can tell by touch alone that it’s a dimethicone-forward formula. I’ve been happy to see that it’s not emollient enough to cause the eyeshadows to crease. The other shades don’t crease either, even though they contain argan oil.

Some of my dark discoloration still shows underneath Pink Sparkle, and doesn’t get covered up enough if the eyeshadow on top is light, like the light brown shade. Putting my usual Lisa Eldridge base down first will cause Pink Sparkle to pill off. So, I found it best to either keep the two separate, having just Pink Sparkle priming the lid and the Lisa Eldridge product priming the area between the brow and crease, or to just put Pink Sparkle everywhere and apply the Lisa Eldridge product on top (instead of underneath). That adds the necessary coverage and doesn’t negatively impact the performance of the other eyeshadows.

Even if I do wet the light brown eyeshadow, which is referred to as a “golden beige,” it’s too close to my skin tone to look vivid on me. I’m fine with this because it makes a perfectly good low-impact brightening shade and is a useful transition for the edge of the dark brown.

The darkest eyeshadow is called a “walnut brown,” and can create just enough depth for me to be satisfied. If I don’t use Pink Sparkle underneath, I’d say it leans neutral or just a touch warm at most. Pairing Golden Beige and Walnut Brown together makes for a simple, but pretty, eye look.

The purple eyeshadow is described as “lavender purple” and it’s what I rely on as the statement color. It pairs very well with the dark brown and pink shades in this palette. This isn’t my favorite tone of purple, but I think it looks quite nice!

The pigment level, texture, and performance of these eyeshadows remind me of Surratt and Suqqu eyeshadows. I linked my reviews for both, but I have additional Surratt eyeshadows (including a duochrome) that I haven’t posted about yet.

Surratt, Suqqu, and Clé de Peau eyeshadows are all made in Japan. One big difference, at least from Suqqu, is that I can lightly dampen Clé de Peau eyeshadows without it ruining the look of them in the pan or changing the texture. So, I can continue practicing my usual methods in intensifying these eyeshadows to the level that I prefer. This allows me to use this palette in a wider variety of looks than I believed I’d be able to get. I thought I would want to replace these eyeshadows with a different refill, but I like Pastel Tea Safari enough to want to keep it in this case! Between Surratt, Suqqu, and Clé de Peau, I like CPB’s eyeshadow formula the most.

These don’t produce a lot of kickup. They stick well enough to my eyes. Blending is no issue. Essentially, the quality is very nice. It’s just a matter of preference regarding buildable eyeshadows that don’t pack a punch right away (or at least not this year’s holiday quad without help). I consider these to be amped up satins, and the results I get from this quad is what a lot of luxury brands aim for.
Like a lot of luxury brands, these eyeshadows contain fragrance. I’d call it a mildly sweet and slightly floral soapy scent, which is faint enough that I don’t always notice it.

Because I tend to wear smoky and dramatic looks, intense sparkle, and very pigmented eyeshadows, paying the full €92 ($106) price for this quad or even €59 for the refill, will never be worth it to me. €59 EUR is around $67 USD, but Clé de Peau actually charges $78 for the refills on their US website. So, I don’t think I would buy more if I had to order them in the US. It’s not that the quality isn’t worth the price, but rather the price isn’t worth the amount of disuse I expect to have.
There are times when I’m in the mood for these kind of eyeshadows in their non-dampened form, but it’s so infrequent that I can’t justify getting them. If I will only use something occasionally, I want the cost to be lower too.

I wouldn’t put as much pressure on myself to “get my money’s worth” out of CPB quads if I could buy them at 25% off. So, this was my initial thought process regarding any new color stories in the future that may catch my eye. For a long time, I only found the 10 Sea Grass quad appealing, but those aren’t the tones of greens I love. Lately, 4 Ocean Sunrise has been on my mind. Merely one week before this post was set to be published, Niche-Beauty sent out 25% off codes via email. So, I ended up buying another quad.

It’s my birthday month! What can I say?

Lastly, considering my previous post, I feel compelled to mention that the packaging is gorgeous, but it is also lightweight. What makes this feel luxurious is the unicarton, the soft purple dust sleeve, large size push-click button, gold tone elements with concave sides and rounded edges, and the fantastically strange yet wonderful artwork on the lid.

Clé de Peau Beauté Eye Color Quad (refill) in 4 Ocean Sunrise

I get way more pigment with this quad than Pastel Tea Safari! The only eyeshadow that didn’t swatch as well is the first one, and it’s also the only shade that needed to be applied damp in the eye look below. The primer color is icy on me despite looking warm in the pan. It still has a pretty highlighting effect when applied dry, but I applied it wet in the eye look to create a stronger pop of brightness.

I’m pleased to see that the browns between both of my quads are not the same. The darkest color from Pastel Tea Safari looks like a combination of the two darkest shades in Ocean Sunrise.

For now, I intend to just keep the refill in the plastic holder and use it from there. Also, I intend to preserve the pattern in the holiday quad as long as possible by digging my brushes and fingers into specific spots (as seen in the pictures).

Since I bought the holiday quad and refill quad at a discount, I don’t have any regrets. However, I don’t think I can give a completely impartial opinion on whether this would be worth it to other people, considering this purchase has fulfilled a six-year desire to own a CPB holiday item and satisfied over fourteen years of curiosity about the brand. As a general rule though, I prefer not to spend over €50 for a quad that isn’t on my list of top 10 favorite brands’ eyeshadow formulas. That’s why getting a color story I liked, at that lower price, was good enough for me to be content with my purchases.

Blog Updates

If you’ve been visiting my blog for a while, you’re probably aware that I continued my second Project Pan into the remaining half of this year. Even though there are certain products I am trying to avoid buying, I have exceptions to every rule, particularly if it’s something I’ve been wanting for years. Some of the reasons I might have an exception is because the item finally restocked, I’ve been waiting for a color story that would suit me, the product was only sold in a region of the world I couldn’t access, the price was too high at the time, etc.

Based on the details in the history section, Cle de Peau clearly falls into this category of exceptions.

My idea for the “Wish Fulfillment” series is to separate my normal purchases from the products I’ve had on my makeup bucket list. These are products I’ve always wanted to buy, but couldn’t because of some circumstance.
Within the “Table Of Contents By Topics” bar of my blog, where one can select a category of posts from the drop down menu, I have added, “Wish Fullfillment/Makeup Bucket List,” so anyone can easily find the series.

The first one I can think of that should be in this category is the Charlotte Tilbury Instant Look in a Palette. Others from the past have been added to the list.

That’s all for today! Thank you for reading and I hope this has been interesting and helpful!

-Lili ❤