If you follow my Facebook fan page, you know that my reaction to the release of the Too Faced Chocolate Bar was less than enthusiastic. I thought it was silly and gimmicky and it made me think of the chocolate-scented nail polish I had as a teenager, which smelled like fake chocolate. My general thought was that this seemed like the sort of thing I would expect from a cheap drug store brand marketed towards teens and tweens, not a prestige cosmetics brand. But I figured I’d go smell it at Sephora to see if it really did smell like chocolate. And I did, and it did, but I still didn’t feel a strong desire to buy it. There was a really pretty opal-y pink/white highlight color that I liked but otherwise I was like “meh, mostly neutrals, whatever” and decided it was Not. For. Me.
But then I was shopping with my Official Sephora Buddy Liora (seriously, it’s ridiculous how often we go to Sephora together), and the awesome saleslady there started swatching it for us and I saw how intense the colors were and how beautiful they were for neutrals, and I changed my thinking. I waited for a sale and I snatched that chocolate palette right up! Then it sat around for a while waiting for me to play with it because it seemed like every time I did my makeup I was too rushed to break out a new palette and take pictures and experiment. Until my makeup play session last week.
I’ve now used this palette three times. The first time was playing with my faerie makeup look, and I just sat around the house for an hour so I didn’t really get to judge how well it held-up, but I was impressed with the color intensity, ease of application, and chocolate scent. The second time, however, was the night Fire & Gold Belly Dance did two sets at Pima County Fair and it was raining and I had to ride a little golf cart in the rain. Approximately 6 hours of wear, two belly dance sets, rain, and by the time I got home it still looked PERFECT. I was really impressed. So I wore it again last night for Open Stage, where I wore it for several hours and did a lot of dancing and got a little sweaty and again, it still looked great.
This is also a pretty versatile palette. Yesterday, Liora and I were both sporting looks made with the Chocolate Bar. Hers was a sophisticated matte earthy look, mine was a shimmering burgundy look that nicely complimented my red troupe costume but also worked with the green skirt I changed into. Hers was day-time appropriate, mine was evening glamour. As such, this is an ideal palette to take with you on a trip where you need to go from professional business during the day to smokin’ hot dancing at night.
The Chocolate Bar comes packaged in a tin that’s shaped to look like, well, a chocolate bar. It has a magnetic clasp that is not very strong so if you are going to travel with it, you should probably put a rubber band around it just to be on the safe side. Over all, it seems to be a really nice product and I’m happy that I overcame my initial apathy towards it.