Bobbi Brown Holiday 2010

I struck the jackpot this weekend: Bobbi Brown’s holiday collection, already out on display.

Before I jump in, you should know: this isn’t ALL of Bobbi’s holiday collection. There are still three more eyeshadow palettes (warm/cool/neutral quads, each with a baked fourth shade), gold and silver glitter eyeliners, and a whole bunch of red lipstick. There are brush sets; a posh-looking traincase; Saks has an exclusive palette — and I normally wouldn’t mention it, but Asia is getting several nifty-looking exclusive palettes that we won’t even see here.

I’ll swatch the rest of it as it arrives [EDIT: here are those extra palettes, brush sets, glitter liners, and red lips], and try to get pictures of the Asian exclusives (in case you have a friend in that part of the world). Meanwhile, here’s what’s on counters so far:

Perhaps the flagship item of the collection is the Modern Classic Lip and Eye Palette ($75). Like last year’s Chrome Palette, it unfolds twice to reveal a hidden mirror (and keep lip products separate from eyeshadows). Interestingly, “Modern Classic” offers a much more diverse color palette than Chrome did.

I saw this palette over at Beauty Look Book before I saw it for myself, and if you’re a medium-toned, NC30-35ish, yellow/olive-skinned makeup lover, I strongly recommend you check out Lina’s review. It’s endlessly fascinating to me how different colors look on our different skintones, and I think I like this palette even better on her.

There are also two “Day to Night” palettes, solid Bobbi eyeshadow basics in your choice of warm or cool. Both palettes are a pretty great deal at $45, but if you love one (or both), I wouldn’t wait too long to purchase: my Nordstrom is already sold out of the warm palette.

The texture and pigmentation was lovely on all 12 shadows — and in case you were wondering, Oat and Velvet Bronze are the only shades that can’t be bought individually.

If you like to go beyond the “basics,” Bobbi has two more eyeshadow quads to tempt you.

The Sparkle Glamour Quad ($40) contains four different Sparkle shades (as far as I can tell, these don’t have individual shade names). These all seemed like sheer-ish base colors with a lot of silver sparkle. Swatching “bare armed,” I experienced a lot of fallout, so you probably want to wear these over a base.

The Crystal Eye Palette  ($45) swatched beautifully. Amethyst (metallic) is an iridescent, glowy blue-violet. Diamond (shimmer wash) is a pale blue-purple lilac. Star is a sparkly white topcoat-style shade — but of all the “shadow topcoats” I’ve swatched (Dior, Estee Lauder), this one struck me as the prettiest and most interesting. Peacock is teal with gold shimmer.

This year’s lip gloss trio ($40) offers three brush-style wand glosses: a sheer yellow-gold with tons of rainbow sparkle, a bright, warm, creme pink, and a finely shimmery burgundy-rose.

And finally, there’s a lipstick palette ($45). The shades include Roseberry lip color, Kir metallic lip color, Pretty Pink metallic lip color, Sunset Nude creamy lip color, Italian Rose creamy lip color, and Brownie lip color.