Quench Your Chocolate Craving, Ladies (Too Faced Chocolate Bar Review)

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my absenteeism from the beauty blogging front.  It has been hectic—midterms, term papers, bureaucratic hell, registration for spring classes—and I haven’t really been able to update.  Then, last night, when I finally had the time… our router died in action and I had to spend almost an hour on the phone with Time Warner trying to fix it befoe I eventually had to make an appointment for a tech to come out.  Yay, Happy Halloween for me and the cable guy.  But anyway, I’ve been all over the place and blogging has been the last thing on my fingertips, although one of the first things on my mind.  So please excuse me, ladies.  I have a winner for you today though!

Too Faced’s Chocolate Bar Palette.  I finally broke down and bought one for myself.  I needed to have it, right?  RIGHT!?  Well, I will be frank.  I was super pumped to have this palette… but after having it for a few days, I found myself no longer horribly excited about it.  I considered taking it back and buying something else.  I decided that is was boring… and yet here I am, reaching for it every morning.  Here’s the thing with Chocolate Bar.  It is massively overhyped.  You convince yourself that you NEED it.  Insert Spongebob drying out in Sandy’s tree dome—HE NEEDS WATER, PEOPLE!  This palette is not water, but yeah, you do need it. 

This palette is an essential.  And I’m sick of people using the word essential to describe anything that is a “you must have this” product.  That is not an essential, that is a must have.  You don’t hear much about beauty essentials in blog reviews, honest and true essentials.  Chocolate Bar is simply not exciting… but boy will you use the heck out of it.  Urban Decay’s Electric palette is not an essential—it’s fun and wonderful, like that Catbug plushie you have in your Etsy shopping cart, but you don’t really need it.  Guess what, ladies, Chocolate Bar is that Cranberry Chutney Yankee Candle.  Get it.  Just… get it.

Here’s the divider.  Do you also have Matte Eyes and Natural Eyes among other neutral palettes?  Pass.  Chocolate Bar is literally all neutrals and you don’t need anymore.  Do you only wear colors and hate brown?  Pass.  Are you in search of a good standby neutral palette?  Get it.  That’s the thing.  Don’t hoard 30 different palettes with the same shades of brown in them, but if you need one, this is the holy grail of neutral palettes.

Chocolate Bar is on the larger side.  The box actually looks like a candy bar wrapper, and the palette is sculpted to look like an actual bar of candy.  It’s metal and pretty sturdy, with a long mirror in it, and the Shadows are a bit bigger than typical Too Faced sizes.  You get a bunch of them in this one though, rather than the typical 9.  In Chocolate Bar, you get 16!  14 pigment shades and 2 highlighter shades.  So it's a good bang for your buck and it's pretty freaking nice.  And the second you open up the palette, it smells just like a Hershey bar and it is GLORIOUS. (Angels singing!)  Swatches, shall we?

You open up your palette and this is what you get.  Nice, huh?  My only complaint with this packaging is the clear plastic slip that goes over the shadows.  Most Too Faced palettes have the shadow names listed under the shadow, but here, you have this very easy to lose insert, or the back of the cardboard box, but nowhere on the palette itself.  But you know, that's a pretty easy thing to deal with, so onward.  Swatches!  I'll break it down by row.  Each picture is one row of shadows.

Row #1: (L to R) Gilded Ganache, White Chocolate, Milk Chocolate, Black Forest Truffle, Triple Fudge.

Row #2: (L to R) Salted Caramel, Marzipan, Semi-Sweet, Strawberry Bon Bon, Candied Violet, Amaretto.

Row #3: (L to R) Hazelnut, Creme Brulee, Haute Chocolate, Cherry Cordial, Champagne Truffle.

Nice!

So what's the deal with that airline food?  I'll give you the breakdown.

Gilded Ganache--- this one is a fool's gold color, a deep cold brown with gold shimmers.

White Chocolate--- one of your 2 highlighter (large) shadows, a cream colored matte shadow.

Milk Chocolate--- matte, brown gold color, far lighter than actual milk chocolate and a bit more of a cool caramel.

Black Forest Truffle--- this one is an odd shadow.  It is a matte burgundy with pink and gold sparkles in it.  The color payoff is a bit more on the grey-brown side and you don't actually get many sparkles on your eyelid.

Triple Fudge--- a dark chocolate colored matte brown (much like Dolly from Country, but without the glitter).

Salted Caramel--- this is a warm peachy brown town with a matte finish.

Marzipan--- this is by far my favorite shadow of the entire bunch.  Marzipan is a sweet champagne pink with rosy shimmers and it applies SO buttery.

Semi-Sweet--- the same shade family as Milk Chocolate, this one is actually the color of a Hershey bar, a warm brown with a matte finish.

Strawberry Bon Bon--- this one is another of the more interesting colors.  It initially looks chalky and horrifying, but it actually applies a nice matte pastel pink that looks great with pretty much all eyes.  Don't be afraid of this shade, it's very wearable.

Candied Violet--- Fallout alert!  I wanted to love this delicious violet color with its magenta sparkles... but I hate it.  It is the only shade in the palette that I can not make work.  The purple comes out more grey than anything else and gets all over the place.  Wet, it almost looks black.  I guess every palette has to have a bummer...

Amaretto--- another one of the buttery shades, this is a nice rich ruddy brown (like Georgia clay) with rust colored shimmers.

Hazelnut--- gentle warm brown with cool toned gold and silver shimmers.  It is buttery, but firmer than Marzipan.

Creme Brulee--- a shimmering bronze gold with just as buttery application as Marzipan and very little fall out.  Glorious.  It is great to add a warm touch to your look.

Haute Chocolate--- This is a cool deep brown with cool gold and silver shimmers.  It's essentially the cool toned version of Hazlenut.

Cherry Cordial--- burgundy shadow with a matte finish and cool toned silver and pink sparkles.

Champagne Truffle--- this one is my 2nd favorite to Marzipan and it reminds me of Satin Sheets from Boudoir Eyes.  It's a cool champagne pink with cool toned shimmers and is the second of your highlighter shades in the palette.  Super buttery application and lights up your whole face!

Then here are your box and insert pictures like I usually provide so you don't miss out on the experience.  The suggested looks in the little pamphlet are actually pretty good this time and don't disappoint.

All in all, I don't want to play this palette up to be the end all, but it is an awesome neutral palette that was great for me because I don't own any High End palettes full of browns.  However, if you already have a neutral palette, prepare to be underwhelmed and feel like you should have bought something else.