Sunday Swatches - Suqqu Spring 2013 Collection

Suqqu's Spring-Summer 2013 collection, which was released in Japan on 1 February, celebrates the brand's 10th anniversary. As far as I can tell, it's entitled 「大人のための、魅せる艶めき」with the tagline「美人なんて、目元しだい」which I am translating (no doubt very badly) as 'to make adults bewitching and beautiful' and 'beauty is in the eyes' (improvements on this effort welcomed...). 

The collection comprises:

• three Blend Colour Eyeshadow Quads in EX-11 菫珠 Sumiredama (Violet Pearl), EX-12 翡翠珠 Hisuidama (Jade Pearl) and EX-13 銀薄珠 Ginusudama (Light Silver Pearl);
• a new Face Colour Palette EX-02;
• three Creamy Glow Moist Lipsticks in EX-08 珊瑚珠 Sangodama (Coral Pearl), EX-09 瑚珀珠 Kohakudama (Amber Pearl) and EX-10 蕾珠 Tsubomidama (Flower Bud Pearl);
• two Nail Colours in EX-01 瑠璃珠 Ruridama (Azure Pearl) and EX-02 桜珠 Sakuradama (Cherry Blossom Pearl); and
• Eyeliner Creamy in EX-02 Navy.

All the new releases are limited edition. As you might have guessed from the shade names, the theme of this collection is 'vintage pearl'. All the products are swatched below (click on the pictures to enlarge). For reference, everything is swatched on off-white paper (sorry for the lack of skin swatches -- I didn't have enough arm space or time as the light was fading). You may have to angle your screens for the lightest pans in the eyeshadow quads and the left pan of the Face Colour Palette :/.

For me, the stars of the collection are the three new eyeshadow quads. It's extremely hard to do them justice in a photograph because the shades are so complex and it's very hard to capture the duochrome effect. Unhelpfully, I didn't swatch the quads in the correct pan order, but hopefully you get the idea...

Angled to show the sparkles and true colour complexity.

EX-11 Sumiredama is my favourite of the three. It has a delicate golden shimmer, a slightly peachy pink highlight shade, a duochrome brown-taupe with blue-green reflects and a purple with similar blue-green reflects.

EX-12 Hisuidama reminds me of the limited edition EX-08 Hanamari palette released at the end of 2012 (swatched beautifully by Glossed in Translation). It has a similar cherry blossom feel (note that I haven't seen EX-08 Hanamari in person as it was a Hankyu Osaka/Selfridges UK exclusive).

This quad consists of a white silver pan, a candy pink, a mossy sage green and a cool grey-brown. Of the three palettes this has the least duochrome effect.

Finally, EX-13 Ginusudama. This was by far the hardest to photograph. The bottom left pan appears simultaneously purple, gray, blue and green! I would actually describe it as a slightly purpled grey with strong blue-green duochrome. The blue-green is much more predominant in real life -- I couldn't get it to show up properly on camera. The other three pans are a delicate white sparkle, a warm brown and a pink.

Just pictures for the rest of the collection, with a couple of notes -- to my eyes the Creamy Glow Moist Lipsticks don't have any shimmer/sparkle and the Eyeliner Creamy is another difficult to photograph shade. My pictures don't capture the almost metallic blue sparkle laid over the inky blue base.

*UPDATE - another note: the left hand pan of the Face Colour Palette is less all-over finishing powder, more shimmery sheeny highlighter.

For more pictures and swatches see Sonia's Sweet Make-up Temptations post. Sonia also has a fantastic post FULL of Suqqu swatches from her very impressive collection here.

Note that eyeshadow quads 07 Komorebi and 08 Mizuaoi (plus the limited edition quad EX-07 Tsukiakari from Autumn 2012) have been discontinued and are no longer available on counter in Japan.

As ever, if you any have questions let me know in the comments below :).