Review | Tom Ford Beauty Eye Color Quad in 08 Sahara Haze

Here is Sahara Haze, an eyeshadow quad from the Tom Ford Beauty Color Collection.

The shadows rest within a sleek dark chocolate palette embossed with the brand’s name on a golden outer panel.

The palette contains a quartet of complementary colours.

In it are:

• A reflective buttercream gold
• A satin grey sage (it can pull a khaki taupe)
• A deep olive infused with flaxen gold sparkles
• A blackened forest green with gold shimmer

Sahara Haze is certainly an apt name for this palette with its shades the hues of a desert and its foliage.

Formulated with advanced color processes, the four luxurious finishes—sheer sparkle, satin, shimmer and matte—offer a spectrum of intensity and effects and deliver incredible shade fidelity and outstanding adhesion.

– Tom Ford Beauty

Happily, the above isn’t PR spiel. One of the more unique eyeshadow palettes I’ve seen in a while, Sahara Haze impressed me not only with its interesting colour combination but also with its varied textures that blend incredibly well and work perfectly together, as well as on their own. While the golden olive with its twinkle and tonal depth is arresting, the grey sage is particularly intriguing – it looks almost incongruous in this ensemble but is, in fact, wonderful for contouring my single-lidded eyes and for uniting the other three shades.

A clear embodiment of the high-end Tom Ford luxury brand, this palette – no doubt with all of the Estée Lauder expertise behind it – is pure joy to use. I didn’t expect it to impress me this much but it did: The shades are buttery soft, gliding across the skin with utter ease, while the sparkles and shimmer are refined (there’s little-to-no glittery fallout), adhering effortlessly to the eye. They build up well too, creating beautiful depth and dimension. The glitter bits in the golden olive do not feel gritty despite being rather large; their ultra-smooth texture actually reminds me a little of Asian glitter cream eyeshadow.

Two brushes are included with this quad. I haven’t tried them but was surprised to see the angled brush – an unusual but surely functional inclusion. The Japanese brands (Kosé and RMK, for instance) do have interesting brushes/differently-shaped applicators in their palettes but this feature in a western brand is quite unusual and one that sets this product apart from other similar ones with their run-of-the-mill sponge-tip applicators.

In the photos above and below, I have on all four colours in an easy gradated look, over Too Faced Shadow Insurance and a black pencil. These pictures were taken 5 to 6 hours after application.

As you can see, this look is somewhat tame…I’m looking forward to smoking up my eyes further with this quad. ;)

The palette comes in its own velvet pouch à la Clarins compacts.

Despite this, my press sample unfortunately landed on my doorstep with a cracked mirror (it was in a bubble envelope too!). The palette might have luxe heft but the mirror is somewhat flimsy. Thankfully for me, its lightness allowed me to remove the shards cleanly from the compact.

The price of this Tom Ford is certainly eyebrow-raising – it is US$75 at Nieman Marcus, while it is £62 at Harrods. However, if you’re passing through London Heathrow Airport Terminal 3 or 5, you can find it there and probably for much less. (Edited to add: The quads have a suggested travel retail price of £52.70!) The complete Tom Ford Beauty Cosmetics Collection can be found at the same terminals too. I’m sure this is happy news for those of you who are well-travelled. ;)

Do remember that the mirror of this eyeshadow quad (and probably others in the same range) is fragile – do pack the palette as securely as possible when travelling with it.