Laura Mercier Artist's Palette For Eyes

I received this beautiful Laura Mercier palette for Christmas to add to my severely lacking palette collection- the Naked palette is of course my go to... how did you guess?! This is a half and half mixture of both matte and shimmer colours, although the matte colours are the real gems. I have been looking for a diverse matte palette for a while and this stood out as being a good alternative to the overload of shimmer palettes on the market at the moment. 

All of the eye shadows are very soft and bendable, and as you can see from the swatches, the matte colours are seriously something to write home about. They are heavily pigmented, can be easily used wet or dry as liners and are beautiful for a soft everyday eye, or amped up for a smokier evening look. All of the colours on the top row are shimmer colours, but beware of Chocolate and African Violet especially as they contain a hefty amount of glitter, which can be a nightmare as softer eye shadows are always more susceptible to fall-down. I am a little disappointed with the shimmer colours; they are not as pigmented as I expected and can be a little streaky. The swatches above needed a good 3-4 swipes to impart enough colour for photography, whereas the matte colours were picture perfect in one swipe. That's not to say the shimmer colours are not lovely, as the colours are beautiful, although I would have preferred less of the lighter shimmers (as you can see above they blend completely into my ghostly white skin!) but I think this is a very wearable palette for everyday use. My present was brought from House of Fraser for around £36, and I think this palette is completely worth the money if just for the outstanding matte range. 

This is my first Laura Mercier try and I hope to give her blushes and foundations a try next... any recommendations?