Before you say anything, I know this is a lot of product. Yep, I know that it’s like A LOT. bareMinerals A Vision in Velvet is a set of twenty mineral eyeshadows. I know it looks like a lot, but that’s because it is.

A Vision in Velvet, which is part of bareMinerals’ holiday collection, is a limited edition eyecolor collection with 10 velvet colors and 10 satin colors. I first saw it on Temptalia and I hounded it until I found it at the Nordstrom website, before it was available on bareescentuals.com.

They come in twenty individual pots with a sifter, a sticker (to keep them neat) and a twist-on golden cap. Very festive, I think, especially when they are on view in an entire row.

This is what the pots look like without the sifter. Ideally, it’s supposed to keep the product within some reasonable area of neatness, but I find that sticking it back on wastes a ton of product, since they adhere to the sticky side. In the end, I threw all the stickers out.

The products themselves are more pigmented in the promotional shots, which was a bit disappointing when I first slid them out of the glorious box. I was all, “WHY DID I EVEN BUY THIS,” for about two minutes, and then I decided to swatch everything.

These are the ten velvet shadows, which makes them a lot more powdery and quite matte. clockwise from the top left: Velvet Strawberry, Velvet Vanilla, Velvet Pistachio, Velvet Violet, Velvet Blueberry, Velvet Mauve, Velvet Green, Velvet Charcoal, Velvet Espresso, Velvet Taupe. Phew.

I think it’s pretty obvious that the stunner of this set is Velvet Blueberry, although I haven’t actually tried putting on blue eyeshadow and carrying it well. If it’s unsuitable for my lids, I imagine it would be a really beautiful liner.

Velvet Pistachio is quite disappointing. It’s a shade that was very visible in promotional material, and it’s one that I remembered really wanting to try. Oh well. The rest are decent in terms of color payoff, but when I first swatched this, I didn’t know if the colors worked together as a set of ten. It seemed quite a random selection to me.

Moving on to the Satin colors, which go on a bit sheerer and have a bit of shimmer as well. Clockwise from the top left: Satin Mist , Satin Plum, Satin Nude, Satin Lilac, Satin Sterling, Satin Rose, Satin Sage, Satin Gold, Satin Caramel, Satin Peach.

After seeing the vibrance of the ten velvet shadows (and still not being wowed), I felt worse swatching these. They are very, very sheer, and some shades do not really seem have that much discernible differences from each other. My favorites are Satin Caramel and Satin Plum.

But, that is just the pessimist in me speaking. Seeing the swatches together, from both sets, I felt my heart flutter. Because you’re supposed to use the twenty shades together. And taking that into account makes me feel like I somehow hit the jackpot. At least, in the mineral eyeshadow department.

Once I did realize how gorgeous some of the satin shades would be as the bases for some of the velvet shadows, I felt at ease and pretty darn good that I grabbed a hold of this palette when the opportunity presented itself to me.

An Instagram post from the BE team a few weeks ago announced that this set was inspired by French macarons, which explained everything. I can’t wait to start playing with this for daytime looks and such.

I don’t know if it’s a good collection for the holidays, but I reckon it’s a great starter kit for a loose mineral eyeshadow noob like myself.

VERDICT: None yet, but I’m happy with the swatches. Check back for updates when I actually get to use it for looks.
Would you purchase again? Maybe not. If they had the same deal ($79 for $220 worth of products) in darker, bolder shades, then I definitely would.
How much? Where I got my set from Nordstrom, at $79 + SH (courier company), though I found some going for $65.99 on eBay (plus $8.99 SH to the Philippines).*

* Be careful about purchasing makeup on eBay and other such sites. Check seller’s credentials thoroughly. But as much as possible: DON’T DO IT.

** All swatches were done over a layer of Etude House Proof 10 Eye Primer