Oh, Golden Jungle Palette:  you thing of absolute beauty. So heavy, so luxe, so brilliantly designed with your little silver door to protect the lipgloss! (See also the Dior Blue Tie Evening Essentials for snazzy trapdoor action.) And your shades! So wearable, so perfect for the amazingly hot late summer that we are definitely going to have!

I have been playing about with the Golden Jungle (I have the “Golden Khakis” version) and it’s incredibly easy to create a casual smoky eye for daytime using the two paler shades. The lightest can be used all over the lid and then the medium over the outer third just to shape the eye a little. If you wish, you can blend some of the darkest shade into the socket to create a bit of depth. For evening, you can ramp up the shadows a bit by using the medium all over the lid and the darkest smoked along the lashline and blended into the crease of the eyelid. Use the lightest shade over the very centre of the lid as a highlight, and a touch to the inner corners of the eye.

The pale pink gloss works well with either of the looks and can be layered over lipstick, too, if you prefer more colour with your smoky eye.

So there – a limited edition palette that looks amazing but is actually usable! Sometimes I do think that limited edition palettes can be a bit…tricky. Pastels and purples and strange colours that you’ll never wear, but you buy the palette because it looks so desirable… Well this one definitely does not fall into this category – it’s just a shame that one day it will be all used up! Collectors will keep theirs boxed and pristine, but I have already set to work on mine, brushes in the shadows and fingers in the gloss!

The Golden Jungle Palette is £49.50 with free delivery from Escentual.com