Addiction Sleepless Nights Holiday Coffret

This year's Addiction holiday coffret, Sleepless Nights, looked very promising when photos of it first surfaced online. Continuing the aurora theme of the fall collection, the prettily packaged kit looked perfect for creating a smoky eye look for party nights.

The star product is naturally the Limited Compact #104 Sleepless Nights, which contains two powder eyeshadows (1.2g each) and a blush (3.9g), all of which are full-sized. The individual pans are secured in the compact with gobs of glue and so they can be easily popped out through the small holes in the bottom of the case. The compact looks black under most lighting but the plastic lid actually reflects a deep purple when held at an angle.

The blush is a matte cool-toned, slightly dusky baby pink that reminded me of MAC Angel blush (which has been discontinued). These do not have individual shade names. The blush is very sheer and takes quite a bit of layering to show up on me.

The eyeshadows are an icy lilac-tinted silver and a smoky black with violet and blue pearl shimmer. When I first opened up the compact, I was mesmerised by the complexity of the shades with their softly glowing incandescent shimmer. However, I was left disappointed by the sheer payoff of the black shade, which lacked the velvety richness that I was hoping for.

The violet shimmer is also nearly invisible when applied. To create the distinct flash of purple on the model's lids in the promo visual, one would probably need to layer another purple eyeshadow or pigment on top. The silver shade has a much stronger shine factor and applies as a layer of silver shimmer rather than opaque metallic color, much like the Aurora Veil loose powder.

The Eyeliner Pencil #101 Sleepless Nights has a lovely creamy consistency and good payoff. It glides onto the lids with minimal tugging. Made in Italy, it comes with a sharpener inside one end. According to the product description, it contains violet pink pearl particles, but these weren't very noticeable when applied.


Aurora Veil #101 can be used as eyeshadow or face highlighter. This has just two ingredients listed: mica and titanium dioxide.

It is an extremely finely milled pearly white shimmery powder that adds a subtle sparkly effect.

I haven't tried the Nail Polish #102 (5ml), which is a cream burgundy. It contains 4ml, one-third the size of the regular Addiction nailpolishes which are 12ml.

The Lipgloss #102 Sleepless Nights (4g) is a milky baby pink that applies very sheer on my lips with a subtle iridescent glimmer. It contains 4g, versus the regular size of 5.5g.


Here are two looks that I did with the compact. It took quite a lot of experimenting with different bases and application methods to try to get the black eyeshadow to show up well. It shows up the most intensely if applied with a damp brush over a good primer but for easier blending, I still prefer to apply it with a small, dense eyeshadow brush.

For the first look, I also used a light brown shade in the crease and the Eyeliner Pencil #101 on the upper lashline and the outer half of the lower lashline.


For the second look, I used L'Oreal Color Infallible #23 Black Onyx as the base, which worked very well. On the lips, I'm wearing Addiction Lipgloss in Azalea.


The coffret retailed at 9765yen in Japan, which looks like a good deal considering that the compact alone is worth 8190yen (2100yen each for the eyeshadowns, 2940yen for the blush and 1050yen for the case) and the eyeliner pencil is usually 2625yen. While I was disappointed in the sheerness of some of the shades, nevertheless, I don't regret purchasing this coffret as I simply adore Addiction.

If you have friends living in Japan who can help you order, it is still available on Isetan Japan, Takashimaya Japan and Hankyu. You can see more photos of the coffret on Iroha, Cosme Storm and this Japanese blog. Drivel about Frivol also has amazingly extensive swatches of Addiction's products.