Review: Guerlain Meteorites Compact (with a Pearls comparison)

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I have a finishing powder problem. As in, I absolutely can’t seem to keep my hands off them. When I first saw the Meteorites Compact (on Rae’s instagram) I immediately opened a new tab for Neiman Marcus and had it in my cart before I even thought about it. And then I stopped. After all, I just got the Pearls version in Clair (finally) a few months ago, so can I really justify having the compact version? Buuuuut… I actually didn’t have a nice compact to take around with me for mid-day touchups (psh, because I ever bother with that) and if you get a different color it’s totally not the same thing, at all. I fought the urge for a while, but I eventually soothed my conscience by getting the compact in Medium. The next natural step, of course, was to determine whether I should feel guilty about it.

Packaging

The major attraction of the Meteorites compact, of course, is that it’s a compact. No big surprise there! The Meteorites pearls jar looks really nice, but it’s pretty home-bound – bulky, the lid probably wouldn’t be secure for traveling and the pearls themselves would probably break with too much jostling around. Perfect for your vanity, not so much for anywhere else. The compact is a whole different story. The footprint is a little bigger than the pearls jar, but it’s small enough to travel easily (3in/~7.5cm across and .5in/~1.25cm thick). It’s plastic, which it seems a lot of people were disappointed in, but at the price ($62) I didn’t expect the packaging to be on par with the all-metal, handmade, $175 Meteorites Voyage compact. It still has a nice heft to it, enough that it won’t go skittering off the edge of the table at the slightest bump. The lid has a firm magnetic closure with a small lip cut out to make it easy to open. Overall it feels pretty sturdy and I have no worries putting it in the small makeup bag I keep in my purse. I wouldn’t recommend playing air hockey with it or anything. The compact has .35oz/10g of product, versus the .88oz/25g that you get with the pearls. From that standpoint the pearls are a better value as far as price per oz, but neither one is exactly a budget product.

Color

Bottom: Meteorites Compact in Medium
Top: Meteorites Pearls in Clair

I had a hell of a time getting heavy enough swatches of these to show the colors, and getting photos of them wasn’t exactly a cakewalk either. Eventually perseverance paid off. Medium is beige with a little bit of a pinkish cast, and Clair ends up being a pale greenish-yellow (which I know doesn’t sound like an attractive description at all). On my face, I gotta say… I really don’t notice all that much difference in the color. I think either would work for people in a wide range of skin tones, though I could imagine Clair coming off as chalky on very dark skin and Medium adding a little too much color to very light skin.

Texture, application & wear

The main differences between these two (aside from the packaging, we’ve already established that) are the texture and finish. The pearls are soft, and even a very soft fluffy brush will pick up plenty of product. The compact version is quite a bit harder, so it seems to work best with a firmer brush. I use both of them all over, with just a very light dusting. The Clair shade is much more glowy than Medium, but I’m not sure if that’s just due to the difference in shades or if it’s a pearls vs compact thing. The obvious way to find out would be to run out and buy the Clair compact, but I have limits, ok? Both visually even out my skin texture, but Medium is a little more forgiving to my acne scarring. Neither one controls oil, so I end up with a little bit of shine later in the day, but they don’t get cakey either. Both versions have that heavy Guerlain violet scent we all know and love, and it does linger for a while. I love it, personally. 

By the way, please excuse my slightly orangey face in those photos – I was testing out the new NARS foundation and it’s not quite an exact match.

In Short: Different packaging? Check. Different color? Check. Different finish? Check. So I can possess both of them guilt-free – good thing, because I love them both!

Guerlain Meteorites Compact and Pearls ($62 each) are available at nordstrom.com and sephora.com

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