I own both of these palettes and love them both for different reasons. To me, the matte shades in the Semi-Sweet have a bit of a softer, more powdery finish than the original. The one exception in the Semi-Sweet palette is Blueberry Swirl, which does have a bit of a more gritty surface texture than the other shades, but it feels less gritty than, say, Cherry cordial.



A few of the shades are incredibly similar. For example, I have done a side-by-side swatch comparison between Peanut Butter and Salted Caramel and I cannot, for the life of me, see any difference besides Peanut Butter being ever so slightly softer in texture. Semi-Sweet and Truffled are very similar, as are Milk Chocolate and Mousse (or was it Puddin'?). There are about five shades in each palette that are really, really similar to each other. The most notable difference is, of course, is Semi-Sweet is much warmer in tone than the original Chocolate Bar. As far as the blendability goes, I'd saying being more on the powdery side these are really a little too blendable. I have found that if I'm not careful I'll blend the color saturation right off my lids.



My take-away is this, if you had to choose one or the other, pick whichever one has the stand-out shades you like best (unless you're hedging your bets on Blueberry Swirl or Candied Violet, because those aren't the greatest shades in the bunch). You can't go wrong with either palette and there are enough similarities between the two that you won't feel your collection is imcomplete without owning both. The toss-up is the original palette has a better highlighting shade (Champagne Truffle) and the Semi-Sweet has a super pigmented black, which the original is lacking. On second thought, just have both LOL