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Today, like wavering rays of light on a distant desert dune, the Tom Ford Eye Color Quad in Sahara Haze made me doubt what I was seeing.

“Is it a mirage?” I wondered, sweeping the taupe shade into my crease. “Could it really be this good?”

At one point this afternoon I think my heart, which was booming like a timpani at both the beautiful quad and its exorbitant $78 price, actually did skip a beat. Few things in this world ever make me feel that way. Great makeup is one of them; glazed doughnuts are another.

Flawless, I tell you. Like a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed. So glowy. So pigmented. So melty and delicious…

Never mind that for $78 one could get 132 Krispy Kreme doughnuts at $0.59 each (or 78 sticks of $0.99 Wet ‘n’ Wild #666 Brandywine).

Sahara Haze is about a million miles from budget — it’s even costlier than the most expensive Chanel palette I can think of, last spring’s $65 Ombres Perlees de Chanel — but I still find it and the other color products, nail polishes, skin care and makeup brushes in the new Tom Ford Beauty line very, very hard to resist.

I want to gobble it up!

Everything about this stunning mother trucker — from the clean, contemporary packaging (love the dark chocolate and gold), to the featherweight, pigmented powders that fill the pans — spells l-u-x-u-r-y.

The quad’s cool lemony beige feels so soft that I almost thought it was a cream (but it’s not), the cool grayish taupe has a delicious finish perfectly perched between matte and shimmer.