It’s officially the holiday season and with it in the beauty world comes holiday release after release. It can feel very overwhelming as a customer, but at the same time exciting. I personally fall into both camps, over the years I’ve seen the number of holiday releases grow exponentially so I’ve had to try and be extra particular about what I spend my money on without going completely broke (safe to say the only other holiday releases I picked up were skincare related and that was more for the discount). So when I lay eyes on the Anastasia Beverly Hills Sugar & Spice Mini Palette Duo I was very intrigued. It wasn’t similar to anything Anastasia Beverly Hills already had in her like, it felt completely new. The colour palette was neutral with warmth and coolness, so I decided to pull the trigger and test them out. The Anastasia Beverly Hills Sugar & Space Mini Palettes are available from Sephora Australia for $55AUD, or Sephora USA, Macy or Ulta for $29USD.
Spice Palette
First palette I’ll go over is the Spice Palette only because this was the first one I picked up. I wasn’t originally planning to pick up both, but once this one arrived I decided to complete the set. The reason I went for this one first was purely because of the colour palette, it’s completely neutral and very wearable. It is a warm neutral palette, which isn’t something I generally gravitate towards, I’m much more of a cool tone person. However one of my makeup goals is to pigeon hole myself less and allow myself to experiment and get comfortable with colours and textures that I wouldn’t normally use.
Going on a slight tangent, but when I was in my 20s I would be so experimental with makeup and loved it, but come my 30s I became more and more narrow with how I’d do my makeup (a big reason why my beauty blogging slowed down because I simply wasn’t trying as many new products, I had a set that I was comfortable with and stuck with it). Now that I’ve officially entered my 40s (soon to be 41 in a few weeks!) I’ve grown a bit bored with the same old same old, and perhaps also having recently become a mother and watching my child want to try so many new things and explore the world has re-inspired me to do the same! So my 40s are going to be about try lots of new things 🙂 Anyways back to the review.
Right off the bat, the pigmentation and texture of these eye shadows are amazing, some of the best I’ve tried from Anastasia Beverly Hills. Very silky, smooth, pigmented (a little goes a long way so no need to be too heavy handed!) and blends so well. I attempted a big cat eye with this and really I loved the results! When I wore it to work (for online video calls, I wouldn’t have the guts to wear something so strong in the office) I was getting all the compliments. But I love that because of the range of shades, I was able to also pull together some simple everyday wearable looks too. The palette really allows me to go from day to night without it feeling too smokey or heavy.
The three shimmer shades in the centre are my favourite, because they work as such great pops of colour to the center of the eye, look completely different but are still within a comfortable neutral range as well.
Spice Palette
And then we have the Sugar palette, which I wasn’t sure I’d love it because it was a lot more colourful that I’d normally like. But as I said before, I’m determined to go out of my comfort zone this next decade and try new things even if they are as mundane / small as colourful makeup! So I picked it up, felt like it made sense to keep the duo together anyways. Unfortunately when the palette arrived, the shimmer blue shade was pretty loose, like most of it had lifted out of the palette which didn’t surprised me when I went to press it back down because the shimmer shades for both palettes are very shimmery and so are much softer pressed into the pan to allow for that shimmer texture. Whereas the mattes are harder pressed, this is generally the case so no surprises and I was just grateful that the eyeshadow had not shattered and spilled everywhere else I wouldn’t be able to use it!
I was a little nervous at first trying to figure out how to use the purple and blue shades, as I really wanted to use them but they were also to me the most intimidating shades. Somehow I made it work and I really loved the result! In all honesty I think I need to practice a ton more to get really comfortable with colour shadows, but I’m happy to say my first re-entry has not dissuaded me.
The quality is not as great as the Spice palette except for the shimmer shades which were similar. I just felt like the Spice palette swatched a lot easier and blended smoother. Maybe it’s the type of colours being used? Either way I did have to work a little harder with this palette because I felt like some of the darker shades needed extra attention to blending. However similar to the Spice palette, the pigmentation is very strong so I had to use a light hand and slowly build the colours up to avoid the shades being too strong and not seamless.
Overall
If I had to pick one, it would be the Spice palette. No surprises there, it’s just a generally more wearable palette, the quality I felt was better, easier to work with and I just know I’ll generally get more use out of it. However that doesn’t mean I’m planning to pack the Sugar palette away to be lost in my collection. I’m taking it as a challenge to keep trying different looks and get comfortable with colourful shades!
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