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Review (and rant): Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Palette

I am not ashamed to admit that I buy many products based on the recommendations of other bloggers and YouTube reviews. Some are good, some are OK, and some just don’t work for me. Today, I want to talk about one of those.

This is my Anastasia BH Contour Palette in the shade Light to medium.

The instructions in the back suggest that we can use the 6 powders to highlight and contour, »expertly emphasize our eyes, cheekbones, nose and jawline«. The product is cruelty free.

As you can see, I’ve used it quite a lot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it any nicer for the photos, because the palette itself is made of a cardboard and similar to some other palettes, you’ll find that the matte outside will get pretty dirty, and so will the inside. The palette uses a magnetic closing, which is quite nice and practical. I also like the fact that the individual pans can be replaced if needed.

The top row has 3 powder highlighting shades: Vanilla, Banana, and Sand. Only Sand is shimmer while others are matte. The bottom row has 3 powder contouring shades: Java, Fawn, and Havana. Basically, just looking at this, it’s a great palette with a nice variety of shades. Each of the pans holds 3 grams of product. View Post

Makeup Revolution Ultra Sculpt & Contour Kit

 

If you follow me on Instagram (@low_maintenance_beauty), you probably noticed that I received a few packages from Licila.si and Makeuprevolution.si through the month of May. Well, one of the packages got me all excited and today, I’d like to do a quick review of the product.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years, you know that it’s not all about the bass (no treble, lalala), but rather, it’s all about contouring. When looking at photos, I feel like I could cut bread with some of the cheebones of various models and actresses. And with this new trend came a myraid of new products, intended specifically for the purpose, creating a whole new category of beauty product – the contour kits.

Anyway, I was sent the Makeup Revolution Ultra Sculpt & Contour Kit in light-medium.

The palette brings three different products – a matte bronzer, a highlighter and a shimmer blush.

The packaging itself is nothing special, but that can be expected for the price range (with the exception of the MUR Iconic Pro lipsticks I wrote about here – how about that for spectacular packaging). It’s a plastic palette with a mirror. I like that it closes up really well – I wouldn’t be worried to travel with it.


The bronzer has a milk chocolate color and is all matte. For my fair skin, it’s stuck somewhere in the middle – a bit to warm to be a contour color and a bit too dark to use as a bronzer all over my face. I did however try to use it over NYX Taupe blush that I sometimes use for contouring and it really emphasized what I was going for. That, for me atleast, is now the perfect contour combo.

Highlighter is really, really nice – I don’t have anything like this in pressed powder version yet. The color ranges somewhere between peach and champagne and is spectacular on the high points of the face. I would say that a light touch is needed, though, since it really does contain quite a lot of shimmer.

The same applies for the blush. The color looks quite dark and really brown in the palette, but once applied it turns into a lovely copper blush with orange undertones and a lotof shimmer. Again, it will be the perfect summer blush for those sunkissed cheeks, but for now, I’m keeping it in the closet, since I’m still rocking the tan of a Google computer programmer.

I need to say that I had plenty kick-out with the Real Techniques brushes and absolutely none with any of my other brushes. I can’t really put my finger on what makes the difference, but I think that it’s a nice little reminder for any of you.

Here are the swatches – bronzer, highlight and blush from left to right. I tried to seek out some dupes but quickly realized that these colors are completely unique to my collection.

The quality and pigmentation reminds me very much of the Sleek contour palette, but while the Sleek palettes cost about 14 € on Licila.si, this one will be about a third of the price. So far, it’s not yet available in this particular shade (Ultra Fair), but you can already get your hands on the Ultra Light palette (click). I think that it’s absolutely worth the money and give it my seal of approval.

What is your favorite contour palette? Let me know below – I only have four different ones and really feel that I could do with a couple more 😉

Stay beautiful!

Highlighters and illuminators

I’ve spent quite some time and money in the last few months looking for the perfect highlighter and/or illuminator. Somehow I know that when the dull, grey autumn and winter months come rolling in, I’ll need a bit of light in my life. Below, you’ll find some of the products I’ve tried out and whether or not I will get some use out of them.

First up is my first purchase in this category, the NYX Born to glow liquid illuminator in 01 (Sunbeam) which I picked up atMoja drogerija for about 10 €.

I’m sorry about this swatch being so different in lighting – my camera was obviously throwing a fit again.
It’s a beautiful product which is super easy to apply on the cheekbones and brow bone as well. It has some shimmer in it, but isn’t too glittery to use all over the face – I’ve actually mixed some of it into my foundation a couple times during the summer for clubbing nights and it looked perfect as well. This will probably end up in my empties pretty soon since I’ve almost used it up in about 2 months. It’s a product I would definitely recommend for all seasons.

Next up, we have the Essence Soo glow – cream to powder highlight (mine is in 20 – Bright up your life) which I got in one of the DM stores on sale for about 3 €.


I must admit I was pleasantly surprised by this highlighter. I am normally not a big fan of most Essence products but this one does its job. It’s not exactly as heavily pigmented as the NYX highlighter but it’s really creamy and easy to apply and again, not too shimmery not to be appropriate for any season of the year. The only issue I have with this is the promise in the name – I don’t have the feeling of it transforming into a powder once it’s applied. However, you really can’t beat the price-quality ratio of this product – I think it will last me ages to use this up. It can also double as a base for your eyeshadow pretty well.

I picked up the Bourjois Delice de Poudre duo Bronzing powder & highlighter on Look Fantastic. The price of this was again around 10 €, so similar to NYX.


I must say I am not a big fan of this product as far as highlighting goes. It’s a bit too light to be a highlighter, I see it more as being an all-over illuminator, but as such it’s a pain to apply because it has the form of a powder and you’d need quite some time to get it just right in my opinion. When I want the highlighting effect from this product, I have to apply it so heavily it actually feels heavy on my skin and I’m also not sure it doesn’t look a bit to grey for an overall use. So I will probably use the bronzer (which I must also review in the near future probably), but this highlighter will likely remain intact. View Post