Price: $25 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 8 x 0.09 oz The Nyx Highlight & Contour Pro Palette comes with four contour and four highlight shades. The Highlight & Contour Pro Palette is rather big and bulky and has a clear lid. The palette is designed to be able to remove shades and replace or refill them, but I find it difficult to actually get the pans out of the palette. The texture of the shades is quite soft, but they do have some significant powder kick up, which is not always the best for highlight and contour shades. The color variety within this palette should suit most skin tones. Because of this, personally, a couple of the colors are much to dark to be used on my skin, but I plan on replacing those shades with blushes and saving them for use on other people. Although this palette is up-there in price when it comes to drugstore items, it is more affordable than similar highend products. My favorite contour palette is the one from IT Cosmetics, and I will say that the Nyx palette is comparable. The only thing I’m not crazy about is, as I mentioned earlier, the bulky packaging, but that can be overlooked for the product quality. XOX ♥
2 Comments
Price: $5 * Buy At: Five Below * Size: 6 x 1.8 g The City Color Contour To Go Palette comes with four contour shades and two highlight shades. Each contour shade has a very smooth texture and is highly pigmented. On lighter skin tones, applying the contour colors with a light hand would most likely be necessary, but if you have darker skin, this palette would be a great choice. The two highlight shades also have a smooth texture, but are a bit chalky and chunky--especially when swatched with your finger. Once the excess powder is removed, the highlights do look nice and are pigmented, but the formula is not quite as nice as the contour powders. They do apply nicely to the skin, however, despite a slightly chalky swatch on my arm. I prefer the cooler toned bottom row, since the top row can look orange on my cool-toned skin. Overall, this contour palette is great, especially when considered that it is only $5 for six shades--you really cannot beat the price! I have loved every City Color product I have purchased, and would definitely recommend the brand! XOX ♥
Price: $40 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 4 x 7.4 g The Anastasia Beverly Hills That Glow Kit comes with 3 shimmery highlights and 1 shimmery bronzer. The Glow Kit packaging is pretty simple: thin pink cardboard. Like Anastasia’s contour kit, this quad does not contain a mirror. This is fine for me, since it’s not a product I would travel with, but it could pose problems for others. All four shades in the That Glow Kit are on the warm side. What really drew me into this product is each shade’s consistent amazing formula. They are buttery without being powdery and have a very smooth and silky texture. All four powders are easy to apply onto the face and are easy to sheer out to achieve a more natural appearance. The only thing that I am not crazy about with this quad is that the shades Bubbly and Dripping in Gold are super similar in color, so I just wish there was more contrast between the two. $40 does seem to be pricy for a four pan palette, but each shade has quite a bit of product in it. For comparison, each shade in the That Glow Kit is 0.26 oz (at $10 a piece), whereas the popular Laura Geller Gilded Honey Baked Highlight is only 0.16 oz at $26. XOX ♥
Price: $5 * Buy At: Five Below * Size: 3 x 4.5 g The City Color Contour Effects Palette is a contouring trio, including a bronzer, contour powder and highlight. The packaging of the trio is cheap cardboard, but for such an inexpensive price, what else can you expect? The package is super thin, so I figured it would be perfect for travel, although it does not have a mirror. The pans of product are quite large, definitely larger than the pans in the Anastasia Contour Kit. As I expected from a City Color product (after loving their blushes), the three shades are very pigmented! The contour shade, being so pigmented, can end up looking a bit intense on my light skintone, so I just have to use a light hand. I really could see this contour shade working on darker skintones, which is great. The white highlight shade may look stark, but it has a more sheer pigmentation, to avoid a bright, chalky look on the skin. It definitely does not have shimmer, but it does add a bit of a sheen to the skin that gives a glowy appearance. The Bronzer shade is warm, but it doesn't look too warm or muddy on my skin, which is a common problem for me since I have a light, cool skin tone. Overall I really like this palette, and like the simplicity of a trio in the midst of all the large contour kits that everyone is releasing. I have been reaching for it a ton and will continue to do so. XOX ♥
Price: $65 * Buy At: Sephora * Size: 6 x 0.12 oz & 1 x 0.29 oz The Nars NARSissist Cheek Studio Palette consists of seven cheek products: 4 blushes, the Paloma contour/highlight duo and a full sized Laguna bronzer. The NARSissist Cheek Studio Palette comes in a thick rectangular package with a mirrored lid. Although the palette doesn’t have Nars’s typical rubberized packaging, it is still quite prone to getting dirty thanks to the mirror. The formulation of the cheek products is great, there is not a single dud within the palette, which you would hope would be the case with a $65 palette. The Paloma contour powder is on the pink side, so while it works well on my cool toned skin, it may look more like a blush on other skin tones. The Paloma highlight does not do too much to highlight my fair skin, but I can still use it as a setting powder on certain areas of my face. My favorite thing about Nars blushes is how easy they are to blend, and these blushes do not disappoint. They make applying cheek color super fool proof! The only thing that I think would have made this palette better would be a shimmery highlight instead of a matte one, but I have plenty of shimmery highlights in my collection, so I guess it is a welcomed change. All in all, I really like this palette and although it is expensive, I find it to be more worth it than Nars’s other pricy palettes and other high end cheek sets. XOX ♥
Price: $38 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 6 x 0.04 oz, 2 x 0.14 oz, 1 x 0.21 oz The Tarte Showstopper Clay Palette contains six eye shadows, one blush, one contour/bronzer and one highlight powder. The Showstopper Palette comes in a gold circular package with a purple snakeskin design on the lid. The palette has a large mirror on the other side of the lid. The only complaint I have with the shadows is that all of them, except for the dark brown, are mid tone shades, so there is not a huge variety. However, the colors are beautiful and they all have a soft texture and amazing color payoff. All three cheek products also perform great, which is nice to see from a multi use palette like this one. The Champagne Pink highlight gives a very nice glow to the skin, and shows up nicely even on lighter skin. Due to the pink tone of the highlight, it may not be the most flattering on everyone, but it could always be used as an eye shadow instead. I also quite enjoy the Park Ave Princess bronzer. It does not look orange or muddy on the skin and is rather easy to blend out. The Fame blush performs just as nicely as the rest of the Amazonian Clay blushes from Tarte; it has great pigmentation and lasts on the cheeks longer than your average blush. This palette is a great choice for travel, as it is small and contains quality eye shadows and cheek products. So far, I have found my self reaching for this palette quite a bit! XOX ♥
Price: $11.99 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 6 x 1.5 g / 0.05 oz The Nyx Conceal Correct Contour Palette in Light contains six cream face colors: a neutral ivory, a yellow ivory, a pale yellow, a pink ivory, a warm brown and a light pink. The Conceal Correct Contour Palette comes in an ivory compact with a clear lid, straying from their classic black packaging. All of the colors in the palette have a very similar formula, which is great to see. None of the shades were a dud to me. The product feels creamy, but slightly sticky. It's not thick at all, so it is difficult to apply too much. Because of the thinner formula, I don't find the product to crease throughout the day. All of the shades, except for the brown, have a light to medium coverage that is buildable. The brown shade is quite full coverage and opaque. Since the lighter shades aren't full coverage, I don't find this palette to work great for someone that is looking to cover blemishes. I like to use this palette for cream highlighting and contouring, which I prefer over using powder. The brown shade is actually really easy to blend out when applied wherever you would contour. Typically, I contour under my cheekbones and on the sides of my nose, and I highlight under my eyes and down the center of my nose. The three lightest shades in this palette work well on my skin as a highlight, but I don't find much use for the yellow shade, since I have a cool and rather pink skin tone. I wouldn't say that this is a staple product for every makeup collection, but if you are into cream highlighting and contouring, I would definitely pick this one up, especially with the affordable price. XOX ♥
Price: $38 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 0.54 oz The IT Cosmetics My Sculpted Face Palette contains two powder highlights (one is matte and the other has shimmer) and four matte powder contour shades. The palette is made of a sturdy cardboard and has two mirrors on the inside, one is regular and the other is magnifying. I'm not a huge fan of how this palette looks, to me the graphic on the front and the back looks quite outdated. I would have preferred a more simple look, like what is seen in the rest of the IT Cosmetics line. The packaging also features two mirrors, one regular and one magnified. But, it's not about the packaging, it's on the inside that counts. All of the powders have a very smooth and soft texture and are pretty easy to blend out. I do like that the palette has a range of colors, but I don't find myself using the white or the dark brown very often. I thought I would use the white all the time as a matte highlight, but it's so sheer that it barely shows up. The three lighter contour shades give me a nice contoured right at application, but for some reason I find that the color doesn't last on my skin nearly as long as I would have thought. My contour is gone way before my blush, no matter what foundation is under it or if I set it with a setting spray. I found that some reviews on the Ulta website found the same thing to be true. I still think that this palette is a pretty good deal and is great for anyone interested in starting to get into highlight and contour. XOX ♥
Price: $38 * Buy At: Sephora * Size: 2 x 0.14 oz (contour/highlight) , 1 x 0.21 oz (blush) & 6 x 0.035 oz (shadows) The Tarte Rainforest After Dark Colored Clay Eye & Cheek Palette is a large round palette containing three cheek products and six eye shadows. The palette looks like dark wood and has a shiny gold snake design on the lid with Tarte written at the bottom. This is a limited edition product. The Rainforest After Dark palette includes Champagne, a shimmery highlight, Park Ave Princess, a warm matte contour shade, Unleashed, a matte neutral rosey blush, Bare to Explore, a matte pinky beige, Make a Mauve, a neutral browny mauve with a sheen, Plum Away With Me, a warm plum with a sheen, Up To No Gold, a metallic gold, Tan-gled Up In You, a matte warm tan, and Don't Turn A-Brown, a dark matte brown. Everything in this palette is a huge hit for me, not one cheek or eye product let me down. The highlight is very pretty and provides a nice sheen to the cheeks without being frosty. The contour shade is a popular product from Tarte and it doesn't disappoint in this palette. It is quite warm, however, and can look slightly orangey if you aren't careful. The Amazonian Clay blushes are one of my favorite formulas, and the fact that this blush is full size is amazing. All of the shadows have an amazingly buttery texture and have fantastic color payoff. I love the color combo in this palette, and I also love how half of the shadows are matte. I find the first three shadows to be quite unique, and the last three are more typical staple shades. XOX ♥
Price: $5 * Buy At: Ulta * Size: 4 g / 0.14 oz The Nyx Powder Blush in Terra Cotta is a light bronzey peach with subtle shimmer. The Nyx Powder Blushes come in a black plastic compact with a clear lid. Terra Cotta has a very smooth and soft texture without being powdery. It's also pretty pigmented, so I don't have to build it up for it to be noticeable on the cheeks. The shimmer isn't very noticeable when swatched, but it does give the skin a nice glow. XOX ♥
|
Product Reviews
All
Archives
May 2017
|