This SauceBox palette recently ended up in my collection when a few of my friends were de-stashing some stuff from their collections (and I think I even forgot to mention it in my haul videos). I was super keen on it because HELLO RED.
Sauce Box Forbidden FruitsGranted, the SauceBoxForbidden Fruits palette only has one red in it, but my eyes were drawn to it immediately. Sadly, this was a limited edition palette and I’m not even really sure when it was available, but I wanted to swatch it out for my Swatch Sunday series just so I would have a record of it.
Sauce Box Forbidden Fruits
Before we get into the swatches, I need to mention that this palette swatches like garbage. You’ll see terrible pigmentation and what looks like a patchy mess on my arm. Fun fact of swatches is that it only tells half the story – these actually go on my eyes really, really well! I wore the purples and red in my Deadpool inspired look in my May 2018 Beauty Favourites video and I didn’t feel they were patchy at all!
When Anastasia Beverly Hills drops a new Glow Kit, I stop, drop and order it. I have fallen in love more times than I can count with these Glow Kits, so I always want to ensure I’m getting my hands on the latest one!
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Dream
ABH‘s most recent Glow Kit release is titled Dream, and it was developed with deeper skin tones in mind. Over the last few years there’s been a few mentions that highlighting powders tend to have too much white pigment in them which ends up looking quite ashy on darker skintones. The intent with this palette was to remove any of the white pigments used to create these highlighter with the expectation that it would end up looking better on deeper skin tones (however, it was also pointed out that these shades would also work on fair tones).
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Dream
But sadly, I had a lot of problems with this palette. Starting off with the price point – they jacked the price up $5 CAD, which is not in line with any of their other highlighting palettes, including other six-pan iterations they’ve released.
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Dream – swatches
However, my biggest complaint is that while the shade selection appears to be diverse, in practice, it really isn’t. Once buffed into the skin, each shade takes on a different hue of pink. Some shades have a stronger pink cast than the other, but fundamentally EACH shade has a pink reflection to it which makes having six shades utterly pointless.
Anastasia Beverly Hills Dream Glow Kit Face Swatches
Wearing Wish
Wish is probably the least pink out of all of them. It’s described as a “pearl base with violet sparkles”. Yes to pearl, but the violet is actually pink.
Wearing Unicorn
Unicorn is labelled as a “lavender and pink sparkle cluster”, but it’s really just a solid pink.
Wearing Magic
Magic is described as having an “icy base with a kaleidoscope cluster of red, gold, pink and blue sparkles”. Icy base? Sure. Kaleidoscope cluster with all of those colours? Oh hell no. This basically a patina shade with pink reflect. And although it doesn’t look super pink in the shot above, I promise you that in person the only colour I saw on my cheeks was a pink reflect with silver sparkle.
Wearing Ethereal
Ethereal is described as a “cool-toned lavender duo chrome with blue reflective sparkle”. Nope – it’s pink.
Wearing Sunshine
Oh man, I had hope for you Sunshine. Labelled a lavender gold shift, there was promise… right? Nope. It’s a pale gold with a super strong pink reflect.
Wearing Regal
And lastly, the shade I was the most excited about – Regal, a “golden pink base with a light kaleidoscope cluster of pink, gold, and blue sparkles”. Nope – it’s like a paled out peachy-pink. Definitely no kaleidoscope here.
What in the HELL happened with this palette? Maybe it’s truly not meant for me and it works on far deeper skin tones? I just don’t get it – the strongest colour that is present in all of this is a solid PINK. I first noticed it when I was swatching it on my arm and I was a little taken aback since the pans certainly don’t LOOK predominantly pink at first glance.
I started to wonder if it was just me, but I went and checked out the reviews on Sephora and so many people are pointing out just how pink this palette is. And it’s irritating when the pans themselves are so deceiving – the swatches will let you think that this palette has a lot of variety to offer, but as soon as I buffed each shade into my face, all I ended up seeing was varying shades of pink. It was so weird!
The powders are also big on glitter, which is not necessarily a problem for me, but when you add in the fact that all six shades reflect pink AND glitter, it makes you wonder why they even bothered to put six shades in here. This could’ve easily been released as a split pan compact and you would’ve obtained the exact same amount of variety.
Application is also chunkier and harder than previous ABH palettes. I found I had to load up my brush and go in a few times in order to get the product to appear on my cheeks. Which is very strange, because if you stick your finger in the product it feel very soft to the touch. Impressively, the glitter DID stay put on my cheeks – it wasn’t falling out all over the place after I’d placed it on my face.
Final Thoughts
I wanted to love this, but I just don’t need that much freaking pink in my life. Six shades with varying levels of pink is just completely redundant to me. ESPECIALLY when they don’t even look pink in the pan to begin with.
This launch was a huge let down for me because I *adore* my Glow Kits – I have quite a few of them because they’re just so good. But this one isn’t versatile like the others are, and for me it’s a pass. If you freaking LOVE pink though? Get this – it’s all you’ll ever need!
Holllyyyyyyy! JUST LOOK AT THIS BEAUTY! I saw this rainbow dream on Instagram one day and ran out to buy it the very next day!
Teeez Cosmetics – Riot Extreme
Hilariously, the inside of the Teeez CosmeticsRiot Extreme palette would never lead you to believe that there’s a beautiful rainbow on the inside!
Teeez Cosmetics – Riot Extreme
Teeez Cosmetics is one of those brands that I know next to nothing about. Judging by the back of the box, the brand seems to be based in The Netherlands, but they can be hard to get your hands on. In Canada they seem to only be available via The Bay.
Teeez Cosmetics – Riot Extreme
I’ll be using this palette in an upcoming video (like how perfect is this palette for a Pride look???), but until then, please enjoy the swatches!
There are some makeup items in this world that inspire rabid obsessiveness in me… and the StilaGlitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows are one of those.
It all started rather innocently with this single Glitter & Glow in Kitten Karma that I was sent by PR many moons ago (see that full review from 2017 here). I loved it upon initial application. I was astounded by how easily the applicator applied the product (so precisely and so opaquely!), impressed by how solid the glitter intensity was, and ultimately floored that no one, until now, had created a product as miraculous as this one.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows
Of course, then I had a real damn problem.
I. Wanted. All. Of. Them.
These beautiful little packages of glitter heaven are $31 CAD/$24 USD apiece and I started buying them at every opportunity. I bought them at IMATS (I think I got a few of them at $10 each then!), I bought them at Sephora (at full price and during their sales) and even picking a few up at BeautyBoutique.ca. They are not cheap, but they are worth every single penny of the price tag as I have never found an easier to apply glitter product before.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows
So here we are – it’s a year later and I now own 11 of these beauties and I love them dearly. I used to have 12, but I ended up giving away one shade because it turned out to be so unlike all the others I had. The shade in question is Molten Midnight (black with silver sparkle) – beautiful to be sure, but it creased on me like nothing else. This was a shock as none of the other shades had done this to me! So I gave it away because I knew I would never use it. The rest of the shades though? They’re flawless!
Stila Glitter & Glow Applicator
It’s absolutely wild to be me that this simple flat doe foot applicator works so well to apply the product! I can use this little guy to apply the product opaquely to my eye and then turn it on its side and use the narrow side to feather/blend it out into my eyeshadow.
One thing not to be confused about with these is that Stila makes a Glitter & Glow product (which is what’s featured in this review), but they also make one called a Shimmer & Glow and it’s in identical packaging. Even more curious is that I feel like the consistency is not equal across all the Glitter & Glows. While some of them pack a TON of glitter, there are others in here that I would quantify as more of a shimmer (more specifically, I feel like Enchantress, Sea Siren and Into The Blue have very little glitter and far more shimmer). This can make for a bit of a confusing product – I personally love the glitter aspect and therefore expect glitter in these products, but that isn’t always exactly what you’re getting. Let’s take a look at some swatches so I can show you what I mean.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Perlina, Diamond Dust and Gold Goddess – swatched
The three pictured above are the ones that definitely have the most glitter in them, which makes them hella hard to photograph (for me anyway).
Perlinais more of a translucent base with white glitter particles that shimmer cool colours (teal, purple, pink). Oddly, Perlina fits under their “Metallic finish” under their Glitter & Glow range, and yet it’s definitely more glitter than metallic.
Diamond Dust is a beautiful silver with probably the MOST glitter in it in out of all of the ones I own. It also reflects a rainbow of colours when looked at indirectly/out of focus.
Gold Goddessis a soft pale gold that is pure gold glitter.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Perlina, Diamond Dust and Gold Goddess – swatched
To see the colouring a bit better, I took these photos from an angle instead of straight on. You can see the glitter particles in more detail and the difference in the colours is a bit more identifiable this way.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Gypsy, Sea Siren and Into The Blue – swatched
Some of the newer releases tend to have more shimmer in them (despite being classified as Glitter & Glow), so I’m not really sure what’s going on with the formula difference, but these are still incredibly pretty!
Gypsy is a beautiful lilac with pink pearl. This one has more shimmer than glitter in my opinion.
Sea Siren fits in their metallic category of Glitter & Glow and it’s definitely more of a metallic duochrome that shifts purple or teal depending on the angle the shade is viewed at.
Into The Blue is another metallic and it looks super blue in some lighting and very purple in others.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Gypsy, Sea Siren and Into The Blue – swatched
Change the angle of the shot and you can see just how much Gypsy transforms! Isn’t that colour wild?? Sea Siren and Into The Blue also show their shade range when you bend the colour around my arm such as in these swatches, which would be similar to the bend in your eye (granted, your eye is a smaller surface).
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Smoky Storm, Kitten Karma, Enchantress, Rose Gold Retro and Smoldering Satin – swatched
If you’re looking for some glitter without going for straight up colour, Stila does make a TON of nude and neutral shades for you to choose from. For the most part it’s a nude base with silver glitter thrown in.
Smoky Storm is a light pewter with silver glitter.
Stila Glitter & Glow Liquid Eyeshadows in Smoky Storm, Kitten Karma, Enchantress, Rose Gold Retro and Smoldering Satin – swatched
When you change the angle on these the colour shift isn’t really there as these aren’t duochromatic shades like the first ones I swatched. What’s neat about these is that you basically choose what colour base you like most, and then go with that shade.
To see these products in action, I do have two videos you can check out if you want to see how I use them.
The video above uses Into The Blue.
The video above uses Smoky Storm.
Final Thoughts
Although I’ve reviewed one shade before, I had to update you on just how much I love this range. Every time I get an opportunity I pick up yet another Glitter & Glow, and I think that speaks volumes. This formula is truly groundbreaking for the beauty industry! I hope that Stila continues to put out more and more of them – I’d particularly like to see them put out more colourful shades in the Glitter range (they’ve added a few colourful shades to the Shimmer line, but I’m not interested in those – I want glitter!). If you’re looking for an easy way to apply glitter, then don’t look any further than this. You won’t have to deal with loose glitter and you don’t need a specific glitter primer either – my regular ole eyeshadow primer works just fine for these!
Seemingly out of nowhere, Smashbox added a new Cover Shot palette to their lineup: Pinks + Palms!
Smashbox Cover Shot Pinks + PalmsLike all the other palettes in this range, it’s a small compact palette with 8 shades. What I like about these palettes is that they provide a variety of shades for a lower price point – something that is desperately needed more and more in the beauty industry.
