Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora (Review & Swatches)

Makeup, Reviews, Swatches

Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora

At this point it should be no surprise that I go bananas over every new Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit launch. It first started with Gleam, then I fell madly in love with Moonchild and Sweets, and then finally I tried out the Nicole Guerriero palette. So I was ecstatic when we discovered that the new Aurora palette was going to be available at IMATS New York when we were there last month!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora

I had a few up and down moments with this palette. The shots online looked absolutely glorious: the shades were very different than the previous Glow Kit launches and they seemed really, really beautiful. However, when I got my hands on it IRL, I felt a bit deflated. The colours seemed less saturated (possibly a good thing), but it also seemed like the WEIRDEST mix of colours for a Glow Kit. (That being said, there’s so many highlighters on the market that it can be hard to top every previous launch, so I do understand why the colours are a bit kooky.)

Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora

As a result, I spent a bit of time looking at this palette being like “what the heck?”. And I think I finally figured out why I felt that way: on my skin tone, the shades I was most excited about (Spectra and Orion) verge on being unwearable. I’ve seen a few people commenting that this is much better for deeper skin tones than myself, so that may be a potential factor.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora - swatches
Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora – swatches

Taking a look at the shades, four of them are “easy enough” to wear: Eclipse, Luna, Helia and Lyra. Spectra and Orion are extremely colour heavy and when I wear them on my face I feel like I am overtly aware of my highlighter. I know that’s a weird thing to say for someone who does love off-colour highlighter (blues and greens are my favourite), but there’s something about those shades that just doesn’t work for me right out of the gate.

Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Aurora – Face Swatches

Let’s take a look at the individual face shots:

Wearing Eclipse
Wearing Eclipse

In the pan, Eclipse looks very peach but I feel it comes out more pink-toned on my skin.

Wearing Luna
Wearing Luna

Luna is a silver-white that would fall under your basic “silver-white” highlighter category.

Wearing Spectra
Wearing Spectra

Spectra is very, very interesting. It a pigmented purple with a pink reflect. The face shot is not showing nearly the amount of pigment that comes off on this colour – it can be very difficult for me to wear. I can’t go in full blast and I do have to have a bit of a tan (my body is tanned and I’m wearing a darker foundation in these shots) to make this colour work.

Wearing Helia
Wearing Helia

Helia is the most incredible looking colour in the pan – it’s a weird green-yellow hybrid that comes off a lot more golden on the cheekbones. This is a LOT more wearable than the pan makes it look.

Wearing Orion
Wearing Orion

Orion is a total failure on me and I have no clue how to make this one work. While the shot above looks okay-ish, in person it’s a disaster. This is a straight up blue streak on my face with a highly reflective sheen.

Wearing Lyra
Wearing Lyra

My favourite of the whole lot is Lyra. In the pan it’s very orange (which I’ve been looking for in a highlighter), but it comes out beautifully peachy on my cheeks. This shade does have some specks of glitter in the pan – which doesn’t bother me, but I know some people do not want glitter in their highlighters.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know how I feel about this palette. Maybe just neutral? The Aurora Glow Kit has a nice array of shades that haven’t been available in any of the previous Anastasia Beverly Hills highlighter palettes. I appreciate this, but I’m also starting to feel totally tapped out on highlighters now because I feel like we’ve explored every single shade that’s out there that could be workable. It’s entirely possible that this Kit would look better on a deeper skin tone and just missed the mark for me in that respect (which is fine! Not everything is or should be tailored to paler skin tones!). Alternatively, you could also use these as eyeshadows but that’s not something I find myself doing with highlighting palettes.

In the end, for me, I do feel that this is a barely wearable palette and I much prefer the Moonchild and Sweets palettes (which are still available on their web site). So if you want to pick up a Glow Kit, I’d steer you more towards those.

If you’ve tried this palette out, I would love to hear your thoughts!

Swatch Sunday: Cargo You Had Me At Aloha

Makeup, Swatches

Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha

The Cargo Cosmetics You Had Met At Aloha showed up somewhere on my Instagram feed and I was sooo intrigued by this palette! The colour palette just really called to me.

Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha
Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha

Sadly, as I’m writing this, I’m discovering that it doesn’t seem to be in stock anywhere at the moment and I have no idea if they’re going to be relaunching it (I have e-mails out to the appropriate people though – so I’ll modify this text if/when I hear back!)

Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha
Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha

Enjoy the swatches!

Cargo Cosmetics You Had Me At Aloha Swatches

Cargo - Hula
Cargo – Hula
Cargo - Waikiki
Cargo – Waikiki
Cargo - Hapuna
Cargo – Hapuna
Cargo - Kona
Cargo – Kona
Cargo - Shell
Cargo – Shell
Cargo - Shaka
Cargo – Shaka
Cargo - Hibiscus
Cargo – Hibiscus
Cargo - Island
Cargo – Island
Cargo - Kai
Cargo – Kai
Cargo - Tiki
Cargo – Tiki
Cargo - Lei
Cargo – Lei
Cargo - Luau
Cargo – Luau
The product featured in this post was sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.

Fitness Friday: Sporting Life 10K 2017

Fitness, Running,
Myself and Jordan before the start of the race
Myself and Jordan before the start of the race

This was my third time running the Sporting Life 10K as I had somehow gotten myself roped into it by my coworkers. I say “roped into it” because a the 10K distance is my least favourite race distance. There’s just something so awkward about 10K – you have to run close to your 5K pace… and yet it’s for double the distance! Ugh! Plus, I had kinda bombed my last 10K race in New York City (that race recap can be found here) so I kinda figured I wasn’t really set up properly (in training) for this distance.

The one massive upside though? Almost the entire course for the Sporting Life 10K is downhill, which automatically means you’ll be pulling a faster time overall.

The start zone for the Sporting Life race - facing south down Yonge Street
The start zone for the Sporting Life race – facing south down Yonge Street

My friend Jordan and I live in the same neighbourhood so we Ubered up to the start zone and got in our corral mere minutes before the race started. I like getting there just before the race starts because then you’re not standing around idle freezing your butt off until you start running, so it worked out well for us! We were both in the 56-59 minute finish time corral. I was hopeful for a 56 minute finish, but my last race a month prior had been just shy of 60 so I was kinda doubtful. Jordan had never done a 10K race before, but he’d run the distance the previous week and had clocked in around 55 minutes, so he could’ve potentially gone in the faster group. As our group started out, we wished each other well and started out at our own pace.

I tried to find my coworkers throughout the race, but I never saw them. I knew we were in the same corral, but when the race has approximately 20 THOUSAND people in it, it can be very difficult to find someone amongst the masses!

Hitting the finish line track mats!
Hitting the finish line track mats!

Although the 10K distance is not my favourite, this IS a lovely course. The downhill section (basically the first 7-8 kilometers) gives you a completely different vantage point than you would normally see in any given race. You’re constantly looking far down ahead of you and all you can see are masses of people. It might look like a crowded mess at times (and it certainly feels like that when you’re trying to get around people!), but it’s a beautiful mess because you know that we’re all in this together.

Sidenote: This was one of the WORST races in recent memory of people coming to a crashing halt in the middle of the course. People please – DO NOT STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COURSE! Slow yourselves to a halt by the sides, not in the middle! (Read this post on What NOT To Do In A Race – it might be helpful.)

All finished!
All finished!

I crossed the track mats a little bit unaware of my finish time – I couldn’t for the life of me remember what my previous paces had been on this course. I prefer comparing this race only to my other Sporting Life races because of the downhill aspect – everyone is automatically faster on this course, so using this as a personal best time is just ridiculous since it has severe advantages over even a flat course.

In the end, I finished the race with a time of 56:12 – which turned out to be my fastest on this course (by 11 seconds from my 2014 race). Even more interesting is that I basically kept the same pace for the entire race – which is something I almost never manage to accomplish. My first 5K was at a pace of 5:36/k and my second 5K at 5:38/k. Usually I plummet in speed for the second half of any race, so  this really felt like I had more endurance overall. I was DEAD pleased about that!

This year is shaping up really well for my race paces and I’m so, so happy that I finally feel on track again!

2017 Sporting Life 10K map and stats via my Garmin
2017 Sporting Life 10K map and stats via my Garmin

Race Recap

  • Finish Time: 56:12
  • Pace: 5:37 per kilometer
  • Overall placement: 6118/18500
  • Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 409/1687
  • Gender placement (F): 2314/10552