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!

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.)

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.

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:

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

While I’m not done with highlighting as a trend, I feel like I am personally done with limited edition highlighting kits – ESPECIALLY when they sell out so damn fast and then no one has a chance to get their hands on it ever again. And let’s face it… the ABH Glow Kits fly so fast off the shelves it’s a wonder we even get to talk about them before they’re gone! However, they fly off the shelves for good reason: they’re DAMN good products!

So for that reason, I wasn’t going to buy the Anastasia Beverly Hills x Nicole Guerriero Glow Kit – because I just didn’t need it. I’ve picked up a ton of ABH Glow Kits over the last year or so and I love them intensely – I use them constantly! But at a certain point, you’ve just had enough, you know? Like, there’s only so many shades of highlighter (especially in the champagne vein) that you can use before they all start to look the same.

So when my dear friend Julie of Swatch and Review offered to loan me this particular Glow Kit for review, half of me was like “ugh, why bother? I don’t need more highlighters and this doesn’t look unique” and the other side of me was like “oh dear god please do not fall in love with this so much that I want to buy one for myself”.

Anyway, my personal inner monologue aside, let’s take a look at the palette: the Nicole Guerriero Glow Kit is excessively warm, which seems to be a general trend with powdered products lately. You get six pans at 4.5 grams each – which is more than enough product, especially given the amount of variety you’re faced with!

One thing worth noting is that some of these pans do contain glitter in them.  143 for sure has glitter, and I think it was Daydream that had it as well. I know not everyone is a fan of glitter pieces in their highlighter, so I wanted to make sure that got mentioned.

Swatched out, I was surprised how similar all the colours looked. While I was supremely enchanted by the look of Kitty Kat, it’s really not that different from Forever Young beside it. Glo Getter and 143 also look surprisingly similar in swatches as well. The most unique shade in this assortment is definitely Daydream in my eyes – I’ve been hunting for an orange-tinged highlighter to round out my collection (I swear I have every other shade of the rainbow) and I can’t think of anything that’s similar.

Anastasia Beverly Hills x Nicole Guerriero Glow Kit – Face Swatches

Final Thoughts

Some would venture to say that the ABH x Nicole Guerriero Glow Kit is too deep for pale folk, but I feel like each and every shade of this palette works on my NW20 skin tone. If you’re paler than me, you may struggle with Glo Getter and 143, as I feel I’m right on the verge of those shades being a touch too deep for me. However, considering that when you look at this palette the overall shade range seems deeper than normal, I’m surprised and impressed that they did work out on my skintone.

Is this palette necessary in your life? I don’t know – I’m kind of struggling with my thoughts on this one. The palette itself is beautiful, and I love how each and every shade looks on my skin. The effect is ethereal, luminous and glowing and there isn’t a shade in here I wouldn’t wear on the daily. However… I also feel like a lot of the shades are very, very similar and don’t reflect enough variety for my own tastes. I also feel like I’ve got a metric ton of highlighters in my collection that make this palette somewhat unnecessary to own in addition to what I already have.

That being said, if you like the look of this palette and/or you’re a fan of Nicole Guerriero, I don’t think you can go wrong buying this palette. The quality is excellent and the overall effect is glorious.  For me though, this didn’t fill enough gaps in my highlighter collection to necessitate buying it (although I’m damn glad I got to try it out. Thanks Julie! Sidenote, she also reviewed this palette today too, so be sure to check out her review here for her take on it!).

Let me know what your take on this palette is! I’m especially curious to hear from people who are looking to bulk up their highlighter collection – do you think this would be a great addition to your collection?

The Anastasia Beverly Hills x Nicole Guerriero Glow Kit is a limited edition item and can be purchased on sephora.ca for $52 CAD and on sephora.com for $40 USD.

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