Beautycounter is an entirely new to me brand. In fact, the only thing I even knew about them was that they made some kind of skincare and that Stephanie Nicole had mentioned them buying up one of her favourite facial cleansers. That’s REALLY not a lot to go on, so I was essentially diving head first without looking into this brand!

Beautycounter produces makeup alongside skincare, but their backstory is not dissimilar to a lot of other brand creators out there who are suddenly becoming more conscientious about what they’re putting on their faces. Beautycounter was on a mission to get safer products out there to everyone. They even house a “Never List” on their web site that tells you a shortened version of all the chemicals they were never dump in their products.

Moving on to the actual reviews! First up are the lip glosses. These are part of the Desert Sunrise collection release, but I believe they’re being added to their permanent range of glosses as they’re now listed as “new shades”.

They are lightly vanilla scented (very similar to MAC’s lipglasses) and have the most unique applicator I’ve seen to date: it’s a triangular doefoot applicator with a slot in the middle of it. I like the rounded-point tip as it makes it very easy to get around your cupid’s bow, and the slot in the middle actually helps to collect the excess product you may have gotten onto the wand. It basically gets pushed through to the other side so that you can get them flip the applicator over and do your bottom lip with the remaining product.

Of course, the two shades in the collection, Coralbell and Beeblossom, are right up my alley.

• Coralbell is a glorious peachy-coral-apricot shade that comes off as a cream finish. I think I detect microglitter in there in the swatch, but it is not noticeable on the lips.
• Beeblossom is a stunning true peach with gold glitter.

Coralbell has the most pigment out of the two shades I tried. It will require a little bit more fussing to make sure you have an even coat.

Beeblossom is the easier shade to wear since it has a bit more translucency to it.

The Desert Sunrise palette is beautiful to behold: it comes with three hefty sized blushes (and that red shade is everrrrything to me!), as well as six eyeshadows (two of which are new shades to the brand – Khaki and Bark). Unlike the lip glosses, this is a limited edition palette, so keep that in mind if this selection of colours really piques your interest.

The shades in the palette range from a satin finish to a lightly shimmery one. There’s no glitter on sight which is good news for those of you who are allergic to it! 😉

The blushes were the real stunners of this palette for me. I am IN LOVE with that Flamingo shade, and the pink shade makes for a great every day colour as well as the bronzey-pink which does wonders to liven up my cheekbones.

Beautycounter Desert Sunrise Makeup Look

On my eyes I have Champagne all over the lid, Pinot on the outer corner and a mix of Dove and Bark through my crease. To highlight my inner corner and brow bone, I used Pearl, and then lined my lower lash line with Khaki.

Final Thoughts

One of the things I haven’t mentioned up until now is the cost of these items. I found the price points kind of shocking since they’re rivalling some high end brands at Sephora: the lip glosses retail for $36 CAD and the palette is $75 CAD. While I can get behind the lip gloss packaging okay enough, I’m struggling with the palette. It’s entirely made up for cardboard with no mirror. For that price tag, I would expect to see a mirror in there!

Moving on to the quality of the products… The lip glosses are glorious! They’re creamy and non-sticky. They smell wonderful and apply easily. My personal favourite was Beeblossom just because it was an easy to wear shade that didn’t require you to really make sure your lips were done “properly”. They are glosses, so the longevity isn’t anything amazing, but they do wear off nicely which is something I always appreciate.

The eyeshadow palette is smooth and easy to use – the colours blended together very, very nicely without much effort. The only thing I found a disappointing for me personally is that shades came off very muted. This may be appealing to some people though since not everyone is looking for in your face colour with every single palette! The end result IS pretty, but I like a little more impact in my eyeshadow. Those blushes though? They are INCREDIBLE! I love the texture, the finish and the shades so, so much!

The products featured in this post were sent to me for review.