Benefit definitely knows how to do the holidays, and their holiday 2019 Brow Superstars definitely doesn’t disappoint! I mean just look at this thing! It’s a tophat! And it’s filled with full size products!

The Brow Superstars Set comes in three different shades (2, 3 & 4) and contains six full size products at a seriously reduced price tag. The retail value of the whole set is $192 CAD if you were to buy them individually, but the set altogether is going for $79 CAD which is absolutely wild.

If you’re a fan of Benefit‘s brow products and use even only about three of these on the regular, then this becomes an amazing deal. It also gives you the opportunity to try out additional products in the same colour range

Swatched out you can see the difference between all six products. The only one that looks slightly off to me is Gimme Brow which looks a touch warmer, and Browtones which looks a bit cooler than all the rest of them. Excluding, of course, the Brow Setter which is just a clear brow gel.

I’m very familiar with Precisely, My Brow, so I already know that I like the product a lot. What was interesting was trying out 3D Browtones which is what I layered on top of Precise, My Brow. It’s pegged as a product to add highlights and dimension, which is why it’s a little bit more reflective than the other products (in the swatches above). Don’t worry though, it doesn’t make your brows look reflective! I found it added a touch of dimension to my brows, but overall it’s Precisely, My Brow that definitely did all of the heavy lifting.

Ka-Brow was a new to me product that I was curious to try. Unfortunately, I found the application of the product to be a bit stiff because the product itself seemed a bit dried out in the bottle. I like the overall effect, but I think next time I’d add a bit of INGLOT Duraline to soften up the formula.

Okay WOW. Gimme Brow was the one that impressed me the most. I used it over top of some of my regular brow products and I LOVED the effect of it. It add a bit of oomph to my brows and helped me to brush them upwards (and held them in place) which really helped to add more volume to my brows. LOVE this one!

Goof Proof is intended for easy, fast filling of your brows. It has a diamond shape, and I definitely need to learn to play with the angles a bit better (my tail is a shambles here!), but it was definitely lightning quick to get my eyebrows filled in!

Final Thoughts

At the price point that Benefit is offering this set, it’s a hell of a good package. Especially if you’re someone (or you know someone) who really likes to change up how they do their brows day to day. I also like that it gives someone the opportunity to try something new out too. Although I was familiar with Precisely, My Brow – I didn’t have a lot of experience with the other products, but now I’ve found a new favourite in that Gimme Brow! The only item I won’t really get use out of is the clear brow gel just because I need the bulk that Gimme Brow adds, and the clear brow gel would only set my (non existent) brow hairs in place. The only slightly irksome thing about this collection is that they’ve only released it in three colours. And while I’m sure the shades they chose are their most popular brow colours, it would’ve been nice to see their full range available. That being said… shade 2 definitely worked for me and I was happy to play around with the set and I know I’m going to be using the bulk of these products up!

The Benefit Brow Superstars set is currently on sale at Sephora.ca for $66 CAD or at ulta.com (also on sale!) for $49 USD.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post contains affiliate links.

I’ve been long lamenting the fact that I haven’t been enjoying many face palettes in the last few years. I feel like ever since Tarte released their Off The Cuff palette (in 2013 for crying out loud!), I just haven’t been happy with anything else. And since it’s six years later now… well, I can definitely say I’ve been looking a long damn time for something fresh and new that could even come close to rivaling that Tarte palette. Well… I think I’ve found it!

And it comes to us courtesy of Benefit taking some of their existing blush shades, whacking them in a new format of palette and tossing in brand new highlighters. While I’ve always been interested in Benefit‘s blushes and bronzers, I’ve never been attracted to the box packaging. (So much so that I had a Hoola bronzer and ended up decluttering it because I just couldn’t get down with the box.) So this packaging immediately drew me in because of so many factors: no boxy packaging, no brush (honestly that weird straight cut “brush” they put in their boxes is just garbage) and it’s in cardboard packaging which is a personal favourite of mine. Heck, I even like the name Cheekleaders. How cute is that??

I was *EXCITED* to try these out!

The first Cheekleaders I ended up playing with is an all in one face palette. This is the Mini Bronze Squad and it comes with their traditional Hoola shade, their Gold Rush blush, and a brand new highlighter called Cookie.

I already knew I liked Hoola from having had it in the past, so that was a win. I was impressed with the reflective ability of Cookie, and then I was kind of like “well okay” to Gold Rush since it seemed like such a boring shade. I should’ve known better though…

…since some of my most loved blushes look the most boring in their pans. And sure enough, the combo of Gold Rush, Cookie and Hoola was a frigging knockout! I love how Gold Rush adds a bit of colour to my cheeks without going overboard, and then Cookie comes in with a glowing ethereal bang!

So the Mini Bronze Squad trio? Amazing. My compliments to the chef!

Although I tried the bronze squad first, I was the most intrigued by the Mini Pink Squad. Likely because Galifornia is MY kind of coral, and I’d heard that Dandelion was a lovely every day shade.

Sure enough, Galifornia is an absolute stunner. Although I have to say Dandelion seemed kind of dusty in a swatch. Tickle, the highlighter, while it fits the pink theme of the palette, is definitely a colour I don’t tend to reach for as much. It’s a pink/lavender shift with a slight gold reflect to it. It’s actually fairly unique, and once I got used to the concept of the shade, I ended up loving it too.

For this look I’ve got Dandelion on my cheeks with Tickle as a highlighter on top. I feel like Dandelion performed a lot like Gold Rush does, albeit pinker. It definitely wasn’t the dusty mess that the swatch led me to believe. It’s a soft “boring” shade, but it does wonders on the cheeks to liven them up. Tickle is definitely a softer highlighter when compared to Cookie from the previous palette, but I think it works out well with the more pink tones of the blushes in this palette.

And finally – my favourite shade – Galifornia. This is definitely the strongest blush I’ve used by Benefit – it’s incredibly pigmented, so be sure to go in with a light hand.

If you can believe it, the Tickle highlighter actually helped to subdue a bit of the colour of the blush which was kind of interesting.  It grounded the blush a bit more than I think a super bright highlighter would’ve done.

All in all though? Another fantastic trio!

Final Thoughts

Holy crap, am I ever in love. I had initially liked the look of these Cheekleaders palettes before I even played with them, but once I got to using them on my face I was even more impressed. The colours just work together, and I didn’t feel the need to reach for different face products outside of these trios for a few weeks. I know Benefit‘s boxed powders aren’t anything new, and many people have been loving them for quite a long time, but as I said at the beginning of this post – I was so turned off by the box packaging that I just never bothered to pick any of them up outside of Hoola. Now that I have them in a mini compact form I am so, so in love with them. And what’s exciting about these is that they retail for $40 CAD each – which is the price of one of their regular size bronzers or blushes (which, unless you’re pummeling through only one blush year ’round – you will NEVER finish). So for my $40 CAD, I’m getting three powders at 2.5 grams each which I think is frankly incredible. Well done Benefit, I love these so, so much!

The Benefit Cheekleaders Trios can be purchased at sephora.ca for $40 CAD or on benefitcosmetics.com for $30 USD.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for review. Post contains affiliate links.