This product is not set to launch until March, but I thought I'd let y'all into the loop. This palette is supposedly an all in one cheek palette and contains 4 blushes and 3 highlighters/bronzers. I spoke to a member of City Color's affiliate team and the blushes are basically the coveted Be Matte Blushes, but with a very light hint of shimmer and the highlighters can suit a variety of skin tones and apparently the darker shades can be used as bronzers (not so sure about that one thought). This palette will also retail for $25, which sounds a little much for a drugstore level makeup line, but the pan sizes, color payoff, and gigantor mirror makes it a little easier to shell out for in my opinion.
Let's start out with the packaging. It isn't the highest quality plastic and the surface, including the metallic decal, are already showing surface scratches, but it's surprisingly sturdy and the mirror is massive - an impressive feature for a lower cost brand.
The palette has seven products; four blushes and three massive pans of super shimmery highlighters. The shades look like they can suit skin tones from fair to medium/deep. Six of the seven shades have mind-blowing pigmentation, but the far right blush underperforms when compared to the rest. That being said, it's still a perfectly usable blush and probably my favorite shade.
The blushes are pretty much matte. There is a tiny smattering of shimmer mixed in with the matte base, but I don't find that it shows up obviously on the cheeks. All four shades do have a fair amount of powder kick up, however I'm willing to look past that because of the awesome pigmentation. These do need a little extra blending time when compared to, say, my current favorite Benefit Rockateur Blush, but I'm comparing a nearly $30 blush to something that normally retails for $6.
The left blush is a warm mid-tone pink. On lighter skin like mine, it can pull a little ruddy looking so a lighter touch is needed.
The right blush is definitely on the cooler end of the spectrum. It's kind of the midway point between bubblegum pink and a light orchid shade. This one personally isn't for me, but eh. It still has great pay off.
The far right blush is the least pigmented of the lot, but that's ok because it's more of a warm nude-ish blush for light complexions. I'm a bit of a minimal blush person so I actually ended up favoring this one the most.
I personally find the highlights to be a little too shimmery, but that's more of a personal preference since I prefer glow over shimmer. The brand rep mentioned that the darker shades can be used as bronzer, but I really don't think so. They're far too shimmery to be used as a bronzer, and I can't really see the purple-y one translating well as a sunkissed glow. The texture of these is similar to the Becca Pressed Highlights, but there is definitely more traction against your fingertip as if there was much more binder in this product, however the level of color payoff is nearly identical to Becca.
The center highlight is a pretty standard champagne with some gold thrown in there. It's similar-ish to Becca Opal, but with less peach.
The left initially gave me pause because, hello... that's purple! But after playing around with it, it does translate well on skin... just not my light skin. It can tend to look a bit murky or dirty on fair to light skin, but it would look bangin' on the deepest of deep skin tones. Also, don't worry about having a purple streak - it totally blends out differently than what you see in the pan.
Now let's talk turkey... would I recommend this for the average beauty enthusiast? Well, that depends on your skin tone and the level of intensity you like your blush and highlight. This can be pretty overwhelming for very fair people and light people with a soft spot for more subtle cheeks probably won't reach for it much, but I think it'll ideally work for light/medium and on. I'd also suggest picking this up if you want some more variety without having to pay a huge sum of money, or if you're trying to grow your beginning freelance kit because there are quite a few products complementary to a variety of skin tones.
If you'd like to get 15% off your order at City Color Cosmetics use my code "SCIENCEOFCHIC". expires 4/30/16
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