re.view: Anastasia lavish palette

A bit later than promised, but after a really good road test - a review on the Anastasia Lavish Palette!

Let's just have a look at this palette... I've hear other blogger exclaim it's beauty, but I actually find it....OK. It doesn't strike me as a piece of art, nor does the excess of the cover particularly turn me on or off. It does feel well-made and weighty enough in my hands though. It feels lavish enough to deserve the name.

House in a decorative card box, it contains, a booklet of looks, eyeshadow palette, tweezers, mini brow pencil (dark brown-black), eyeliner pencil, and dual ended brush.

The back of the case contains details of all the ingredients - those with sensitive skin will appreciate this detail! I've also included this picture in case any pesky fakes rear their ugly head...

The booklet included gives a range of looks created with the Lavish palette/set that range from natural(ish) to dramatic. I was hoping for a few more looks that this, but searches for looks via Google is fairly fruitful for this one. I could even do some if you really want...! The looks it seems are created by bloggers which is a nice touch and a nod to the community.

Under the booklet, and lifting off the palette for the time being, the case houses four eye-related treasures and they are kept snug and safely inside a foam-cut casing. This seems ideal if you wanted to take it on your travels and contains pretty much all you need for the eyes except a primer.

Here is a close-up of the set... You can see the size of the products in proportion to the full-sized tweezers.








The eyeliner is jet-black and very smooth to apply. It doesn't quite go on like a gel, but is nice, waxy and long-lasting. I have used this in my waterline without any irritation. I can't vouch for quite how long it will last though as I have quite watery water-lines. But this holds up as well as my Urban Decay liner in Perversion.

The Anastasia tweezers are fabulous! I haven't ever used a 'high end' tweezer (having only uprgaded my eyelash curlers to some Shiseido ones a few months ago - N.B. totally worth it), but the difference is remarkable. My old tweezers (probably own brand from Boots) do the job just fine, but I would have to leave a few pesky tiny hairs in place until they grew out a bit more. Not so with this little angel - everything out, no quibbles.




I've yet to give the eyebrow pencil a good go, because I've been using my Rimmel one with a little brush on the end without an problems. But I find that the texture of this one is satisfyingly hard meaning that it maintains a sharp point for much longer and is suited to drawing on individual hairs. I've not got too much to fill in in my brows, just needing a couple of extra 'hairs' on the ends to make them a smidgen longer - this does the trick nicely, but doesn't outperform my Rimmel one so much that I'd hunt it down on its own.

The dual ended brush provides two quite fluffy instruments. The flatter one can be used to lay down shadow, but because of it's fluffiness the application is still quite sheer. Unless you have a brush you prefer to hand, I'd recommend laying down a wash on the centre of the lid with your finger and then taking it out to the edges with this end of the brush.

The tapered fluffy brush is perfect for deepening colour in the crease of the eye or adding a different dimension of colour there. For blending I prefer a slightly bigger fluffy brush (I have my favourites from Coastal Scents) but it does a nice enough job to actually use. I keep mine in the palette in case I want to pack it to go somewhere.

Right, at last, the star of the show! The Lavish palette itself. Buttery soft, and nicely pigmented shadows. I won't wax lyrical about these because I think that sums it up, but I will add a few comments on the shades.

The selection of colours is quite Autumnal and so I find it's perfect for this time of year. I feel that it might get put to the back during the spring and summer months and then excitedly revealed once more come the cooler seasons.

There are a couple of matte shades, a cream for highlighting (Cream), and an orange-cream for blending (Orange Soda). This might be an issue if you have a darker or more pink skin tone than me (light-medium, yellow-undertone), though there is a pure powder pink (Ballet). Although I have used all of the colours here, I have gravitated toward the purple-raspberry-shimmer 'Pink Safire' and russet-brown-red 'Truffle' more than others. Moss is also beautiful, but I don't wear greens all that often.

Antique is a grey, but slightly more interesting and warm than your norm. I keep meaning to find a use for Sienna, a burnt orange colour, but haven't so far - I think this would work nicely as a transition colour to peek out around the edges of...something...but I can't quite figure out what. If you have any ideas I'd love to try them out! I haven't had much use for the sparkly black shade yet either, but I think would be nice as an overlay to an otherwise simple black smokey eye.

Here are the swatches. The ones on the far left don't show up well on my skin tone, but do show up enough as a base colour on the eyes.

All in all, I do recommend this. I think it is a very good price for all this stuff at £26. Does it excite me in quite the same way as the Vice 2 palette?.....No. But quite frankly I'm not sure what will. If you like warmer colours, you will get a lot of use from this.