The new limited edition Anastasia Beverly Hills palette has come out. It’s called Shadow Couture – World Traveler Palette. I love traveling so I thought it would be a perfect fit!

This is my first Anastasia Beverly Hills palette, as this brand can’t be purchased in France. A friend I met in Chicago kindly gifted it to me when visiting in Paris.

I had heard great things about the Anastasia eye-shadows so I was excited.

The packaging

Here is the box it came in :

The packaging is a typical card board palette with a magnetic closure (my favorite kinds of closures). Card board isn’t necessarily my preferred packaging but it does make it travel friendly as it’s sturdy but still very light weight.

It comes with a decent sized and very usable mirror. The only down side I see to it and in regards to traveling is that the mirror isn’t hinged, meaning you’ll need something to prop it up when you do your makeup. This can be an inconvenience depending where you’re staying.

The palette also comes with a double ended brush. I don’t typically love double ended brushes because they don’t store easily. If you stick one in your brush holders with your other brushes you can damage one end of the brush. I think I’ll just keep this one in the palette. Usually brushes that come with palettes aren’t very good. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found that this brush is actually pretty good quality and I enjoyed using it. My eye shape is rather small and I have hooded eyes, so I love having small crease brushes. I feel you can never have too many. So the small sided domed brush is just a perfect fit for me ! The other side is a typical blending brush in the 217 style by MAC but much smaller.

Here is a view of the back of the palette :

Now let’s get to the fun part !

Swatches :

From left to right :

Noir – Deep carbon black with an ultra-matte finish.

Metallic – Brassy gold with a metallic finish.

Intense Gaze – Bronzed pink with a satin finish.

Azure – Vibrant blue with a metallic finish.

Fudge – Rich, chocolate brown with an ultra-matte finish.

Soft Peach – Nude pastel peach with an ultra-matte finish.

Spoiled – Gold-flecked peach with a metallic finish.

Chic – Taupe gray with a shimmer finish.

Pink Champagne – Shimmery pink with a titanium finish

Bellini – Golden peach with a satin finish..

Heirloom – Pinky eggplant with a sparkle finish.

Morocco – Deep burnt orange with an ultra-matte finish.

These colors lean towards warm shades, so if you love warm colors than this is the palette for you. I usually prefer cool toned shades so having a lot of gorgeous warm tones to add to my collection is a great thing. In makeup it’s easy to fall into a rut and always end up buying the same things. An easy fix for that is the myBeautyCache app to keep track of what you already own (check my post here). I’m just not as attracted to warm tones but when I have them and use them I do love the result. I especially like mixing the warm orangey shades with cool tones.

The texture is buttery smooth and the colors are vibrant and true to their color in the pan. That’s a pet peeve of mine, btw, when you swatch a color that looks a certain way in the pan and turns out completely differently on your skin ! I love these shadows and would really recommend them. They don’t have a lot of fall out either which is always a plus, especially when traveling haha :)!

Now not all the colors have the same pay, as you can see in the swatches some are  quite sheer. Heirloom is a difficult shadow to work with and the glitter in it doesn’t stay on the lid too well. But aside from that I loved the majority of the shades here.

My eye make-up looks :

#1 – Azure fun look

I love blue, it’s my favorite color. But pulling off blue eye-shadow is not an easy feat. The Azure color immediately drew my eye, so I had to try it off first. I added Morroco in the crease for that cool tone warm tone contrast and blended it out with Soft Peach. I highlighted my inner eye with Chic. I finished off the look with a tiny bit of Fudge smudged along my lower lash line.

How do you think the look turned out ?

#2 – Pink Champagne neutral look

For a more wearable everyday look, I started with Spoiled on the lid. I then blended Morocco in the crease and upper crease. I intensified the crease with Fudge. I lightly smudged both Fudge and Morocco on the lower lash line. Then I added Pink Champagne as a glittery top coat on my lid on top of Spoiled. I highlighted the inner corner with Chic.

Which look do you prefer?

This palette retails for 30$ at Ulta. For that price you get 12 eye-shadows so it’s a really good deal when compared to similar palettes by other brands.  I totally recommend this palette. Get your hands on it before it’s too late ! You can also find it at Amazon here.

Let me know your thoughts on Anastasia Beverly Hills shadows. Do you think they are worth the hype ?