Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance Palette
See that 2016 eyeshadow bandwagon freewheeling away? Please excuse me whilst I jump right on it, many months too late. I know, I know, everyone else is already stocking up on Too Faced's Stinky Peach stuff, and all the new 2017 Spring releases, sssh - don't tell the other beauty bloggers how rubbish I am. I thought about this one a lot, and came to the conclusion that I do really want this predominantly pink and red palette. I don't have anything like it, and I know that Anastasia Beverley Hills is great quality and good value for your dollars. I thought I'd missed the boat when Cult Beauty had it on permanent wait list, and Net a Porter had it in for about a week at the end of December before it sold out again. I did what anyone should do when they need assistance, and that's wail on the internet for a bit. Sure enough, the lovely Dannie from Famous In Japan heard my cries on Twitter and let me know that Anastasia now have a UK website, and my Modern Renaissance beaut was delivered to me in mere days after placing an order, with free shipping to boot.
Inside a beautiful purple faux-suede palette are fourteen shades, a brush and a mirror. I've seen so many gorgeous tutorials on YouTube using Modern Renaissance, and they all have very different looks. It's highly versatile - there are two shimmers and twelve mattes, and they blend well together. I found a couple of them to be slightly chalkier than others, Tempera and Realgar both had some fallout and weren't as creamy. Other than that, I cannot fault this palette, and I think it's a real standout from anything else that came out in 2016, even from the ones that tried to copy it - cough, cough Kylie Jenner, cough...
I live for shades like Raw Sienna and Burnt Orange, so I am going to try and be brave and use some of the reds. I think they'll be great for bringing out the green in my hazel eyes, and it's not like I need to go full on red-eyed. I also love Buon Fresco and Warm Taupe as crease colours (so classy), and Antique Bronze and Primavera make great one-and-done lid colours if you don't have time to do a whole eye look. Just smudge one of them on and blend the edges.
On the whole, a great purchase, and it's probably going to be my last in a long time. I am on a strict no-makeup buying pledge in 2017. I get sent so much for free, there's no need for me to buy anything, and my collection is out of control. Even if I made my face up every day for the next thirty years I wouldn't get through it all, and it would be past its use-by date way before then anyway. Already I've seen things I want from the Spring 2017 collections, but I will be strong! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with collecting makeup, by the way, and I'm sure a lot of people that come to my blog from Google searches are collectors themselves, I'm just saying - for me personally I have gotten a bit carried away, especially with being a beauty blogger and feeling like I need content. I've always been a beauty junkie, but my perspective has been a bit skewed over the past couple of years, and I've bought way more than I would have done in the past before my blog was born. Please keep checking in though, because I've still got a lot to catalogue in the makeup section, both press items and things I've bought previously, and in the meantime I'll be working on my red-eye... not the prosecco-induced kind.