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I seem to be talking about Makeup Revolution alot lately. Not intentionally, I assure you, I just happened to pick up some bits from them and have been using them over the last while ๐Ÿ™‚

 

This is the Makeup Revolution Ultra Contour Palette.

makeup revolution ultra contour palette

Budget brands are finally warming up to the idea of giving up all our contour and highlight needs under one lid. My first experience of powder contour palettes was a few years back when I picked up the Anastasia Beverley Hills Contour Kit from Cult Beauty. I reviewed this so long ago here (the pictures are brutal, I apologise), but it’s still one of my most viewed posts to this day.

Makeup Revolution as a brand, for me can be hit or miss, but I think overall their Ultra Contour Palette, in my humble opinion is a hit! I have been reaching for it pretty much daily over the past couple of months.

In the Makeup Revolution Ultra Contour Palette, you get eight shades, and a large mirror which is always handy.

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On top:

You have a beige toned matte.

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A yellow toned matte.

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A sheeny beige highlight shade.

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And then a full on icy shimmery white baked highlight which didn’t take too kindly to me taking pictures of it some reason :p

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On the bottom:

A matte mid toned brown.

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A cool toned contour shade.

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A more warm matte brown.

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And finally a champagne shimmery baked highlight shade.

makeup and beauty blog irelandirish makeup and beauty websiteHere they all are together too.

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All of the powders are pigmented and soft to the touch.

They blend onto the skin easily and I have had no problem with lasting power either. I use the yellow tone under my eyes to help counteract darkness, and the beige toned matte powder over the top to neutralise the colour. This is a great shade for cleaning up your contour too, or just as a general all over setting powder. I use the cool toned brown shade in the middle to contour and then for me, the others brown colours are more for warming up my skin, although I actually tend to use these more on my eyes as eyeshadows. I love using the highlights in the palette as eyeshadows as well as using them for highlighting the face.

Overall, the Makeup Revolution Ultra Contour Palette gets a big thumbs up from me. I get so much use from it.

I got mine from Superdrug here in Dublin and it cost me โ‚ฌ9.99, but you can also buy it online from the Makeup Revolution website here or from the Superdrug website here.

Now I just need to pick up the Nyx version to compare them ๐Ÿ˜›

xxx

 

I have two of the Ben Nye Luxury Powders. I have them and have been using them for…not gonna lie years now. I had never really thought to do a review on them, I never really thought people would be interested to be honest. The couple of times I have posted pictures on them though, I have gotten so many questions about where I got them, How much they were, are they good etc, so I thought I would pop all that information in a handy blogpost, so people could just come here for all the answers ๐Ÿ™‚

The two Ben Nye Luxury Powders I own are the Banana Powder and the Cameo Powder.

Ben Nye Luxury PowdersBen Nye (who are a professional makeup brand, that’s why they are kind of hard to get hold of) do a plethora of colours in their Luxury Powder range. They come in a whole host of sizes too. The two powders I have would probably be classed as the medium size. They contain 42 grams of product. If you are just using them on yourself, this size will probably last you a lifetime ๐Ÿ™‚ The powders themselves are really finally milled. They almost have a flour like consistency to them, which makes them really messy because they go everywhere, but means they apply to the skin really nicely and you can really layer them up.

The Ben Nye Luxury Banana Powder is of course a yellow powder.

iris beauty blogIf you are sallow, this would work great as an all over setting powder.

top irish beauty blogFor me, I like it for setting the under eye area. A yellow toned powder is great for adding a little more coverage to any discolouration you may have under there. Depending on how much coverage I want, I’ll use either a brush for a lighter dusting or a sponge to really pack the product on.

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The other one I have is the Ben Nye Luxury Cameo Powder.

This, on my lighter and more pink skin tone is the one I would use to set my whole face.

irish beauty bloggerAgain, like the banana powder you can sheer is out or really pack it on depending on your preference.

beauty blog irelandbeauty blogger irelandTo me, neither of these Ben Nye products give you any major coverage. They are both brilliant for mattifying, and keeping you looking matte without making you look like you are caked in makeup or settling in any fine lines or pores. They will also subtly colour correct the area that you add them too.

Overall, I really love the Ben Nye Luxury Powders. They are a staple in my makeup collection and I reach for them alot. You can buy them online from Ireland here from Sunaura.

xxx

I already have makeup looks with all the Urban Decay Naked palettes here on Beautynook.You can check out Naked 1 look here, Naked 2 here, Naked 3 here and Naked Smoky here. I did a look with the Naked 2 the other day and put a couple of selfies up on my Facebook page and some of you seem to like it and asked me to film a tutorial, thank you by the way ๐Ÿ™‚

irish beauty blogger urban decay naked 2irish beauty blogSo, I did it, well attempted to anyways ๐Ÿ™‚ I am really new to this Youtube thing, but I gave it my best go and managed to recreate this really easy Urban Decay Naked 2 makeup look. I am not a makeup artist so I am going to call them makeup looks rather than tutorials, hope you don’t mind.

If you like this video, it would make my day if you went over to my youtube channel and subscribed. I am going to try my best to be consistent with it.

Thanks, as always for stopping by.

Let me know what you think.

Gemma

xxx

 

Anastasia

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When the Anastasia Beverley Hills Contour Kit became available on Cult Beauty I forked out the 45 pound (not euro pound!) no questions asked. There was so much online hype surrounding it and if I’m honest I put myself on the waiting list in hopes of being one of the first in Ireland to get my hands on it.

I waited patiently and when it arrived, I did a little dance, no word of a lie. I opened it and thought…oh ok so this is what it looks like in the flesh…hmm. I wasn’t hugely impressed with the cardboard packaging. But then the Lorac Pro Palette comes in a similar black matte cardboard affair and I love it, so I won’t judge a book by it’s cover.

So let me show you what you get:

Contour Kit

Top: Vanilla, Banana, Sand Bottom: Java, Fawn, Havana

So the top layer of colours would be the highlight shades. Vanilla is matte and slightly pink in colour. On my skin you can’t see it at all (I am quite pale and have pink toned skin), it could just be a setting powder for me. Banana would be what the name suggests. A matte yellow toned powder, that would be used for highlighting or setting under the eyes. Sand it a pink toned highlighter shade with a sheen running through it.

Then on the bottom we have what would be the contour shades. Java is a coffee coloured brown shade again as the name would suggest. I think this would work best on darker skin tones for contouring and bronzing. Fawn is more of a grey toned brown, in my opinion better on lighter skin tones for contouring. And then finally we have Havana a chocolate brown shade. Would be best used as bronzer I think.

As you can see from the picture above, these powders are refillable so when you are finished a pan you can buy them individually and pop them back into the palette which is cool. Anastasia have actually brought out a huge version of this palette for makeup artists with loads of shades to choose from. It would be great if you could mix n’ match the perfect shades for you.

Here are the shades swatched for you:

Contour Kit Swatches

Vanilla, Banana, Sand, Java, Fawn, Havana

As you can see Vanilla doesn’t come out on my light skin at all, apologies for you not being able to see it, it’s there I promise ๐Ÿ™‚

So….what do I think of the palette? Honestly, I think it’s ok. I don’t know whether I am too light skinned for the colours, but most of them of them don’t suit me. They don’t seem to stay on my oily skin too well throughout the day either. They aren’t the most blendable powders I have ever come across either. They are pigmented though! Every day when I’m getting ready, my Kevyn Aucoin sculpting powder makes it into my hands before I grab for this. I am in love with that product and a little of it goes such a long way, thank goodness because the product and packaging is teeny weeny ๐Ÿ™‚

I’ll dip in and out of using the Anastasia Contour Kit and get use out of it but it definitely will not be on my list to repurchase. I love my eyebrow products that I have used from this brand (the Dipbrow and the Brow Wiz) and I would highly recommend them so I am not condemning the brand whatsoever. This palette as much as I wanted it doesn’t really float my boat.

It’s so brilliant that brands are bringing out these types of products. Contouring, when done right really is amazing. I think next on the list has to be Inglot’s version ๐Ÿ™‚

So there you have it. Let me know if you have any thoughts on it or have used the Anastasia Beverley Hills Contour Kit yourself. As usual, these are just opinions, yours might be completely different and that’s perfectly fine!

Thanks for taking the time to read mine though ๐Ÿ™‚

Gemma

xxx