Anastasia Beverly Hills once had the honour of being one of the very few high end brand where I would buy their products without question. If they released something, I was there! So when I was sadly disappointed by the Subculture palette when I bought it last year, I decided to sit out the last few ABH releases. But even I couldn’t bring myself to pass up their palette release for this year, the Soft Glam palette. I’m such a neutral eyeshadow junkie, I had to have it! So I picked it up a few months back and I definitely have some thoughts about it.
ANASTASIA BEVERLY HILLS SOFT GLAM EYESHADOW PALETTE – $75.00 – sephora.com.au
Starting with the packaging. It’s very much in line with the current packaging of the permanent palettes in the Anastasia Beverly Hills range. The palette is covered in a tan coloured, felt like material. I personally am not a fan of the felt packaging because it tends to get dirty very quickly, though the colour is quite lovely and distinct. It doesn’t get lost in my collection. The inside layout is again the same as the other palettes. There are 14 pans in rows of two. The palette also comes with a double ended brush. Normally I don’t use the brushes the come with palettes, but the ABH brushes are exceptionally good and I use them frequently.
As previously mentioned, there are 14 shades in this palette, nine mattes and five shimmers. Most of which fall in the neutral colour family, but there are a few warmer tones and pop or two of pink. When designing this palette, The Creative Director of ABH, Norvina, said her mother, the Anastasia of Anastasia Beverly Hills, was her main inspiration because of her love of neutral eyeshadows.
Right off the bat, one of the things that I noticed is that there are a lot of repeated shades in this palette. Tempera, Cypress Umber and Burnt Orange are all in Modern Renaissance, while Noir, Dusty Rose, Orange Soda and Sienna are all shades in the single eyeshadow range. If you’re someone who doesn’t like doubling up on shades, this may be a big turn off from buying it. All of the shimmery shades however are exclusive to the palette and I believe they have developed an updated formula for them.
Out of all of the ABH palettes, especially out of the permanent range, this is easily the most beginner friendly. The mattes are beautifully pigmented, but not so pigmented that they become difficult to blend out (a problem that I’ve had with other ABH palettes). What surprised me was that was far less fall out with the mattes than previous ABH palettes. There is still some and I would definitely recommend using a light hand with these shades. A little does go a long way.
The darker shimmers (Rose Pink, Sultry and Bronze) are all pretty pigmented in their own right and can easily be worn on their own. Rose Pink has especially been a favourite of mine from this palette. Glistening and Fairy however I found are better worn wet as the dry formula doesn’t quite have that same punch of pigment when worn without it. Having said that, I like a lot of shine to my shimmer, so your experiences may vary. I found that both brushes and fingers will work well to apply the shimmer shades.
When applying these shadows to the eye, they stayed pretty true to colour and it didn’t have the colour melding issues that I had with Subculture. The shadows also lasted on the eyes pretty well too. I’ve worn several looks from this palette and 6-8 hours later, they still look great without fading or creasing.
Overall, despite some very minor gripes, I highly recommend the Soft Glam palette! If you’ve been unsure about this palette due to Subculture, I can happily say that to me, it is a definite return to form for Anastasia Beverly Hills and it already has a special place in my eyeshadow collection.
Cheers and Love
Emmie xo.