Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit - Swatches and Review

I received this contour kit as a Christmas present and was pretty excited because it has gotten so many rave reviews on the internet. I have been using it since then so I am ready to give you my complete review.

Packaging

• solid cardboard with magnetic closure. I find that the size is good, it's not too large or small. There's a couple things, I don't like about the packaging is that it gets dirty very easily. As I use my hand to apply makeup and then grab the contour kit, the makeup on my hand gets transferred on the packaging all the time. The second thing that bothered me about the packaging is that the shade color/name is not listed on the front of the packaging but it is on the back of each pan. I, later realized that the reason for that is because this can be a customizeable palette. 
• This palette doesn't include a mirror. Even though, I normally use a separate mirror to apply my makeup, I always like to have a mirror with my palette, just in case I don't feel like looking at my other mirror or take it with me when I travel. 
• The palette contains 6 different shades of .11 oz or 3 g each. You could easily take out each pan because they are magnetically attached to the palette and you purchase a refill or different color if you wish. However, I think the refill is only available on Anastasia Beverly Hills website for $14 each. There is a lot more shades available on her website.

Vanilla, Banana, Sand

Product

• Vanilla is a matte pale nude with pink undertone. I don't reach for this one much but when I do, I use it to set my foundation, lol. I use it sparingly to set my foundation and it looks translucent, doesn't alter the color of my foundation. Well it works for me that way since I focus a bit more on the contouring rather than highlighting. It has a soft velvety texture, which I like. If you are light and fair, like myself, you'll find that this blends in with your skin color, thus you're not really getting a highlighting effect out of it.
• Banana is a matte pale nude with yellow undertone. I typically use this one to set my under eye concealer, if I remember to use it that is since I tend to skip the under eye concealer concealer 90% of the time. This one also has a soft velvety texture. 
• Sand is a pearly highlighting shimmer with a pink undertone. The shimmer is very subtle. Eh to be honestly, I wasn't really blown away by this one. It's really underwhelming and boring, especially if you have other prettier highlighters in your collection.  

Java, Fawn, Havana

• Java is a medium warm matte powder. It works for my skin tone if I want to warm it up.  
• Fawn is a medium light beige with cool undertone. I find this shade ideal for nose contouring, as it looks more natural than the other two. I also tend to mix Fawn and Java together to contour my jawline and sides of my forehead. I think the two together is a good balance for my skin tone. Since I have neutral undertone, I don't want to go too warm or the contour might look too fake. 
• Havana is a medium warm matte powder, very similar to Java but a tab bit warmer. I don't use this one as much but it doesn't look too bad, although again, I would prefer to swirl this one with Fawn to neutralize some of that warmth. 
• I found the contour shades to be a littler drier and don't have the velvety texture like Vanilla and Banana. They are also less pigmented, which isn't really a bad thing in my opinion. It gives you a little more control over the intensity of the contour you want to achieve since you can build it up to your liking.
• I like that the powders are easy to work with and easy to blend. I get about 6 hours of wear before I notice that the contour starts to fade.

Final Thought

I contour more than highlighting so the highlighting shades are nice to have though, I don't find them absolutely necessary or that useful to me. And if you're fair to light, you're gonna find that the highlight shades won't do much for you. The contour shades are workable, though I prefer more neutral undertone because for my face, I prefer a natural contour. I don't really care about looking like I had some sun. I am perfectly fine with my fair complexion but just want to give it more shape and dimension. To be honest, I wasn't completely blown away by this palette and I think, dare I say, it was over-hyped for what it's worth. It's not a bad palette by any means but the shade selection could've been better. It's listed as for light to medium complexion but it definitely caters more toward warm undertone complexion. I'm bummed at how similar Java and Havana look to each other. What I think they should've done with the contour shades in this palette is have one medium neutral, one medium warm, and one neutral medium dark. That way it would have catered to a larger spectrum of skin tone and undertone. With that said, you're probably not going to use or love all the shades that come with this palette. It may seem like a better idea to order from Anastasia's Beverhill's website and only get the shades that works for your skintone and undertone. The problem with that is you don't know how the colors really look like in person unless you can find all the swatches of each shades she has available, which she currently has 29 of them. 

Rating: 8/10

Price: $40.00

Available: Sephora, Ulta, Anastasia Beverly Hills

Do you own this palette? Do you think this palette is really worth the hype?