So…I caved. I bought the Sultry palette from Anastasia Beverly Hills. I’ve been eyeing this palette for months. I stalked Sultry online, I would go checkout how it looked in person at Sephora (it looked good) – but I never went all the way. I convinced myself I didn’t need Sultry in my life. Then the price finally dropped! I scored this gorgeous palette on sale for $35.00 CAD at Sephora in 2018. Let’s find out how this cool toned dreamboat performs.
Anastasia Beverly Hills describes Sultry as: “Anastasia Beverly Hills Sultry Eye Shadow Palette is an essential smoky eye shadow palette that features 14 shades ranging from golden mattes to bronzy metallics. Create an endless array of holiday looks with this collection of cool-toned shadows—including 2 cult-favorite shades and 12 ALL-NEW shades”.
Shades
| Matte Shades | Shimmer Shades |
| Fresh – Matte ivory pink, this shade is not pink to my eye in the pan) Twig – Matte mid-tone taupe Dystopian – Matte dark ash brown Bloom – Matte coral pink Slate – Matte slate grey Birch – Matte mid-tone yellow taupe, (Birch does not look yellow to me. It looks like a soft warm brown) Noir – Matte deep black | Pearl – Metallic pearl white with a soft-pink undertone Steampunk – Metallic topaz bronze Rose Quartz – Metallic soft peach with a pink shift Ember – Metallic bronzed khaki Cinder – Metallic cool-tone beige taupe with gold flecks Teak – Metallic golden brown Cyborg – Metallic silver with a violet undertone |
Let’s talk about the matte shadow included in Sultry. These mattes are A+ quality. All of the matte shades are practically perfect. These shades are super pigmented, apply easily and blend as if they have a mind of their own. Similar to the other ABH mattes,the tiniest bit of product goes a very long way. It’s very easy to pick up too much product. The shadows blend out well, so it’s easy to fix things if I pick up too much product.
These shadows resemble other ABH shadows in texture. These mattes are super soft and can kick up a lot of product. These shadows are easy to damage because of the soft texture. I accidentally dropped a brush on my palette and it gouged a hole in Twig – I was not pleased with myself.
The mattes have longer wear time than the shimmers. Once the shimmer shadows started fade, the mattes held on. I prefer ABH mattes to shimmers. I hope they release an all matte shadow palette in the future.
Moving on to the shimmers! The shimmer shadows in this palette perform similarly to other Anastasia palettes. I found all the shimmer shadows benefited from applying a sticky base underneath. Plus, some shades had a heavy amount of fallout. Steampunk, Teak, Cyborg and Rose Quartz are my favourite shimmers. These three shades were the easiest to apply and had minimal fallout.
Cinder and Ember were guilty of huge amounts of fallout. While apply both shades I had glitter fallout – it looked like there was a tiny glitter rave under my eye. The fallout did not brush away easily, so I would highly recommend doing your eye makeup first.
Pearl is the only shimmer that really misses the mark. ABH shadows are usually loosely pressed and soft but they don’t usually feel crumbly. Pearl feels crumbly and doesn’t have the level of pigmentation the other shimmer shades have.
The shadows wore well for around 6 hours. After that time, I noticed fading and creasing. After 8 hours most of the shadow on my lid had faded even with a primer underneath. This is normal for me with ABH shadows. I don’t usually get phenomenal wear time with ABH shadows.
Packaging
Praise the makeup gods! ABH decided not to use that fuzzy, velvet packaging on the Sultry palette. The Sultry palette is the same size and weight as other recent ABH release but the packaging is smooth and glittery. At first, I was afraid the glitters on the outer packaging would shed everywhere but that hasn’t been the case so far. The glitters are well adhered and don’t come off even with some slight scratching. I’m so happy this palette won’t get dirty and grimy like my Modern Renaissance and Norvina palettes. Hopefully this change in outer packaging will be a permanent upgrade to ABH products.
Thoughts
Warm toned palettes have dominated the makeup world, so I’m glad to see ABH release something different. I’ve become better at using warm toned shadows, but I will always prefer the look of cool tones on my skin.
If I was creating a neutral palette, it would look nearly identical to the Sultry palette. Cool tones own my heart. It’s so easy to use a palette that consists of almost entirely cool tones shades for me. The Sultry palette covers every cool toned shadow need. There’s a black, a mix of crease shades, a variety of wearable shimmers. Sultry’s got it all! There’s also an equal number of mattes and shimmers which is fantastic. In addition, the shades pair so well together creating looks is nearly effortless.
I wanted Sultry badly. I’d been looking for a palette similar to Naked 2, but with a better formula. Despite this, I couldn’t convince myself I needed to drop over $50.00 on another neutral palette. All that changed when I saw Sultry was on sale! I jumped at the chance to add it to my collection for a reduced price. This is without a doubt my new favourite ABH palette. If you have the opportunity to get your hands on Sultry, I would grab it before it’s gone! If you’re looking for some smokey cool toned shadows, Sultry is something special.
Exciting Update! It was announced recently that ABH is re-releasing the Sultry palette in a Black Friday vault set available November 22nd, 2020. The vault set includes a Lash Brag Mascara, a liquid liner and a deluxe eye primer sample. The vault will retail for $70.00 USD and $86.00 CAD. If you missed out on Sultry the first time around, here’s an opportunity to add it to your collection. Check out the Anastasia Beverly Hills website by click here for more details.
Well, it’s official – cool tones are back in style! I for one, am very excited!
Until next time,
Kayla
Kayla Collects Palettes 