Anastasia Beverly Hills Pro Series Contour Cream Kit

The contour palette everyone's heard of (if you haven't, where the bloody hell have you been these past couple of years?), in fact I would say this is the palette that really launched the domino-like effect of the contour phenomenon amongst the smaller, drugstore brands. Anastasia Beverly Hills really is the flagship brand in my mind when it comes to contour, so it only made sense for me to say ciaooo to my powder contour routine and begin working with this legendary product!

But, with a hefty price tag of £39, it would have to work some kind of makeup magic to keep me parting with that kind of cash, so I decided to write a lil post sharing my feelings on the palette and whether I think it lives up to the hype!

Needless to say, the packaging ticks all the boxes here - slim, sleek, sturdy (any more 's's you can think of?), but yeah seriously, at almost £40 I'd expect no less, so I'm not going to spend ages on this point. I obviously take it around with me every time I stay somewhere or go somewhere I need to do my makeup, and the case is yet to face any kind of damage. Thumbs up to travel friendly goodies.

Before I bought this, my contouring was as basic as using an angled brush with a matte (cheap) bronzer and swooshing that along my cheek bones, nose, temples etc etc to create the desired effect. The Anastasia Beverly Hills palette takes a LOT more thought, in fact it took me a fairly long while to actually get confident using this kit! I have it in shade light, which does match my skin tone well, but the impressive pigmentation of the darker contour shades requires a heck of a lot more blending than I've ever been used to doing.

Lol, HIYA. As you can see from this painfully flattering photo, I use the cream contour in pretty much the same way as I used to use my powder - using the dark shade to accentuate my cheekbones, slim my nose and just generally beautify myself, and the highlight to brighten under my eyes and shape my forehead as well. I do this just after I've used my foundation and then I blend everything before setting it with powder! I finally go over my cheekbones and nose with a little bit of powder bronzer just to get the maximum effect.

There's no denying that using this palette in my routine definitely does a good job of sculpting my face, but how well does that effect last throughout the day? There's no definitive answer to this, but both the highlight and the darker contour shades remain exactly as applied until I clumsily rub my face or until my makeup in general starts slidin' off when things get a little greasy nearing the end of the day. So yeah, not quite industrial but I am happy with the longevity of the product!

But even if the palette was 100% wear-proof, it still needs to be kinda spectacular to spend like £40 on it though right? And I've been thinking about this, trying to figure out just how spectacular it is in my eyes, and to be honest I'm just not quite sure. Yes, I love it. Yes, it lasts well. Yes, it gives angles and edges to my face I may never have witnessed before, BUT as this is my first cream contour palette I don't actually have any drug store comparisons to match it up with! My point is, I could pop down to Boots, buy the cheapest cream contour palette I see and potentially get the same results, but without doing that I can't make that comparison.

So I guess this post is left a tad ambiguous. Do I love cream contour over powder - yep. Am I super happy with this ABH palette - completely. Is it worth the price tag... I still don't know! So can you help me out? Any of you who have tried this in comparison to a lower priced product - what's you verdict?? When I'm out of this should I just re-buy or look elsewhere?