Thursday 20 March 2014

Review • Sephora's 'Divergent' Makeup Collection

Today has been an extremely exciting day for me and my makeup collection. I am an absolutely huge fan of Veronica Roth's book trilogy: Divergent, Insurgent and Allegiant. If you haven't read them then you really should, they're in a similar style of genre to The Hunger Games and other young adult fiction, however in my opinion these books are the best of the lot. After reading the trilogy I was super excited to find out that a film was being made of the first book Divergent - which comes out in a few weeks! And therefore was even more excited to hear that Sephora was teaming up with the creators of the film to release a limited edition make up collection inspired by Divergent! Now I went a tiny bit crazy and bought the most expensive item 'collectors kit', but there are two other products; a mini palette for the face, I think with a lipgloss in too, and also a set of nail polishes. But the beauty that I ordered is the main piece of the collection. 


 The huge box that the makeup came in is beautiful on its own, before you even open it to reveal what's inside. If you have read the books you'll understand and relevance of the Ferris wheel on the front of the box and decorating the individual palettes inside the box. The box is really very sturdy and I intend to keep the makeup in there when not in use, because I like the fact that it is all together and easy to see and access when I want to use it.

The first three palettes contain four beautiful eyeshadows, which are named and selected to reflect the societies a.k.a 'factions' which feature in the book. Out of the five factions there are - these palettes represent 'Dauntless', 'Abnegation' and 'Erudite'. Each of the three eyeshadow palettes contains four highly pigmented eyeshadows, (and this is what excited me) one High Gloss Transforming Eyeshadow. The transformer shades supposedly create a diamond illusion, shimmery, mirror-like reflection that is transparent when applied dry and translucent when used wet creating a fluid, with twinkling particles -- now I am really keen to have a play with those! Upon first examination the colours all are really nicely pigmented, creamy and easy to blend - which I am extremely happy about! 





Colours: Choose, Burnt Mahogany, Radiant Initiation, Peaceful Shimmer, Humble Sheen 


Firstly we have the 'Erudite' palette which contains warmer toned colours and is personally my favourite of the three palettes because the colours are so gorgeous and easily usable on a daytime that I can see I am going to get a lot of wear out of them. I can't wait to get my brushes into this palette!




Colours: Transform, Bold Espresso, Intrepid Moss, Golden Honesty, Altruistic Almond


The 'Abnegation' palette pictured above has more earthy based tones to it, and is extremely simple and neutral - which reflects the faction of Abnegation perfectly. Perfect for every day wear, with a super glittery shadow to liven things up a bit. One thing I will say about the 'Transform' colour is that it is so so glittery that it can be quite difficult to negotiate, and requires a lot of gentle patting to work onto the eyelid, but it is gorgeous nonetheless.





 Colours: Diverge, Dauntless Ink, Abnegation Stone, Erudite Sapphire, Serene Vanilla. 


The 'Dauntless' palette pictured above features the more darker colours out of the palettes - which reflects the bravery of the Dauntless faction in the books. These colours just seem perfect for a smokey eye look, with the possibility of added sparkle for a night time. 





Colours: Obscure Coral, Misty Rose, Gleaming Pearl, Intelligent Bronze


Next up is this absolutely beautiful palette with two blushes, a highlighter and a bronzer. With regards to the blushes, the Obscure Coral shade is very pigmented and really lovely and creamy to blend on the skin. Whilst Misty Rose is a little harder to work with as a matte shade and harder to blend, the colour is gorgeous. The highlighter is also very pigmented and I will be ensuring that I use a light hand when using this! And finally the bronzer, whilst easy to apply and nicely pigmented, is a little bit of an oranger shade and I'm not 100% sure if it will suit my skin tone or not - but who knows! 




Colours: Temptation's Choice, Fear Not, Natural Virtue, Supreme Ritual 


The final product you get in this box of treasures are these lipglosses. The first thing I noticed when I opened one is that (persoanlly) I think they smell amazing, they have sort of a minty scent which I wasn't expecting but I must admit I kinda love it. The lipglosses do not have that awful tacky texture to them which is great as I am not a fan of that at all, however they do have quite low pigment so are good to wear over a lipstick, or if you're going for a really natural sort of makeup day and don't want too much on the lip area. 



Overall, I am really excited to get stuck into this palette. I think the names are really sweet and obviously well-considered to suit the books/film. There are these three cards included in the box which are 'get the look' cards with inspiration of how to use the make up to get different looks, based on different factions - clever eh? 


The price for this set retails at $59, which is around £37 (plus exhaustive P&P - which I reluctantly forked out for). It may not be the holy grail with regards to totally original colours, however I can tell that as a girl who is keen on her neutral colours and smokey eyes with a bit of shimmer thrown in there - I am going to get my moneys worth! 

Let me know if any of you are also massive Divergent fans like myself - or if any of you have/want to get any of the makeup range from Sephora. 

Thanks so much for reading as always! Have a lovely weekend everyone. 


Harriet x