First Look at Ulta Contour Kit - Review & Swatches

ULTA Contour Kit, Retail Price: $18 USD

Ulta has a new Contour Kit which retails for just $18. This is an affordable dupe of the It Cosmetics My Sculpted Face Palette (it looks almost identical in layout to it) and Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit . This would make a wonderful Stocking Stuffer or holiday gift to one of your friends/nieces/sisters or just any all-around makeup lover.

Sometimes when I'm using my Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit I have pangs of guilt in my heart because using it on a daily basis means my favorite shades will run out that much quicker (the pan sizes are smaller)! The ULTA Contour Kit, with its lower price tag, and overall good quality is quickly becoming my go-to daily face palette!

ULTA Contour Kit, Retail Price: $18 USD

Overview & Packaging

When you open the palette up, the powders are covered with a sanitary overlay which is meticulously taped down to the top and bottom of the palette (the great news is that there is no sticky residue when you remove this tape). This palette has a clear window, which is ideal for seeing the colors through the packaging - this is especially important for a makeup hoarder like me that rummages through so much makeup each morning. There's even a super useful guide on the clear front which shows you where to place bronzer, shadows and highlights for contouring.

The one downside to the clear window of the palette is that it makes this palette less than ideal for traveling since the window is rather soft and your powders can get gouged. If you must travel with this palette, I suggest using some cardboard in between the window and the powders before closing it shut to secure your products.

ULTA Contour Kit, Retail Price: $18 USD

What's Inside: Shade Breakdown

You receive two highlighters, one of which is pink-based (Radiance Highlighter) and the other which is yellow-based (Lustre Highlighter). For my complexion, I regularly use yellow-based highlighters because they cancel out the blue undertones in my under-eye circles and even camouflage rosacea (redness). Both of the highlights have a shimmer finish.

The Kit comes with a whopping four matte bronzers, yowza, one to match every skin-tone! There's a light golden bronze (Warmth Bronzer), a medium bronzer (Golden Bronzer), an orange-based bronzer (Bombshell Bronzer), and a cooler, taupe-leaning deep dark bronzer (Goddess Bronzer). I love that they are all matte bronzers and the you can choose the right color for your current complexion, no matter how light or dark you may be.

Swatches of ULTA Contour Kit

Swatch Quality

The matte shades all swatch very evenly, though I do have to admit that there was some powderiness to all of these shades, with some chalkiness being apparent in the Goddess Bronzer.

The shimmer shades feel the same to the touch but swatch more unevenly, the shimmer bits almost seem to separate from the rest of the base color when they are spread out. This isn't necessarily unusual for shimmery shades, but it is more apparent in this palette than in higher-end brands. I'm a little bit disappointed that the shimmer seems to disappear if you blend out the highlighter and doesn't remain as prominent on the face.

Dupes

This palette has a Goddess Bronzer which is darker than any found in the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit, and also has Lustre Highlighter which is a shimmery version of Banana from Anastasia's palette. The Radiance Highlighter is very similar to Sand from the Anastasia palette because it is a shimmery light pink illuminating shade.

The palette even contains one double-sided Get The Look card, explaining how to use the contouring shades and even suggesting ones to use for light and medium skin tones. I'm a little disappointed they only included these 2 skin-tones since there are olive and dark complexions as well. Of course, I always deviate from cards and suggest everyone just choose which shades appeal to them most!

Overall

ULTA got a lot of things right in this palette, it's light-weight and functional, shows the names of the products clearly and has them laid out in a logical manner. The shade curation was masterful and there's something everyone can love about this palette. The only critiques I have are about the durability of product packaging during travel and the way the shimmer disappears when the highlight shades are blended. Overall, I really think this is a great buy, especially if you can use any one of the promotional codes that ULTA sends out.

If you'd like to see more comparisons of this palette against others, leave me a message below and I'd be happy to work on those for you! I hope this review helps out because when I was purchasing this online I didn't see any reviews of it anywhere and it was really scary being the guinea pig, but I'm so glad I took the plunge!

Product Review & Comparison: Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit vs. City Color Contour Effects

Today, I bring you a comparison post between the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit and 

City Color Contour Effects. I have seen loads of hype about these products and I really wanted to see if they were worth the hype.

Right away you can tell that the pan sizes of the City Color Contour Effects is larger than those in the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit, but you are receiving 3 additional shades in the latter. The City Color Contour Effects only comes with one shade of highlighter whereas the Anastasia Contour Kit comes with three. The Anastasia Contour Kit has shades which can be popped in and out of the palette by the little finger-dip zone to the bottom right of each color. This is so handy since Anastasia Beverly Hills now sells refills and you can build your own palette if you want.

You can tell from my photo that I have gotten quite a lot of use out of this palette in just a few weeks of owning it. I have also made a concerted effort to use drugstore-quality contours and bronzers since this is a high-end option I don't want to have to repurchase refills for in merely a few months.

I mix Vanilla and Banana for the perfect lighting for my face (I do have to point out that my skin is more yellow than pink-toned, so this may be a contributing factor as to why this works so well for me). I use Sand as a pop of shimmer above my cheeks and on my cupid's bow as it does reflect the light beautifully. 

Fawn is the perfect contour transition shade. This works the same way on your face as a transition shade would above your eye crease - it blurs out and essentially makes your face look Photoshop-flawless as opposed to giving you a harsh bronzer or contour line. I use Java to warm up my skin-tone as a bronzer and as the contour shade on days I'm looking for less definition. If I want more distinct definition, I usually use Havana specifically for under my jawline and to lift my cheekbones.

You can see in the swatches that all of these shades are very pigmented and it really doesn't take a lot of layering to get the desired tone. The colors are also not so highly saturated with pigment that they are hard to work with - in my opinion, they are the perfect fine-milled face powders. It is very easy to achieve a "blown out" look with all of the shades and Fawn is an absolute holy grail since it is taupe-leaning and cool contour shades are rather difficult to come across.

The City Color Contour Effects palette consists of 3 shades: Contour, Bronze and Highlight, as well as a guide instructing how to use the shades. Each person's face is slightly different and may need definition in places another person's may not, so always use these guides at your discretion. Remember, you know your face best and makeup is all about having fun with creativity :)!

The texture of the powders is harder in this palette than in the Anastasia Contour Kit, but the shades are highly pigmented. They are so pigmented in fact that you have to be careful not to pick up too much of any shade on your brush. You can see that the Highlight is a stark white shade, Bronze is an orange-leaning bronzing shade, and Contour is a medium-dark brown.

When I apply these colors to my face, I have to use a light hand because it can get out of hand and I can start to look like an awful Kim Kardashian wannabe very quickly. Contour is too dark for my fair skin-tone, this may work better if you are of medium to dark complexion. I can only use this shade lightly underneath my jawbone (since that's probably the place least seen). I am more likely to use the Bronze in this kit as my contour, but since this orange-leaning, it is a little Oompa Loompa for my taste. Also, I applied the Highlight shade to highlight my nose, forehead and cheeks, when I went out during the daylight, even though I had blended the powder, it was a very bright white on my face. So again, this isn't a subtle palette, not for those who like natural contouring and highlight nor those who use their brushes more aggressively in powder.

Here is a comparison swatch line-up so you can see all of the colors side-by-side. You can see that Highlight is much lighter than Vanilla, Banana, and Sand (Vanilla and Sand are much more beige). You can also tell quite easily that Contour is the darkest shade in both palettes by at least 2-3 shades. Bronze is a more orange-toned version of Java. 

All things considered, I really do think you are better off purchasing the Anastasia Beverly Hills Contour Kit, specifically if you are of a fair or light complexion. I really only see the City Color Contour Effects

working for medium to dark warm-toned complexions. Seeing as I have already purchased this, I will try to give it a whirl when I'm more tan.

Do you own either of these? What do you think?