Anastasia Beverly Hills She Wears It Well Palette Fall 2012 Swatches and Review

Everyone's hopping on the whole neutral eyeshadow palette bandwagon lately and this new palette from Anastasia is one more to add to the growing list. The Fall 2012 She Wears It Well palette is a set of nine neutral shadows (five metallics, one shimmer and three mattes) plus a full mirror and double-ended eyeshadow brush.

Anastasia Beverly Hills She Wears It Well Palette
The palette features a black faux-crocodile material on the exterior with nine eyeshadows, a large mirror (handy for travel or midday touchups) and a fairly decent double-ended eyeshadow brush on the interior.

The shadows on the left side of the palette are all shimmery, shiny metallics. The big shadow in the center, Sunset, also has a shiny metallic finish. The shadows on the right are smooth, creamy mattes with the exception of the Frosting shade, which has a slight shimmer to it.

All swatches listed left to right, taken in natural light, no primer:

Trophy, Glow, Latte, Foxy


Sunset, Frosting, Onyx, Almond, Toffee


Anastasia She Wears It Well Palette, left side, direct sunlight.
I took this sunlight picture to show the pretty metallic sheen and sparkle that the shadows on the left side of the palette have. It's not chunky or glittery, but it is shiny.


Here's a look I've been wearing using this palette. It's Almond on the lid, Toffee in the crease and on the lower lashline and just a little dab of Onyx to darken the crease color.

What I liked:

• The mattes in this palette are very nice. Normally I shy away from mattes because they tend to be chalky, patchy, streaky and difficult to blend, but these were all fantastic. They're a little powdery, but it's a soft-powdery not a gritty-powdery. They felt soft and cool to the touch and applied smoothly without streaking or looking patchy. Impressive.
• The included double-ended brush can actually be used to apply the shadows; it isn't just a throwaway. It's not the best brush in the world (it's a little scratchy) and it wouldn't be my first choice, but it is definitely useable. The flat side is great for applying lid color and blending, the pointed side is good for applying a crease color and lining underneath the eye.
• Good selection of colors. There's dark colors, light colors, shimmery colors, matte colors, and none of them are excessively frosty once applied. I like that there's a good dark crease color and a light, non-shimmery highlight color. That's always something I look for in an all-in-one palette.
  
• Fair price: $34 for the whole palette.
• The shadows contain anti-aging skincare ingredients.
• The palette is smaller and more compact than the previous palettes. The older palettes had excessively large packaging and took up too much space for how much product was inside. This one is perfectly balanced.
  

What I didn't like:

• I wish the colors were just a little more neutral. Most of them read very warm against my skin.
  
• The eyeshadow stings and makes my eyes water if I get fallout in my eye.
• The colors fade and morph a bit over time, even with primer.
  

Overall, I thought this was a great palette. The formula of all the shadows (the mattes especially) seemed even nicer than the formula in last year's holiday palette and the color selection in this is straightforward and easy to wear. On one side of the palette I have the shades to create a bronzed metallic eye and on the other half are the shades to make a matte neutral classic daytime eye. I spice it up a little with winged liner and massive amounts of mascara, of course, but if you prefer something more subtle you can just smudge some Onyx or Toffee or Foxy along the upper lashline instead.

The Anastasia Beverly Hills She Wears It Well Palette is limited edition and currently available at Sephora, $34.

(This was sent for review.)