Modern Renaissance by Anastasia Beverly Hills

Disclaimer: I purchased this.

I held off for a long time from buying the Modern Renaissance palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills ($42), but all the glowing reviews finally persuaded me it was time to see what all the fuss was about.  I've owned one palette (Catwalk, review here) from the brand in the past, and while it was nice, I did not reach for it often and ended up decluttering it a while back.

But yeah, Renaissance is special.  The reds and pinks take me outside of my comfort zone, and the neutrals make it a great everyday palette. I love how many matte shades are included in the palette  (11 mattes, 1 satin, 2 shimmers), and find the mattes richly pigmented and easy to blend and work with. The almost 6000 Sephora reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 are telling the truth.

The first quad of colors are in my wheelhouse and are shades I will be reaching for on a regular basis. I love a neutral eye for days I'm wearing vibrant lip colors and/or have meetings where I need to present a more "professional" image.

If you picked up the Urban Decay 24/7 Glide on Eye Pencil in Anatomy (review here) from the limited edition Jean-Michel Basquiat collection, it's the perfect complement to Red Ochre. Just saying.

I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoung Buon Fresco, which is a cooler leaning shade that makes for a great transition crease color.

I wasn't sure how easily I would be able to carry off the pinker shades, but I'm pleased with them.  I do find that intensifying the color as opposed to sheering them out helps to keep me from looking like I have pink eye or am coming down with a cold.

I think there is actually a lot more variety of looks you can achieve with this palette than I was expecting. I know that warm neutral palettes have reached (if not exceeded) their saturation point in the market, but the inclusion of Buon Fresco and Warm Taupe give this one some cooler leaning shades that expand your options, IMO.

Yes, these are powdery shadows and kickback is happening. Just tapping my brush into the pans picks up enough shadow to apply and I find building  color in thin layers works best. The brush included in the palette is one I've been using, which is a bonus, as I typically find them to be of subpar quality and end up tossing. I like the white tipped end for smoking out shadows on my lower lash line.

The shimmer shadows (Vermeer, Primavera) are nice but I've been reaching for some baked shadow trios from J Cat Beauty (review coming soon) to amp up the shine, so if I have any complaints about Modern Renaissance, it would be that I wish the shimmers had a bit more oomph.  But, I really don't have it any complaints - it's a great palette :-)  I'm glad it's permanent so that I did not miss out on it, but neither did I have to rush to buy.