Anastasia Beverly Hills Subculture Palette Review & Swatches

I’m not gonna lie…. I was very quick to judge the Subculture palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills when it first came out. As soon as the negative reviews on Youtube started to appear I instantly thought how unlucky all the buyers must be and how disappointed I would’ve been if I spend my hard-earned money on a palette that I disliked. ABH consistently gets rave reviews on their products and this was the first time I saw so many people complaining about one of their products. Most people were having issues with the major fallout. But ABH said they would make new batches pressing the shadows harder to decrease the fallout. I’m not sure if I have a palette from an old or new batch, but I do want to share my thoughts with you on this palette.

Price: The palette retails for 465 DKK/42 USD on their official site. Every now and then I have seen this palette go on sale, so you can definitely get it at a lower price. If you’re a US reader you can get this palette for just 25$ at Macys until 07/07.

Packaging: You get the palette inside a cardboard box with the brand logo and name of the palette. The palette itself also feels like some sort of cardboard material that has a magnetic close. The front of the palette has a velvet feel of velour, which adds some luxury to the palette. Each squared pan/shade weighs 0.7 g/0.02 oz. each (9.8 g/0.20 oz. in total). Plus is has a mirror on the inside. A long the palette you also receive a dual ended eyeshadow brush, which I know people have mixed feelings about. I love and use the brush almost every day, and I appreciate them including a brush.

The shades: In the Subculture palette you will get 14 different eyeshadows. I found a brief description of each shade on the ABH site, that I want to include as I think they do a great job with the descriptions. The palette includes 11 matte shades and the remaining being shimmer shades:

• Roxy – Ultra matte muted coral
• Electric – Duo chrome lime-gold
• Fudge – Ultra-matte warm bronze
• New Wave – Ultra-matte citron orange
• Untamed – Ultra-matte tarnished green
• Edge – Ultra-matte gold mustard
• Rowdy – Ultra-matte blackened purple
• Axis – Ultra-matte blue-green
• Mercury – Ultra-matte slate grey
• All Star – Ultra-matte vintage wine
• Adorn – Metallic bronze
• Destiny – Ultra-matte sage green
• Dawn – Ultra-matte sand
• Cube – Duo chrome pink pearl

Swatches: All of the shades were so easy to swatch ,with my finger, as they were VERY pigmented! All of the shades I went over twice except for “Cube”. I went over that one a few times, only because it wasn’t showing up on the photo as well. The shadows are soft to touch and have a smooth texture. I’m not usually interested in cool toned palettes, but I feel like the shades mesh so well together and I love the colour of each shade. Some of them I’m not as comfortable using for an everyday look, but I’m sure some of you like bolder eye looks than me. I did have problems with two of the shades. The first one was “Electric”, which would pick up the product beautifully when using my finger. But I could not get it to stick to my brush. I did try spritzing my brush with Fix+, which did help a little, but not as I would want it to. The other shade I had issues with was “Edge”, which I was very excited to try out. In the pan it looks like a mustard yellow shade, but once you apply and start blending it unfortunately turns into a muddy, orange shade.

My thoughts: I feel like the shades in this palette have really opened up my eyes to cool toned shadows. I’ve always been a neutral, warmtoned kind of girl, but these shades are gorgeous. But these shadows are so pigmented, that I have a hard time working with them. I feel like you must be very experienced with creating eyelooks, as the shadows are too pigmented for my liking. A slight dab is really all you need, but even that can be too much. I also feel I have to put in a lot of effort, since they’re so pigmented, to buff and blend the shadows so there aren’t any harsh lines.  This also results in me spending a long time doing my eyeshadow, because I’m cautious and not very experienced with such pigmented shadows. If you’re someone that’s not afraid of pigment, then you’re going to love it as it’s seriously the most pigmented eyeshadows I’ve ever tried. Okay I’ll stop using the word pigment now.

The fall out isn’t as bad as I had imagined. I can definitely tell that the shadows aren’t as hardly pressed as some other palettes I own. The key is to be gentle and softly pat your brush into the shadow – don’t swirl it! Some of my brushes have more “scratchy” bristles and I find I get more fall out when I use them in comparison to a softer brush. Plus, I always need to tap off the excess as they’re kind of powdery. The longevity is awesome, the shadows adhere well to my skin and I don’t necessarily need to use a primer. To summarize this whole post shortly I would say that MUA’s or experienced makeup lovers will most likely get the most use out of this palette, while beginners might find it difficult to work with.

– Noreen

Disclaimer: This product was gifted to me. All thoughts & opinions are my own. Links in this post are not affiliate links