Makeup Revolution is known for making dupes of high-end palettes. Recently, they have been coming out left and right with their Reloaded palettes. Their Reloaded palettes have been matched with a variety of high-end palettes, including palettes from Anastasia Beverly Hills. As someone who hates spending a ton of money and enjoys a good dupe, I picked up the Reloaded in Velvet Rose, the dupe for Anastasia Beverly Hills Soft Glam. Their other Anastasia Beverly Hills dupes include Vitality as ABH Modern Renaissance, Division as ABH Subculture, and Visionary as ABH Norvina. Their retail price at ulta.com or revolutionbeauty.com is $7 USD.My initial response to this palette is that I loved it because it has all my everyday shades. The color pay off was amazing. However, after owning this palette for a month and using it almost every other day, I can now give an honest critique of these palettes. The matte shades in the palette are unbeatable for the drugstore price. They are very creamy and pigmented. Even though we get a bunch of brown shades, they do not swatch or wear like the same color. This palette has every color you would need for an “everyday glam” look. This brand is consistent with their matte shades and I have never been disappointed.
Where we run into trouble is the lack of consistency with their five shimmer shades. After owning previous Makeup Revolution palettes, I am shocked to say that two of their shimmer shades did not reach my expectations. The color two is actually very dry and crumbles on the brush or when you use your finger. It leaves chunks of uneven glitter of the eyelid. The shimmers always require a build up to get the colors to pop on your eyelids. If you spray your brush with setting spray, however, the pigmentation will improve. If you were expecting the shimmers shades in the palettes to be up to their usual quality, you will be sadly disappointed. In the previous palette Iconic 1, the gold was so smooth and beautiful that I assumed this palette would have the same quality since the formula has improved.
The packaging of Makeup Revolution has always been cheap, it is not made of durable plastic, so please be careful of dropping the palette. The words on the cover are always wearing off as well. But those are only “cosmetic” complaints.
After watching many reviews on the palette, it leaves me wondering if I just got a bad palette or if this is the actual quality. In the end, I believe this is a good palette for the price if you can live with having to build up the shimmers. You shouldn’t expect to be wowed by this product, but it does the trick.