KIKO sure knows how to come out with a pretty collection. The Blossoming Beauty collection has some gorgeous pan designs and I had to have something from this limited edition line. Since I haven’t had the chance to try a KIKO face palette yet, this was the time.
The palette comes with a bronzer (Sun Kissed), a blush (Flowery Field) and two highlighters (Love in Gold, Morning Light). I haven’t had the best experience with KIKO’s highlighters, but the bronzers and blushes tend to be really good, and I was curious to see if the quality remained consistent through palettes and individual pans alike. Alas, it did not.
Sun Kissed, the cool leaning bronzer shade, was not very pigmented. I had to pack it in to be able to see a difference, and my skintone is very light, so know for sure that this won’t work for dark or even medium skintones. The powder is soft to the touch and does not kick up a lot of powder when dipping a brush in it, but on the skin (and on the swatch) it looked powdery. I also found it somewhat hard to blend, which is not typical with KIKO face products at all. I noticed it faded almost entirely after 10 hours, but since this was so light and poorly pigmented, I can’t really pinpoint when did it start to look faded.
Flowery Field, the blush, is a matte, muted, medium-toned rose shade, and it’s the best out of the entire palette. Not too pigmented, but not difficult to build up either, which is what I’m looking for in a blush. Again, it wasn’t the easiest to blend – it looked good on the skin, but I usually have a better experience with KIKO blushes. Longevity was good though – still very much intact after 10 hours.
Love in Gold is likely the shade I dislike the most in the entire palette. KIKO really misses the point with highlighters. Loose shimmer is not what people are usually looking for. This white-gold shade feels creamy to the touch but looks powdery when applied. It does not blend in, it just looks like it sits on top of the skin, and instead of making it look like it’s glowing, it looks like you slapped a bit of shimmer on your face like you would at a kid’s birthday party. But the worst part about it is that it doesn’t stay put.
The shimmer travels around on the cheeks – after 4 hours, it was all over the place. It made it very difficult to assess longevity since by the 10th hour this had packed it’s bags and moved to Greenland. Or my feet. Probably both. It’s like it’s missing a binding ingredient – and I don’t know how that’s possible because it feels almost cream-like to the touch!
And at last, we have Morning Light. It’s very different from Love in Gold: there is no visible shimmer, it’s just a layer of shine. A subtle layer of shine, at that. It’s closer to a radiant setting powder than it is to a highlighter. The colour is the best part about it: a peachy champagne that shines more gold when the light hits it directly. Too bad the shine is so subtle, because this won’t serve to highlight the skin even if you’re are a lover of natural or discreet makeup. I had no issues with blending, and it wasn’t powdery, but when it came to how it looked on the skin, I had the same issues with this that I had with the bronzer: the effect was so soft that I could barely tell I was wearing it. I could still see a hint of it after 10 hours, I think. Might have been wishful thinking.
Packaging wise, the palette is lovely. Pale yellow, with a big raised flower embossing on the front, a mirror on the inside, and a creamy soapy scent coming from the pans. The scent is my favourite thing about the product, actually. Wouldn’t mind having it in fragrance form. Total amount is 16g, so if they are equally divided, each pan contains 4 grams, which is a decent amount for a coloured face product.
I need to mention that I didn’t test this palette on my eyes. Being that the shades aren’t very pigmented and the colour selection isn’t ideal for an eye look, I didn’t see the point. So take this review as considering the product a face palette alone. And in that sense, I can’t recommend it. Unfortunately, this was another miss from KIKO for me. The blush is the only shade I think it’s worth to keep using, but KIKO has other blushes that put it to shame (probably even within the same limited edition collection). Save your money for those.
