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boxyladies · 6 years

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I recently received the Norvina Palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills ($42) as a surprise from my bestie Melissa, and it inspired me to bring back the palette series I began last year.

Since I started the Boxy Ladies Palette series, Instagram Stories got bigger and bigger, so recently, I have begun sharing more of my daily makeup looks there, rather than a regular Instagram post, so definitely make sure to follow us on Instagram and check out our stories to catch all of my latest makeup looks, lil makeup hauls, unboxings and random flat lays I create at 6:30am at the gym bathroom. (Hey, they have a white marble counter, so it’s Instagram-approved!)

Just to give a bit of background on the Norvina palette, Norvina is the daughter of Anastasia, of Anastasia Beverly Hills. So the Norvina palette is essentially all of her favorite shades. Norvina is a striking woman, and she’s very bold in her looks. She has had various hair colors over the year including hot pink and purple most recently. She is basically the personification of the unicorn emoji.

When I first saw the promo pictures of the Norvina palette, I thought it was totally gorgeous. However, I noticed it was mostly a neutral palette with a few pops of color, so it wasn’t a palette I was immediately drawn to. Like, it’s very beautiful but is it for me? I wasn’t sure. But I knew I didn’t need to be first in line to get it, having learned my lesson from Subculture.

I was totally surprised when it showed up at my house, courtesy of Melissa. She and I hadn’t talked about it, so it was just a total surprise. Because I hadn’t been manically checking out every single review and dozens of tutorials in preparation for receiving it, I had more of an open mind because I was just excited to start playing with it! I really wasn’t expecting to feel this way, but it just made me excited about makeup again! I was really excited to use it every day and come up with different looks with it.

Here are a few videos I made on Instagram Stories. I don’t have the best way to insert them, but they are just 15-second close-ups!

Here is a close-up video of the shadows!

Here are the swatches of the shimmer shadows.

Here are the swatches of the matte shadows!

And finally, below are some of the looks I came up with over the week I used the palette regularly.

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Final Grade: A

I loved this palette! I think the formula is really, really nice – it is more like the Modern Renaissance formula than Subculture, so if you were nervous about that, I think you will be happy. Several of the shades DID have some kick-up, but if you remember you just need a light touch, I think you will be fine! I think the shades blended so beautifully. I had a slight issue with Soul, the matte lavender shade, but it’s quite possible that it was just user error. For the most part, I thought the palette worked beautifully, and I was happy with almost all of the looks I came up with this week. (More on the “almost” in a second.) I will note that I mostly used my fingers for the shimmers, which I think is the best way to apply most shimmer shades in general. I think you get much better color payoff than when you use a brush, though you could probably get a way with using a flat synthetic brush with some Fix+ to get a similar effect, but I do think using your fingers on those kinds of shades is best.

One of the biggest criticisms about this palette, and one of the observations that I had, is that this IS mostly a neutral palette.

ABH Norvina

ABH Soft Glam

There was also criticism that it was very similar to the ABH Soft Glam palette ($42), which was the the last palette ABH released. Soft Glam is a very neutral palette, and though beautiful, I didn’t feel like I needed it. (However, if it magically showed up at my house the way Norvina did, I wouldn’t hate it. 🙂 ) So if I was someone who already owned Soft Glam, I might be a little disappointed in the similarities from Norvina to Soft Glam. But since I skipped Soft Glam, I found Norvina to be an extremely versatile palette!

I really liked the darker colors at the far right of the palette the best: Drama and Passion. I think those burgandy-ish colors really bring out my green eyes a lot, so I am very drawn to them. (FYI, those were the colors I wore during the photoshoot where everything looks really grey/silver. It was right after I got my hair done, so I was trying to get some fun pics of my hair, too!) I really liked mixing Incense and Love to make a rosy-ish brown transition rather than a plain pink or plain brownish transition. I used that combo on most looks I came up with. I really liked the shade Love, because it’s a really dusty pink – a lot more subtle than other pinks that I own, and so it’s quite pretty.

OK, I lied about Drama and Passion being the best shades – Rose Gold is really the best shade in the palette. How could I have forgotten? It was the first shade I was drawn to, swatched like a dream, but then looked so pretty on the eye. It’s like a deeper, more burgandy rose gold than the lighter pink rose golds I tend to think of, so I thought it was really unique. I think that will be the color I end up using the most from this palette. It’s very easy to use a quick transition shade (I might honestly use one of my shadow singles as a transition over some of the shades in this palette for that particular look) and then swiping Rose Gold all over the lid as a one-and-done kind of color. If they make Rose Gold as a single shadow, you definitely need to buy it immediately. I think this shade will definitely make blue and green eyes POP.

I also really enjoyed using the neutral shades in this palette. While I do like experimenting with color a lot, I really have been enjoying a lot of more neutral looks recently. I liked doing a very light, warm brown eye with Incense, Volatile and Eccentric with Summer, the lighter gold shade, all over the lid. I had this idea for a very classic look with a very neutral eye and a tomato red lip, so these shades were beautiful for that, and I really loved the look I came up with.

Ironically, since this is a purple palette, and Norvina the person loves purple so much, I really didn’t love the lavender/purple shades in this palette. Soul, the matte lavender-ish color was really strange to me. I may just need to play with it more, but it’s such a muted lavender that it came off very bruise-like on me, and I really wasn’t super happy with my makeup look that day. I think the shimmery purple, Celestial, is very gorgeous, but it’s just not an every day color for me, ya know? I actually thought I would like it a lot more than I did. Since my hair is so icy right now, I thought I would really be drawn to those shades more! But maybe I will experiment with both Celestial and Soul on my lower lashline to see if I can get a look that I am happier with in the future!

I do think I like Wild Child, the shimmery pink more than I like Celestial. I can see myself using that more regularly as sort of a light, one-and-done type lid look, because it’s such a pretty pink/gold duochrome. The day I used it, I was working half of the day, so I didn’t want to go all out, so I used a mix of Incense/Love in the crease and Wild Child all over, and I thought it looked really nice! Like, I looked pulled-together but also didn’t really look like I was trying too hard. I don’t think it photographed too well, so I’m not sure if that will be included in the looks above, but I did like it!

I haven’t mentioned it because it’s kind of a boring shade, but Base is definitely a great workhorse shade for setting your eyeshadow base, (which is obvs what it was included for) and also great for highlighting browbone a bit! I really enjoyed Dreamer for a nice inner corner highlight pop, however, I do feel like it helped to spray my brush a bit with some Fix+ to prevent fall-out, and to make it pop a bit more. The one shade I didn’t use is Dazzling, but I didn’t find it to be particularly unique. However, it swatched beautifully and felt exactly like Rose Gold and Summer, so I’m sure it would wear and apply exactly the same.

All in all, I really loved Norvina, and I look forward to playing with it more. If you were thinking of getting it but you were worried it would be too powdery/not blend well like Subculture, I think you will be really happy with it. If you have Soft Glam, you may not also need Norvina – you might be able to find some single shadow dupes of the lavender/pink shades. However, if you wear a lot of neutrals but you are also drawn to some pastel-y colors, I think you will really, really love this palette!

A big thank you to Melissa for sending this palette my way! Are y’all interested in picking it up? Let me know! I’m actually going to Baltimore to see Melissa AND JILL this weekend, so I hope I’ll be able to get some great pics of Jill and I so y’all can actually see us together! Jill, Melissa and I have this iconic picture of the three of us from like 10 years ago that we hope to re-create. If we do, I’ll try to post both pics on the blog next week! 🙂

The next palette I’m going to play with for the palette series is the Melt Twenty Seven palette ($58) that I received for my birthday! I’m really excited to start playing with it, and seeing what looks I can come up with!

xo, Lauren

The Boxy Ladies Palette Series Returns Featuring The ABH Norvina Palette! I recently received the Norvina Palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills ($42) as a surprise from my bestie Melissa, and it inspired me to bring back the palette series I began last year.

#ABH #ABH Norvina #ABH Norvina Palette #ABH Norvina Review #Anastasia Beverly Hills #Norvina

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