For her 40th birthday, Kim Kardashian released an Opalescent collection, inspired by her birthstone. Her birthday was in October, but I bought this after Christmas when the brand’s website had a 30% off sale. It was a great opportunity to try more products from her makeup brand. I haven’t tried many KKW Beauty products, except for the couple things I bought at the KKW Beauty Pop Up Store in Century City. I don’t own any eyeshadows or lip products from her and this collection really caught my eye. (Is it any surprise? Look back on my previous posts. I have a type!)
Is there anything opalescent about this palette? Not at all! But she took inspiration from her birthstone can I can see why she choose the violet shades and the shimmery shadows. While none of the eyeshadow colors are actually white with a prismatic sheen, they’re still shades I like and wear! Because of confusing marketing tactics, many people don’t seem to know the difference between opalescent, iridescent, holographic and duo-chromatic. (I’m not saying Kim is confused, I’m sure she knows.) It’s an inspired color collection. However, I am mental and a huge stickler for naming colors correctly and I want to make sure everyone is on the same page. I wrote about it on my blog a few years ago, Holographic Highlighters. To help clear up iridescent vs opalescent: this should explain. Basically, opalescent has a white base, a milkiness to it. If you are confused about holographic vs iridescent, this article discusses the difference between the two. The lip gloss in this collection is the only thing opalescent, and it’s unfortunately something I didn’t get, though I wanted it. I only had a certain amount of money to spend. I already have a few opalescent glosses so I’m not missing out terribly. (I went to go find them in my drawers….)
Oh, this is what a “few” is. Okay, I’m good. I don’t need any more.
I’m so boring, I only like palettes with neutral, purple and metallic shades and pink lipsticks. My blog seems to be full of them! I buy what I like to wear, it’s not weird. I also seem to blog about controversial celebrity owned brands, but I buy from smaller brands too! But those celebrity owned brands get the most views due to Google searches or from Pinterest pins and my little -known blog doesn’t have much traffic, except for new releases from the celebrity-owned brands. I will do my best to feature more indie brands this year as well as more well-known brands for the variety. I know that a lot of people dislike certain celebrities, but I don’t concern myself with other people. I buy the makeup for the makeup itself.
Opalescent Pressed Powder Palette, $45
The packaging is a nude with an iridescent film. It looks pretty cool because it’s unexpected on a nude color. It’s also consistent with her brand to keep the packaging nude. You can see the effect in the low-light photos.
I don’t notice the shadows from the window until it’s time to take the image into Photoshop. I’m such a professional.
Yes, that’s Frostmourne on my wall. I need it to build my undead army.
The shades as as described on the KKWBeauty website:
10:46am – Matte beige peach
80’s Baby – Matte lavender rose
Electric Purple – Matte deep violet
Birthday Energy – Matte deep orchid
Middle Sister – Matte camel
Crystal Opal – Metallic warm gold
Honey Opal – Metallic golden peach with a pink flip
OMG I’m 40! – Metallic icy lilac
Time Flies – Metallic warm rose
Cedars – Matte warm chocolate
With all of the birthday-related named shades, I thought the name Cedars was kinda random, like it’s named after wood… them I realized, there is a famous hospital in LA. One Google search and lo and behold, Kim was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center! So there we go! And of course the first one is her time of birth. It makes me think of what I’d name all of my shades if I were to come up with a 40th Birthday Palette. It would be like 12:41, UCSF, No Wrinkles, Bitch!
I don’t know if people are questioning the neutral shades, but they work well with the violet shades and nude is her favorite color. She would definitely have her favorite color in a collection celebrating herself. I’m liking them because they’re just good dailies.
If you are curious about KKW Beauty eyeshadows, I’d say to give it a try! You can see that they are very pigmented, even the matte purples show up vibrantly and they’re difficult to make!
Semi Matte Duo in Birthday Kiss, $32
I was hesitant purchasing a liquid lipstick because I need to stop buying them. I’m trying to stave off of anything drying. But I really wanted to try KKW Beauty’s formula. Kim, I am shocked. It’s not drying at all. I actually like the way this feels. It’s just like Kylie’s Velvet formula, in Say No More. Because it doesn’t dry down, it will transfer, and your hair can get stuck in it and leave hot pink claw marks all over the side of your face. I still really like it regardless, just gotta watch out for transferring!
Did I really need more hot pink lipsticks? No, I probably have ten thousand of them. Plus, I’m not exactly going out, and if I do, I have to wear a mask! BUT I wanted it anyway and I wanted to try one of her lip products. For once, it’s a color that gets my attention and not a nude. With that said, she also came out with five nudes, a maroon and an orange. They are, by no means fitting the birthstone theme, she’s of course choosing colors she likes and that’s what anyone should do for their birthday collection!
Compared with Kylie’s Say No More
As you can see, Say No More is cooler than Birthday Kiss. My Say No More lip pencil also broke while swatching. I like this lip pencil so it pains me to have less of it. I do wish Kylie’s brand would stock all of the lip pencil colors. Those are my favorite pencils! Thankfully, I have Birthday Kiss as an alternate, but they are not the same formula.
With BH Cosmetics Opalescent Palette
My friend bought the BH Cosmetics palette for me as a gift a few years ago! While also not really opalescent, it’s completely my taste when it comes to eyeshadow shades. The palettes have similar shades with violet being the main pop of color, and filled with neutrals and metallics. I think the neutrals are there to support the violets which are the inspired colors. I think the color stories just worked out that way for both brands. They can’t achieve an actual opalescent effect with eyeshadow pressed powders, but it would be cool to see such a mass-producing brand make what the indie brands do with their multi-chromatic pressed powders. That will be a future post! I have some cool highlighters from indie brands. I just found out about Give Me Glow Cosmetics and they have a multi-chromatic shade that I absolutely need to have in my collection. I will try to get it when it re-releases!
Now why don’t mass-producing brands make the unique shades indie brands do? Is it a lack of creativity or is it because the ingredients are so expensive that it wouldn’t be cost-effective (or more importantly, profitable) to produce? It may be just that. If you notice, indie brands do charge more for their pressed powders and pigments. When they’re in palette form, I’ve seen a couple cost over $100! They have to because they’ll never be able to make a living if they sold them at-cost. But we have our options, big brands, small brands. They all have a place on my face, but I do see that I need to feature indie brands more on my blog.
If you are looking for something actually iridescent to pop on your eyes, Colourpop has glitters that are gorgeous and affordable! I would recommend using a glitter primer with them.
I cannot end this Opalescent post without saying hi to my friend Bethany, whose WoW character is named Opalescent! Hello to Opal! Here’s a picture she had made for us over 10 years ago when we were raiding ICC!
I am really going to have to write a post about how I got to over 10 million Pinterest impressions! Since I last posted, I shot up a million! I reached 10.7 on 1/23/21 and somehow it continues to grow and grow! I must stress but I do not make an income from this, but I’d definitely like to! I’m surprised that the impressions got this high and am not sure what I’ve done to deserve the views, but I’m glad for it! Please follow me on Pinterest!
If you arrived at this post and you love all things iridescent and holographic, I am working on some new crafty projects. The iridescent vinyl I am using were used as backgrounds for the makeup products. I will make a blog post when they’re ready to be sold on my shop, I Need This Unicorn!
Disclaimer: I purchased the KKW Beauty and Kylie Cosmetics products myself. Kris Jenner does not pay me to write positive reviews, they’re my own opinions!
The BH Cosmetics palette was a gift from a friend, not affiliated with the company.
