Flashback Beauty Friday 82: Stila Striking In South Beach

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Unfortunately I don't have the post I spoke about last week (the one with lots of photos) as I still haven't had time to edit them, but I do have a cute wee palette for you today. Last week, I shared a couple of eyeshadows from the MAC Alexander McQueen collaboration, if you missed those.

This time, we're going back to 2011, with the Stila Striking In South Beach, Collectible Beach Palette No3. This slim, book-like compact was part of their 5 piece Travel Palette Series with titles such as Wonderful In Waikiki and Haute In The Hamptons. Stila have always been known for their cardboard packaging on powder products and also their cute Stila girl illustrations. It's a pity they don't still use these pretty images, it's what drew me to their products, more than what was inside. This one features a dark haired girl in roller boots, gliding past palm trees and hotels.  

Inside you get four powder eyeshadows, a blush and a bronzer. All are named, all shadows have shimmer (though it's more noticeable in some than others), but for me, I like this bronzer as a blush. It's got a lot of colour to it, so would never work as a bronzer for me.

The eyeshadows are Ocean Drive (a pale silver grey), Wave (a beautiful periwinkle), Cabana (smoky, deeper purple) and Nightlife (charcoal with silver shimmer). As you'll see from my swatches, that last one has the most noticeable shimmer. Ocean Drive is particularly poor at applying, there's just no colour to it, though it does have a lovely sheen and I swatched these (dry, finger swatches with no primer) quite heavily. Wave is my most used in this quad.  It can be quite pigmented, though adding another layer just seemed to wipe away or diffuse the colour that was there.  Cabana was a bit of a let down, as it can be quite chalky and patchy, it also has more noticeable shimmer, though not as much as Nightlife.

The blushes/bronzer are however, packed with pigment. They apply easily and smoothly. Art Deco is this bright cool toned pink, that is seriously neon in the flesh. I remember previously trying to photograph it for the blog and struggling to get a decent likeness and it was a similar story this time.  I could see how much paler it looked through my camera, it was so frustrating.  It gives a lovely, bright flush of colour. Sobe I haven't used as regularly, but like I say it's too colourful as a bronzer, it's a rosy brown. In real life it looked more red and less brown than my swatch, but as usual, I haven't edited the photos at all.

On the opposite side of the products are a small mirror with the quote "a dreamer lives for eternity" above it and below that, a little guide on how to wear the shades in the palette. The back of the palette has the shade names and the spine has the number and title so if you own numerous, you can stand them up and easily find the one you need that day. It's a good travel palette due to it's small, slim size and the mirrored part (not heavy glass). There's a limit to how much you can play around with four colours though and they are all very matchy which is both good to coordinate but bad for lacking creativity.

Do you recall this series and did you own any of them?