Oh Anastacia, you have my heart.

(source)

I know I'm a little a lot behind on this trend, but I'm oh so glad that I'm now on the contouring train. In case you have no idea about these contouring and highlighting palettes, give me a second to enlighten you. Anastasia Beverly Hills created it for all levels of makeup artists and it was made in a time where there weren't many options. You had to buy each color separately, which blew because they can get expensive. 

The original palette has the colors in the picture above and included three highlight and three contour colors. From R to L: top--Vanilla, Banana, Sand; bottom--Java, Fawn, Havana. The exciting thing is that the pans are sold separately as refills now so you can continue to get the default colors or you can pick from the other 27 colors in the collection.

I was a part of one of my best friend's weddings a couple of weekends ago and helped out with makeup with whomever needed it. I ended up helping the bride and five of the seven bridesmaids, not including myself. We are all fair to light/medium skin shades and this palette worked for ALL of us.

Four of us were more yellow based and the other two were more pink based so the Vanilla and Banana highlight colors were perrrrfection.

I took some after pictures with my phone so please don't hate on the iPhone quality. (And the lighting was off one some. Whatevs. You'll get the idea.) I'm really hoping the wedding photographers pictures will do it all justice.

From top, down we've got Rachel, Ashley, Paige, and Hayli. And I just realized I have ZERO pictures of the other matron of honor, Lauren or THE BRIDE. I fail at life. So that's why I'm hoping and praying the photographer can save my ass. You live and you learn, right??

We all decided on neutrals so if you're curious at all, I played around with eye shadow colors from the UD Naked palette.

But back to this HAC (highlight and contour) palette. I love that you see pro makeup artists using this and it looks spectacular, but there's still great play for amateurs like me. It's great for every day wear, weddings, or you can build it up for high coverage for any types of photo shoots or print ads.

And purchasing this palette with six colors for $40 is quite a steal if you ask me. The pans are sold separately for $14 but if you're interested in buying any or all of the product, follow this link. There are times where ABH is sold out but you can find it also at Sephora.

I'm linking up with Monday Morning Gossip, Manic Monday, and Let it Shine.