Rant & Rave: Anastasia
Tell us what you love and hate about...
Anastasia
I really enjoy the majority of their eyeshadow singles, and I like a lot of the palettes they’ve released over the years, but they can be a bit hit or miss sometimes. I was not thrilled with how the brand/Norvina (daughter of Anastasia and president of the brand) reacted/what they said/how they handled the Subculture debacle, though. That incident really changed my perception of the brand (and not for the better). I love their lip glosses and powder highlighters, but I’m more lukewarm over the rest of their range.
— Christine
My feelings are along the same line as yours are. The way that Subculture was done, and the aftermath was just messy, ugly, cruel, and a perfect example of why you must ensure that if you are going to have someone represent your brand on social media, you need to make sure they understand the dynamics beyond a personal SM presence.
While I was willing to forgive some of it because of how proactive communication was during the start of everything (release delays, possible stock issues, hey, we’re getting some questions here’s our return policy), I had enough when they specifically targeted a couple of influencers in what I felt was a mocking and derisive manner. It felt very high-school mean girls to me, especially from a brand that tries to market itself as glamorous and classy.
I still use my Subculture palette because I didn’t have anything like it in my collection, and while I don’t have a lot of the issues many other launch day purchasers had, I do have some issues with it that seem to be universal. I wasn’t really impressed with a lot of their products because while they were first in some areas, other companies have since done it better.
I don’t tag the products in my flatlays or tutorials, I haven’t purchased anything from them since because it’s not been anything I’ve been stunned by, destashed the few things I did have, and even if they do have something interesting (I took a couple of looks at Norvina because I have green eyes), I find myself saying “Well, I just can’t give my money to them because it means that it’s okay”. To me it’s the same as not purchasing something by a company headed by someone who makes racist remarks. While my twenty dollars might not make a difference to them, I sleep just fine knowing that I’m not approving poor behavior.
Ditto what Christine said!! I really love Mod Ren but I do realize that the ABH shadow formula creates a lot of dust/kick up in the pan and contributes to the colors muddying each other up and panning the shades pretty quickly. I am very gentle with my e/s but still get a lot of kick up. I haven’t purchased another ABH e/s palette since Mod Ren and really don’t see myself purchasing one in the near future. There are a lot of wonderful e/s formula’s out there and as a consumer I would rather support those brands. I really didn’t like how the whole Subculture debacle was handled and I admit it soured me on the brand. I think the eye-brow products are nice but I feel they are over priced and there are a lot of other brands with brow products that are just as good if not better for a fraction of the cost. The ABH liquid lipstick formula is one of the easier ones for me to wear. It is very drying but it works well with a balm over and under and doesn’t give me any of the terrible issues that a lot of brands have when you apply a balm with the product.
I know this is petty but I have followed ABH Instagram for quite a while now and I think that Norvina is a very pretty woman but some of her pictures turn me off. I am not a lover of her risque clothing choices and overly made up looks. I do support her right to do whatever she wants, though.
Now that I have written a novel I will summarize by saying, I don’t love the brand anymore. I look but I rarely buy anything and I think that Mod Ren might have been my last purchase.
Their eye palettes have some of the most beautifully curated color stories on the market, and their shadow singles are great. Subculture was grossly mishandled and, while I love their unusual Glow Kits like Moonchild and Aurora, their highlighters are often just too darn glittery.
I love their single shadows options and being able to make my own custom palettes. I have made 4 of them, totally worth it. They have so often started/discontinued individual supposedly permanent shades over the last year that I doubt any are actually permanent but this seems to have settled down lately. I appreciate their breakthrough approaches/standouts — MR and Soft Glam palettes and highlighter palettes.
How they handled Subculture situation turned it from a mistake to a debacle — claiming their own customers were basically ignorant. That remains part of their brand in my mind.
I like the glosses fine; haven’t found any I love, but that might be me being fickle on lip colors.
I had a hard time ordering from their site, got a wrong eyeshadow repeatedly (4 times), when it finally turned out they were out of stock of my desired shade in the first place. Positive: they were responsive and great — I got each of the four packages quickly and with no quarrels. Negative: where is their control of their warehouse and fulfillment?? They didn’t even want me to send back the 4 wrong shadows, saying they didn’t have a way to get them back into the system.
I wish they required Ulta and Sephora to carry more of their products in store; no Ulta around here carries any of their eyeshadow singles.
Rant: I agree that they handled the Subculture debacle very badly. I don’t care for the velvetine packaging they use on some of the eye palettes.
Rave: I love everything I have from them: The eyeshadow singles and palettes (including the good version of Subculture), liquid lipstick (I know, I’m in the minority), highlighters, the Matte Lipsticks, and their lipglosses.
Also, when they had their last big eyeshadow sale, and it turned out to be only for certain colors and was confusing, the brand listened to customers’ complaints and quickly changed the sale to include all the colors. I thought that was pretty cool of them.
Rant (first) : Yes, that whole Subculture debacle made me lose respect for the brand, especially towards Norvina herself. She behaved abhorrently towards Alyssa Ashley as well as several other very talented, professional beauty vloggers/ bloggers. I would go so far as to name it what it is: cyberbullying.
The lip glosses *look* beautiful, but whatever scent it’s supposed to have makes me nauseated! Everyone seems to smell vanilla, but I can tell that there’s something else in them.
Rave: Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system…I do love that the brand has put together some very different/unique shade selections in various eye and cheek palettes! Pushing the boundaries color scheme wise. And I LOVE it! That said, I did wait until I *knew* for a fact that Subculture had indeed been tweaked before buying it. And Modern Renaissance is a MASTERPIECE.
ABH’s eyebrow products- I have the duo powder when I want to do full brows and the gel for when I’m lazy and I just want the hair I have to look darker (which is most days.) It may be off-putting that it looks shiny in the tube, but it doesn’t look strange on and hair is, technically, not matte.
As for the rest of it, I’ve come to avoid a lot of the beauty stuff on IG because it’s too much.
I agree with you, Christine, about the handling of the Subculture (often known as “Substandard” for a reason) palette. Companies do themselves a lot of good when they admit rather than try to dodge the truth or obfuscate the issue. Personally, my rant is that they’re responsible for the flood of palettes loaded with red, orange and shocking pink eyeshadows (colours I cannot wear). It’s made for pretty slim pickings, palette wise, for me ever since Modern Renaissance debuted.
I forgot my rave….I’ve only every used their eyeshadows (and I have a mini sized brow gel thingy that was a points perk) – the Mario palette and 9 or 10 singles and I really, really love them. I am so hoping a new palette that suits my taste and my colouring will be released one of these days because Mario is one I so enjoy using.
I’m really disappointed in the Norvina palette, specifically how it is marketed as a “purple palette” but only has three true purples and two pinks, and the rest are various shades of warm brown. I feel like that was such a missed opportunity to do a palette primarily composed of purple shades, something that I think is lacking in the market.
I adore their brow products, and as for the rest I’ll pass. I couldn’t ever stand their eye shadow formula and although their liquid lipsticks are nice, I have plenty of others I like more.
But Anastasia has made me a customer for life for the brow products. I think they should have just kept their focus on that, because they do brows right.
Personally I prefer to judge cosmetic products, not the company and people behind; I just don’t care about the drama, don’t have time for that. But with Anastasia I have the `bias` that the owner (Anastasia Soare) is a Romanian just like me; and it’s great to see people who get to succeed in life, doing what they love. I mean… Anastasia went from tweezing others people brows, to owning a cosmetic company who is well recognized around the world.
Product wise, I just love the Brow Wiz and the Tinted Brow gel. Anything else didn’t convinced me; I mean… they’re good quality products, but they don’t fit my make-up `vibe`.
And that’s the thing I don’t understand with `issues` like the Subculture palette; cosmetics are not meant to work for everyone… that’s why there are so many colors, formulas, brands, etc. So people can select what suits their skin, complexion, lifestyle, make-up expertise; if it doesn’t work for you, just live and let go; there’s plenty to choose from.
Regarding Norvina… we all have good and bad days… we all mess-up at work or do stupid things… nobody’s perfect. But that’s why brand communications should come from PR curated releases. Even if the product is your `child` and you want to defend it, there are always better ways to convey the same message; a good diplomat can say someone is `stupid` in such way that the `stupid` person says `thank you` at the end.
Ok, but she spent *weeks* saying trained makeup artists didn’t know what they were doing? It wasn’t a “bad day”….She handled the situation poorly & that’s all there is to it. It had nothing to do with “different formulas for different people”. It was bad, period. She didn’t want to admit their new “formula” (which is just colorants & nothing to make it an actual eye shadow; Source: my brother who works as a cosmetic chemist) was garbage.
I agree with what you said about her mom, though. She’s worked hard & deserves the recognition. Her daughter, on the otherhand, should maybe stay behind the scenes. She can’t handle criticism & you need to be able to do that in order to be the fave of a brand. *shrug*
This turned me off. I’m not into supporting very successful brands that can be unscrupulous. Norvina lacked integrity and genuine gratitude for those who butter her bread (or afford her her OOTD and royal purple lifestyle). It’s in poor taste to insult the professionals she recently claimed she creates products for. Cute attempt on damage control but I see you. She blew it by alienating her own customer —makeup artists and other professionals as well as serious makeup enthusiasts— those who validated the brand’s authenticity which ABH likely threw money at to make up for the lack of. Many makeup artists have decades of editorial experience and can influence the success of a line. Some who are early on in their profession still damn well know what they’re doing with powders and pigments. Consciously disrespecting their customer shows how much ABH values or deserves them. This attitude that I keep noticing just turned me off for good.
I’ve found one woman operations who genuinely work harder than she. I know several who single handedly respond and converse with thousands of customers respectfully and with sincerity via email, DM, IG comments and live videos, also through Etsy or their site. Some also have snap or twitter or FB! They have blogs and YT channels constantly sharing knowledge to help others. That may sound extremely time consuming in addition to the children some of these women raise and the dinner they put on the table. I think it is! I wonder what goes on in Norvina’s life that made her think such a lazy reaction would fly for such a huge brand. Embarrassed for her!
Agree that the Subculture PR debacle soured me on the brand. I also hate that most of the pictures of Norvina and others showing off the ABH products on Instagram etc. look like fake plastic blow-up dolls. Gross.
ABH is not an easily obtainable brand in Australia, and only began selling here once Sephora opened a few years ago. Her products are very expensive and I have not tried them.
I was tempted by the Mario palette, but I had just too many dupes of the shades I loved.
You can really tell about a brand when things go wrong and how they handle it and the Subculture debacle was an eye opener.
Certainly they have brought out some innovative palettes (Mod Ren) over the years.
To be completely honest, I think I bought into the hype of the brand too much. Now that I took a hard look at my collection, I feel like the ABH eyeshadow palettes really aren’t all that great. I can get a much more blended and impactful look in less time from a colourpop palette than from any ABH ones, including Modern Renaissance (it gets so muddy on me!). I was at Ulta playing with the norvina palette, and initially I was SOLD, but in person I was extremely disappointed at how dark the palette is compared to the PR images, and got flashbacks to muddy eye looks. I ended up buying the urban decay born to run palette instead, and it made me realize that I need to listen to my own preferences and not always the hype. PS agree with the subculture sentiments and I have a suspicion they’ll pull a huda beauty and release a remastered version.
I kinda feel the same. I never did get what is so revolutionary about abh. I mean yes the modern renaissance is a nice looking good quality palette but at that point in time there were SO many warm toned palettes that it is actually shocking to me that nobody thought to do anything different so I don’t get how is that so remarkably innovative. also, the glow kits, indie brands had unusual colored highlights for ages except abh put them in a pretty looking kit and send them out to influencers. maybe it’s the brow products, she did come out with a greater variety of colors as well as mediums but even that, mufe and mac had nice brow products prior to her (and probably many other brands I’m not familiar with did), not to mention the asian beauty brands, they still have far superior brow products often for much less money. not that I don’t like abh, I really do, I just don’t get why they’re considered so ahead of everyone else. to me it feels like what they did best is create hype around the brand and use social media really effectively, which is no small feat. I hope nobody gets angry with me I know abh is a beloved brand, and again I do like abh myself and will always support a cruelty free brand (it would be even more awesome if any of them worked on a recycling program like back to mac), but I just don’t think the brand is all that spectacular. I apologize for being all ranty with no rave to contribute 🙂
I’m allergic to most ABH eye shadows but I like their brow products: especially the powder and gel. I’m glad their brow product range is so extensive BC many brands treat brows as an afterthought: I feel like I only see two or three shade options for most products but Anastasia offers a plethora of shades.
Rant : I don’t own the Subculture palette but the issues with it should have been handled differently. Be honest from the start, don’t say that it’s a follow-up of the Modern Ren & try to say that too much fallout is the result of an improper usage and other stuff that didn’t make any sense at the time. Say you formulated it differently, was pressed using automated technology vs. previous ES palette (if so), in short admit that it’s different and it’s not the fault of the consumers. Be transparent from the beginning, admit what you’ve done wrong, because cleaning up the mess afterwards it’s always more difficult. Any creator is proud of their product but sometimes this pride turns into being arrogant when dealing with criticism and having a hard time admitting your failures. Anastasia worked hard to create a reliable brand and Norvina should not forget that. But I don’t equate her reaction to the negative reviews re Subculture, to being racist or a cyberbully. Glitz & glam can never make up for the lack of quality and transparency. In the age of the new shiny objects coming out every day & superficiality (from brands and BGs alike), it’s harder and harder to find trustworthy products and reviews.
Rave: I love the two ES palettes I have (Modern Ren & Mario) and they are very much loved and used. I also love their matte lipsticks (stick) and lip glosses. I don’t need or use brow products so I can’t say anything about them. Her liquid lipsticks are too drying on me, even with a balm underneath (those from Huda Beauty work well though). I avoided her highlighters as they are too “in-your-face” on my skin and for my taste but I don’t judge a product based on my personal preferences and if it looks good or not so good on me. My tastes and preferences are mine and objectively they should not count when evaluating/reviewing a product. Overall, I like what I have from ABH and I will always look forward to their future releases. Will I purchase their products, no matter what? No. But a poorly handled release and the PR outcome that ensued can be forgiven as long as lessons are learned and mistakes are not repeated.
I love my Modern Renaissance pallet till date and every time I use it I fall in love. Prism palette is beautiful as well and makes me more creative !
Subculture is by far the most confusing pallet I have ever owned. Bad. Just bad.
Brow Wiz is my in my top 3 pencils.
Other than that o don’t care for anything from the brand.
Not really a brand I have much of nor that I would rant about. I have the Prism palette and I really like the looks I can achieve, but as a brand I could pass on. Everyone rants about their brow products and I find I do better with certain of L’Oreal or UD’s brow pencils versus Anastasia’s.
Controversial rant:
I’m disappointed with ABH’s shadow singles. Colors I looked forward to weren’t nearly as vibrant or as magical as they seemed on IG. ?♀️ Black Diamond is beautiful in the pan but it was a muddy mess that wouldn’t apply or perform well. It took too much time to MAKE it barely work and that’s no fun. It’s no longer necessary with everything we have to choose from if we want pigment or glitter that stays put. No matter what tools + products I switched up or what I left out of my skincare routine some ABH shadows were just disappointing. Pale mattes were ok but easily found elsewhere. I’ve tried their shadows with various combinations of primers, concealers, with cream colors as a base from MUFE Ben Nye Mehron. NOPE!
Brow Wiz and Dipbrow were not nearly as fantastic as they were hyped unless I got duds along with many other people. I prefer IT Cosmetics brow pencils and Doris Dalton’s (Doll 10) brow product that’s similar. Moonchild glow kit is one of my favorite makeup items ever and it’s looking like I might have to buy Aurora. I wish Neon Coral, Retro Coral, Sad Girl liquid lipsticks were still easy to find.
More controversial comments: What the hell was Norvina wearing at BeautyConLA!? I get it, she’s a purple princess unicorn but yikes!
I hear you, boo. The Subculture mishandling seemed to bring out the raunchy/trashy side of Norvina on social media and it was heartbreaking to witness. Your question kills me a little bc I ADORE Anastasia as a whole. The care w which Ms. Soare (mom) built the brand, and the obvious blood, sweat and tears that she surely poured into it is something which gets my full 100% respect. Add to it that I love a good immigrant doing good/American dream story and it makes it all the more powerful for me.
Over the years I’ve seen the brand grown and extend its line and I think it’s amazing. But then you have Norvina Claudia, who I’m certain is talented in her own way, and whom I’m certain has her mother as a great example of hard work and ethics–be completely trashy and vulgar on social media. She reduces the status of the brand, IMHO. Reality is perception, as they say. She may be the classiest, most respectful picture of grace–but you’d never know it from social media and the “f*cks/sh*ts/etc etc vulgarity and defensive tone. I’m not saying she’s a bad person or has bad ethics–and I adore the palette she curated, it’s my daily go to–but there’s something in her interactions that is so classless. It genuinely pains me to say it, but it reflects on the entire brand as a whole. I hate to admit that, bc again, her mother is amazing and her success story is extraordinary. Ms. Soare holds role model status to me. I want to blow it off as millenialisms that can’t be helped, but the truth is Norvina should know better. At their level in the game, uncouth behavior and lack of grace reverberates across their entire brand identity. 🙁