What do you like about Anastasia? What don't you like?
Tell us what you love and hate about...
Anastasia
I wish they’d expand their permanent eyeshadow range (I think they keep discontinuing shades), especially by bringing back some favorite LE shades from past palette releases. I like that the brand tries to listen to what their customers want, and I think it’s cool how much behind-the-scenes information Norvina shares via social.
— Christine
Generally speaking, I love ABH eyeshadows and think they perform really well, but I really wish they would expand their single shade range. I’m burnt out on eyeshadow palettes; it feels like lots of companies (I’m looking at you, Colourpop), are churning them out every week and it’s so unnecessary. I prefer to pick and choose my shades, which enables me to actually use what I own. ABH’s single shade range hasn’t seen a lot of change or additions, and doesn’t have a lot of bright colors, even though they produce them for palettes.
I agree! I have more palettes than I can use. I’d love to see more ABH singles.
I like a lot of their eyeshadow shades, but I’m just not a fan of their overall formula. The Fudge single is the only ABH shadow I continually use, but I didn’t like the Fudge in the Subculture palette. I find the ABH pressed pigments very pretty, but I just don’t like how they perform.
I don’t like the packaging of many of their palettes. The velour on Prism and the glitter on Sultry are coming to mind. The velour is a magnet for other products and the glitter gets on my hands! I’m all for them mixing up the packaging to keep it interesting, but those two were definite misses for me.
I don’t really like anything from ABH. Their eyeshadows aren’t a formula I enjoy, and their color stories are always a miss for me. It’s just a brand I’ve never clicked with. I do think the Jackie Aina palette is pretty, but again the formula isn’t my favorite. Their tendancey to arrange colors in palettes it what seems to be hap hazard manner also bothers me. My eye likes order.
Same. I totally agree with you about the ordering of colors. It seems haphazard and a little chaotic.
You are not alone. I don’t jive with their formula or their color arranagements either. The only palette I liked the color story of completely was Subculture and that palette did not age well on top of the issues the formula had at baseline.
I love their brow products. The pencils, pomade, and gel are top notch and I won’t use anything else because they work so well for me.
Everything else leaves a lot to be desired for me. I find their eyeshadows especially to be too powdery to work with. But as long as ABH never discontinues their brow products – and I sure hope not, seeing that they built their brand on it – I’ll still be loyal. To the brow products. Only.
ABH has slowly become one of my favorite makeup brands. I own 7 of their eyeshadow palettes, several of their highlighters, and their brow wiz and definer are my go-to brow products. I love that their social media pages feature different types of customers from traditional IG make-up beauty influencers, to men in makeup, to people with simple one shadow eye looks. Norvina also posts lots of fan’s recreation of her campaign makeup shoots.
I hate their complexion and lip products. I bought and returned both the stick foundation and their liquid foundation since the color was off on me. I still own their liquid lip in Veronica and although I do love the color, the applicator makes it difficult to apply and it’s pretty drying.
I’ll always be biased with Anastasia and I’m apologetically admitting it. Anastasia Soare is a Romanian, like me, and it’s not the `compatriot` feeling necessarily speaking; it’s just that I know she is a hard working women who came to America and took her passion (eyebrows) to a new level; she improved techniques and developed a system; she raised from the ground to doing eyebrows of celebrities.
Speaking about the brand in itself, I only like some of their brow products; the Brow Wiz, the Brow Definer and the Brow Gel are products I’ll go back again and again (even if there are cheaper dupes) because they are simply amazing.
I simply don’t care about the ABH eyeshadow palettes; never purchased one and most likely never will. The only products I mildly have an interest in are her brushes (I love the A23, but you can dupe it with some ELF and Real technique brushes).
I do think they should spend more efforts in eyeshadow singles, not just popping out palettes. Or at least make the palettes customizable (being able to pop-out shades as you finish them and replace them with singles).
I do feel like Norvina should be set loose as a different brand, not incorporated in the main ABH branding. It’s strictly personal, but I would definitely see three brands in there: one purely just for brow products and services, one for the `regular` make-up artist (the classic kind that does wedding or other classic photo-shoots make-up), one for the `creative/rebellious` make-up artist (the playground of Norvina).
I liked the idea of the Norvina collection for that very reason. Anastasia’s style seems more in line with Soft Glam whereas Norvina favors more bold, IG-inspired makeup looks which isn’t bad, but it’s different from their previous lineup. I felt like Norvina could’ve had the Norvina collection be a line for products that she likes but doesn’t fit with the ABH aesthetic. I’m kinda surprised that her collection was only three palettes. Hopefully she decides to add more products to her collection in the future.
I don’t know much about the brand itself.
I love their singles and wish they got more play. I’m also fond of most of their permanent range of lip glosses, particularly the more pigmented ones. And I think they excel at brow products and appreciate the variety of shades offered.
I don’t know that I know enough to not like things. I’m just not necessarily enamored with much else from the brand to make them my go-to for other things (like lipsticks – liquid or otherwise, highlighters, etc). There’s just a lot of other brands with formulas I like better. And I’m feeling palette burnout like so many others and their focus on palettes these days (even before the Norvina ones) just isn’t that appealing to me.
I also wish they’d expand their permanent range of shadows and release or re-release a few palettes that appeal more to me and aren’t loaded with red, orange, hot pink and fuchsia shadows – palettes more along the lines of my beloved “Mario” one or the Self-Made palette (which I missed out on).
I love ABH. I love the formulas in the eyeshadow, brow and highlighter products I’ve used. I do think they could expand their permanent eyeshadow offerings but for me, I have so much eyeshadow and like trying out new shadows/ shades that I’ve never really even wanted to restock any shadows I’ve finished.
RAVES: Anastasia has become one of my favorite brands. I love their palettes. Modern Renaissance is one of my favorite palettes of all time, still one of my most used, and a classic. It’s nice to see the brand branching into brighter colors. I’m one of the few people I know who loves their liquid lipstick formula. I adore the Matte Lipsticks, especially Dead Roses. Their glosses are superb. They do seem to try to listen to customers. Their customer service is excellent.
RANTS: I also wish they had a better selection of singles. They could stand to have a better selection of red brow products, as well. I wish they (and all brands!) would ditch the faux velvet palette packaging. The Alyssa Edwards Palette was disappointing in its mediocrity. The issues with the initial Subculture release, and blaming the fans’ techniques for the problems, was crappy and uncharacteristic of the brand. At least such a debacle has not been repeated. The Norvina PRO Palette Vol 1 still annoys me every time I see that horrible layout.
I really like their neutral palettes. I’m not really into pre-made pallettes anymore, but if I had to pick one to work with from any brand, it would probably be Modern Renaissance or Soft Glam.
Other than that, I’m not really interested in the brand. I hear good things about their brow products ofc, but I can find good brow products for half the price at the drugstore.
LIKE: Dipbrow. Highlighter palettes. Mod Ren.
DON’T LIKE: The lipstick formula is stiff and super drying.
Over the years, I have purchased almost all of the ABH palettes and mostly two of each as I give my daughter one. She has pretty much decluttered all the palettes because she hates the powderiness of the shadows. I can work with them and I don’t mind brushing them off when my e/s is done so as long as they don’t continue to drop all day, I am fine. I pretty much love all of them while accepting that there are shades in each that I will never use. I also like the liquid lip formula and find them relatively comfortable to wear. I am surprisingly not a huge fan of the brow products. None of the shades work well for me, they dry out quickly and I have better products that I like more.
My only real criticism of the brand was the handling of the Subculture palette release. It still bothers me today. It is one thing to make a gaffe and have to back off of something or to say and do something that isn’t readily apparently wrong. There is no way that you can spin their response to make it anywhere near right.
I love the way ABH’s shadows apply, blend etc, but their formula has so much dimethicone that I develop styes after 3 consecutive days of use! I had to return the Modern Renaissance palette because it just wasn’t worth the effort to encorporate it into my routine. (I disinfected all brushes, pans etc, kept it in the fridge etc…) I generally have easily clogged pores but this was ridiculous. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
I think that ABH is a solid brand that has delivered pretty good eyeshadows and singles for quite awhile now. And some of her palettes have been quite trendsetting.
Whilst generally the colour story of her palettes is not for me (apart from Sultry), I do recognise that the brand has been quite successful.
I like the eyebrow products, eyebrow pencil in Taupe is ideal for me.
I don’t like the brand’s ageism attitude (at least how they do it in my country). I was told about an incident here where beauty bloggers were invited to an event and after that the older bloggers were denied Anastasia goodiebags that were handed over to the young bloggers. More mature ladies were told by the Anastasia person that bloggers over 40 are not in the preferred focus group or something around these lines. I was not there but remember the upset posts some of the blogger ladies did after that. My interest in the brand’s products dropped after that.
I love ABH lip glosses, they’re perfect for me because they’re non-sticky and very comfortable to wear, also there’s no overpowering scent. The palettes look like they’ve had random colours thrown at them, so I’ve never gone for any. Everything looks so unco-ordinated and hodge-podge like in them. Very unappealing as far as I’m concerned.