How Fenty Beauty’s Galaxy Collection Finessed Me

Who doesn’t love Riri? And by Riri I obviously mean queen bee badgyal Rihanna. Say what you will about her live prowess (which have come a long way since she opened for Jay-Z back in 2006), these days Rih’s a force of nature. She’s evolved, she’s grown, and there’s something about her 100% DGAF attitude which just lures everyone in. Me included.

The launch of Fenty Beauty in September had me shook… and I didn’t even know it was launching til probably late August. Sike! I was wholly unprepared for the absolute shortage of brainpower I would experience when the line dropped. She did good, did Riri!

I’ll talk about my experience with Fenty Beauty proper perhaps in another post — long story short is I was on Fentybeauty.com for a good long while, finally made an order, when it arrived I changed my mind, took a nice lil trip to the post office… and so on! Riveting stuff that one, look out for it in a blog post soon.

However, the HOLIDAY COLLECTION was even more unexpected for me than the rest of Fenty Beauty. When I first heard it was coming — about 3 weeks after Fenty Beauty shook the world with its first launch — I was actually very impressed with how fast they moved on that one. This whole brand seems like it has a lot of thought behind it; there’s intention in everything and I do feel like they’re trying to push the envelope and shake things up. Plus it’s a whole lot of fun.

Of course, Instagram worked its magic on me and convinced me that I needed the Galaxy Limited Edition Eyeshadow Palette. The glitter! The sparkle! The fabulousness! I loved that Rihanna made a palette comprising only glitters — not at all practical, but where’s the fun in that?!

I then moved on and decided to pick up a lip gloss and lipstick. After umming and ahhing for a while, I decided on Gal on the Moon for the Cosmic Gloss Lip Glitter, and the Starlit Hyperglitz Lipstick in $upanova. Such pretty!

I also threw in one of the Glitter Relase Eyeliners in Alien Bae, partly because I was feeling speedy, and also because the name is genius. These also looked really cool — and eyeliner that seems pedestrian at first, but which turns into a glitter when you rub it? Yasss.

Of course, after I had ordered these, I started to get a lil’ twitchy. When you’re so keen on something that you haven’t watched a YouTube tutorial on it yet, there’s always a risk. I mean, how am I supposed to live without referring to YouTube?

I had actually been tossing up between the two lip products above, and two alternatives: the Cosmic Lip Glitter in Spacesuit, and the Starlit Hyperglitz Lipstick in Supermoon. When the reviews did come out, peeps just happened to be raving about these two. I had chosen two more ~experimental~ shades originally, which I was proud of, but these two looked so darn wearable… so I picked them up too.

And then the fam was complete!

I have been waiting and waiting to talk/write about these, and so they’ve been forlornly waiting in their boxes for this moment. But it’s here now!

First off, the glosses. These are not for the faint of heart — and why would they be? It’s Riri! All of them are super packed with glitter (as is the whole collection), and really throw it in the face of the whole matte lip trend we’ve been wading through these past few years. As someone with perpetually dry lips, I never really got on board with that, and I’m thanking my lucky stars gloss is back in a big way!

You can see that the doe foot applicator is pretty long, which actually makes these super easy to apply. Kind of like how the Fenty Universal Lip Luminizer (spoiler alert: I love it) as a really fat applicator, you only need a few swipes with this and you’re done. And talk about glitter… this thing is seriously lit.

You can see that Gal on the Moon is definitely the bolder of the two; a taupey/purple shift with blue reflects… okay ma’am. You can see that it may not be the most everyday of the shades… and here comes in Spacesuit!

A much more subtle, softer choice, Spacesuit still has glitter flecks to keep you pout sparkling, but it’s waaay more subdued. I originally didn’t pick this up because of the colour, as pale pinks don’t do too much for me, but it’s honestly just a slight sheen. A very natural, beautiful colour.

Next, the lipsticks! I actually wasn’t going to buy any of these first off, as I’m not such a lipstick girl… and I probably could live without them, if I’m honest. Don’t get me wrong, they’re super pretty, and the packaging is bomb. I just didn’t know how much I’d used a glitter lipstick — and I still haven’t figured that out. Nevertheless, here we are!

These are really quite cute and pocket-sized, but also seem quite thin for a lipstick. The FB stamp is cute, and the application is creamy. You can see again that $upanova is way more out there (than I expected), and Supermoon is more wearable and chill. There’s a time and a place for everything, you see!

And now, onto the eyeshadows! There’s 14 shades in the palette, and they run quite green & blue. This isn’t ideal for me — a blue-eyed bambina — but this whole purchase wasn’t really about being rational… at all. Also, as I said, they’re all glitters… and I’m not mad at that!

As you can see, I couldn’t wait to get my paws into this palette, so it’s not 100% untouched. It’s raw! It’s real! And when this arrived, I couldn’t not touch it. I just wanted to dunk my face in it!

Now, in terms of practicality… again, this may not be the one. It’s 100% on, all the time. Glitter glitter glitter. But I actually feel the world doesn’t have enough glitter, so this is A-ok with me. It’s also good inspiration to dress a little more fabulously a little more of the time.

You can see that there’s a bit of fallout in the palette, which is pretty standard for glitter. I haven’t really played with this in depth yet, but I’ve heard & read that some of them are more “toppers” than an actual shimmer/glitter shade. Some people were giving this palette “shade” (get it) for not being so pigmented, but… that wasn’t necessarily the point. Duh!

We got a couple of angles for the swatches above, but honestly these really come to life in bright light. The way they shift in the light is really beautiful, and harder to capture on camera in the daytime… but if you use your imagination, you’ll get it!

This Fenty Beauty Galaxy Holiday Collection was all about glitter, and having fun! I’m actually really glad I purchased these, because I really have nothing like them in my collection/hoard, and they inspire me to be more experimental in my “look”. I really don’t know the last time I wore a metallic lip… but goshdarnit, I will now!

Did you pick up any Fenty Holiday bits? Let me know!

Steph x

P.S. It’s good to be back 🙂

SHOP THE POST: