Ulta Holographic Eye & Cheek Palette

Today I have a really fun item from the Ulta Beauty collection to share with you. I spotted the Ulta Beauty Holographic Eye & Cheek Palette ($16) online, and then later in store. Of course, I immediately got Kat Von D Alchemist vibes and wanted to give this a try.

It's been awhile since I've seriously given anything from the Ulta in-house brand a try, and I've never tried any highlighters.

The palette comes in a cardboard package, and the information on the back shows that these are 0.07oz/2g each. They're made in China but distributed by Ulta.

The four round pans are protected by a piece of plastic. Let's take a closer look at each shade individually.

First up is Fairy.

In the pan, it looks like a lavender shimmer. The actual swatch was a surprise.

The lavender pigment appears to mostly be a silver sheen. Hmmm.

The second shade, Pixie, is an opalescent pink.

Here's the swatch, but these are notoriously difficult to capture.

Next up is blue-leaning Nymph.

Here's a swatch of Nymph:

Last shade is the green-leaning Angel:

Here's a swatch of Angel:

When I was swatching, I found these to be nice to the touch, blended beautifully, but reminded me of other things in my collection.  I decided to dig deep and here's what I found:

For someone who tends to stick with more understated highlights, I seem to have collected quite a few less ordinary shades!

OK, let's take them shade by shade.  First up, let's see what dupes for Fairy I own.

L-R: Ulta Fairy, ABH Purple Horseshoe (Moonchild), KVD Ultra-violet Amethyst

They really don't look similar in person or on camera. Fairy is a deceptive color- in the pan, it looks purple but really it's a pinky-silver shade.

I felt like I knew Pixie from about 10 places in my collection.

L-R: Ulta, Pixie, NYX Duochromatic Snow Rose, Laura Geller Diamond Dust, KVD Pink Opal, ABH Pink Heart (Moonchild)

At first, I assumed the NYX would be a perfect dupe but it's a lot lighter. I felt like the Laura Geller is pretty darned close to Pixie despite being a little bit brighter. I felt like the KVD was very similar, but really with this shade all of them give the same overall effect on the face. I just was being picky.

It's almost impossible for the camera to properly pick up that pink opalescent shift on my skin, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Swatching Nymph, I was lamenting that the NYX blue Duochromatic highlighter I owned broke because it was screaming out as a dupe.

L-R: Nymph, KVD Blue Saphyre, ABH Blue Ice

One of the things I've learned is to take a voice note when I'm swatching live. My actual comment was "oh my!". By itself, Nymph looks really blue but next to the KVD it looks quite purple. The KVD has more of a royal blue shift in comparison.  Blue Ice really was in the middle of these two shades. It's a little lighter than Nymph but in the same family.

As I was swatching Angel, I immediately thought of ABH Helia.

L-R: Angel, KVD Green Emerald, Helia (Aurora), Lucky Clover (Moonchild)

I know.  I was so thrown by Helia that I thought I forgot to swatch these comps and re-swatched.

As it turns out, my comment was  "they're really similar, guys" instead of vs Helia. It shows that especially with these types of shades, your memory and eyes can be fooled. I felt like Angel was sliiiightly more yellow. And while swatching, I was reminded that I wanted to pick up another Alchemist palette because I destroyed one of the shades and haven't wanted to use it since. Helia was way yellow in comparison but Lucky Clover was back in line with the other shades.


While swatching, I kept saying "you don't need all of these."  Which is why I wanted to review this for you. It's fun, it's affordable, and if you don't own these other, higher end palettes, it's quite similar and I'd recommend it. There are differences, but those aren't enough to justify all of these crazy highlighters that I own!


I won't be afraid to sample more products from Ulta's in-store brand after playing with this palette. I look forward to playing with this more (especially on the eyes) in the middle of winter.