Ofra Holiday Glow Palette

Sometimes even a product junkie ends up on total overload and products get overlooked.

I actually picked up the Ofra Holiday Glow Palette ($49.50, Ulta) during the first week of Ulta's 21 Days of Beauty and only recently got around to testing it out.

I'm going to do a hard pass on many holiday releases, but I've been wanting to try some of the Ofra pressed powder products and I had some Ulta points to bring down the price... so into my cart that it went.

This palette consists of 6 shimmery eyeshadows, 2 matte potted eyeliner shades, one shimmery bronzer, one of the classic highlighters, and four blushes. I'll mention that each of these items are removable; the shades are only labeled on the overlay. I haven't removed the pans to see if they are on the bottom of each pan.You also get a nicely-sized mirror in this packaging.

Although it's cardboard, it does feel quite sturdy.

Let's take a look at the shades in detail.

Here are the eyeshadows:

Millenium Gold is that gorgeous cool-toned gold that I've been searching for as of late. I think it's my favorite of the six shades.

And the blushes:

I have some mixed feelings here- I feel like they're trying to make a universal palette. I can wear Apricot and Pink Satin easily, Candy Apple with a very refined hand- but B-29 is going to waste away. Someone with a medium complexion is going to find Apricot and Pink Satin useless, etc.

The bronzer and highlighter:

And the eyeliner shades:

It's a very pretty, holiday-appropriate palette. Ofra went very safe and classic holiday for this first release.

Now, let's talk about actually using it.

This is where Ofra missed the mark for me- with a palette this size, with this many type of shades, I'd want to be able to do entire look from it. And I can't. I had to pull out one of my new favorites (keep an eye out in a few days for my review of a palette that snuck up on me.) to make this workable. I know this is a "glow" palette, but one cannot make a modern look without any mattes.

Here's a look at the cheek look I did:

That's a mix of Apricot and Pink Satin, with some Blissful highlighter (which I own in a single pan) and the Americano bronzer. It's a lot of shimmer. And shows some serious texture.

I played with this on three different occasions and ended up with similar looks. The palette's very holiday, but I struggle to make a lot of completely different looks. I do really love the way this turned out:

It features Millenium Gold, Bohemian, and Plastic. I could wear this often.

Let's talk a bit about value. The palette retails for $49.50, and claims to be a $182 value.  I think it's a good way to try an assortment of products, but I certainly wouldn't pay $182 for the products individually.

I didn't have any issues, quality-wise with this palette. It's solid, and I could probably travel with this and my Tarte Clay Play palette and essentially be happy for an entire face. It doesn't meet my expectations in that it needed a buddy palette- but I can deal with that.

Overall, I think this is a good introduction to the brand,and it would be a good holiday gift. I'll try to pull this into more frequent rotation during the holiday season.