at first i wasn’t very interested in this, but since my boyfriend is a divergent fan, i forwarded the link for him to look at when i got notified of this by Sephora.  “you should totally get it and review it on your blog!” he replied excitedly.  i wasn’t convinced at first, but as i mulled it over slowly, the idea took hold.  it did seem kind of symbolic in a way, drawing a nice parallel to my life.  like the heroine of the novel, i too, am embarking on a new journey trying to discover different facets of myself while fighting off my insecurities (when do we get to grow out of that?!). ok, that’s enough about me!  onto the makeup! i’m going to break this up into an overview of contents plus an in depth look at the Divergent Cheek palette and lip glosses.  stay tuned for the eyeshadow palettes!

The Collector’s Kit comes very nicely in an outer box with a magnetic snap.  even if you haven’t read the books and don’t understand the significance of the ferris wheel, it’s still makes for a pleasing image.

open the box and you find an exciting amount of makeup for $59.50.  there are 3 palettes of eye shadows with a total of 15 shades, 1 cheek palette with 2 blushes, a highlight and a bronzer, 4 lip glosses, and a double-ended angled cheek brush and pointed blending eye brush. just as a brief point of comparison, there’s slightly more eye shadow in these palettes than Urban Decay’s Naked 3.  3 double-sided look cards are tucked into a pocket on the back of top lid.

clearly all the effort in packaging and design went into the box and palettes.  i haven’t recreated the suggested looks, but my gripe is with how the colors in the look cards are represented.  you can’t tell from a casual look the color difference in the looks between some of the cards.  in fact, i gave them to the boyfriend to look over, and he thought the card with the lighter colors was actually a darker, smokier look.  i mean, what’s the point of a look card if i can’t get a sense of what the look is?  color is a major part of that! if i have to hold the look cards next to the palette and see what colors they’re talking about then you might as well not have bothered with the picture.  please give me a venn diagram type look card with the colors clearly delineated!

the palettes stack together to reform the ferris wheel.  not that i’d store them this way, but i still appreciate the remarkable amount of thought that went into the package design.

the palettes snap out vertically in case you want to take a different transformer (glitter) shade with your favorite faction palette.  before you moan about fallout, the transformer colors are surprisingly high quality. i’ve actually had less fall out with these than some urban decay shades (i’m glaring at you, anarchy face palette!).

this double-ended brush is great! it blends just as nicely as my Crown, Sigma, and Urban Decay angled brushes.  it’s softer than my Urban Decay, very similar in density, and the head is a little smaller and more of an elongated oval shape.  compared to my Crown brush, it’s not quite as soft but denser.  shape wise, it’s pretty similar with the Divergent brush just a little more elongated.  the Sigma F40 with HD filament (the bunny ones) is slightly softer with a smaller, narrower head than the Divergent brush.

i can’t say much for the other end as i’m not skilled enough to manipulate that large of a brush on my small lids.  i’m guessing you can use it as a diffused crease brush.

does the packaging of that gloss look familiar to you?  i thought maybe sephora teamed up with Hourglass to make this line.  i chatted with some of the Sephora makeup artists, and they told me it was designed by the Sephora pro artists who just really loved hourglass’ packaging… in any case, the lip glosses are slightly minty and cooling on the lips (much milder than buxom) and sadly not as pigmented as they look. they’re mostly going to give your lips some shine and some moisture. the texture is light and not tacky.  i swatched them on my bare lips, but you couldn’t really tell one from the other.  thus i’ll save you the unnecessary photo spam.

in the pictures below, i’ve put lipstick on my lips and layered the glosses only on my bottom lip so you can get a better idea of how they can subtly change the color on your lips.

Fear Not is a mauve brown pink with a tiny bit of gold shimmer in the tube.  swatched, it looks more like a pretty berry.  it gives the barest tint of berry on bare lips.  on my pink lipstick, it’s just adding a bit of shine for dimension.  it’s the most pigmented out of the bunch.

Supreme Ritual is the other end of the 4 lipgloss spectrum.  it’s a creamy, milky, pale, peach nude with shimmer.  you can see that it doesn’t really tone the pink down much at all.

Temptation’s Choice has the most shimmer of all the glosses and is a peach champagne gloss.  you can see a bit more of the sparkles in the left corner but like i said before, these are all very natural glosses that don’t have much pigmentation or shimmer and makes the lips shiny rather than glossy.

Natural Virtue is a mauve nude.  it’s more pigmented than Supreme Ritual so you can see it managed to nude out the pink on my lips just a little.

the Divergent Cheek palette is my favorite out of the whole collection. with one sweep of whatever blush brush i pick up, i can pick up the perfect amount of pigment for a good natural flush that blends out easily. sometimes, i dab just a little bit more, so it shows up a little easier on camera.  if that’s case i’m just gently tapping my brush onto the blush instead of sweeping through.  i like it just as much, if not more, as my Tarte Off The Cuff palette, but it may be new toy syndrome.  i love the simplicity of the two shades.  they’re no brainer shades that go with everything.  the radiant glow illuminator in gleaming pearl really lives up to the first part of its name.  it gives a nice, natural healthy skin glow.  i forgot it in my first day of eye looks, and the difference between those pictures and the looks after were noticeable.

this is me with the Abnegation palette, Obscure Coral, and Intelligent Bronze (is it anal if i felt the bronzer should have been associated with amity and not erudites?).  i used 1 sweep then dabbed on a bit extra because it didn’t show well on my lcd screen and i thought it needed amping, but it didn’t.  this is more pigmented than how i like to wear my every day looks.

this is me with a look from the Erudite palette (didn’t erudites wear blue? why is there no blue in the Erudite palette?), Misty rose and Gleaming Pearl but no bronzer. overall, i’m very pleased with my Collector’s Kit. i think it has great value and would be a great starter kit for someone’s neutrals collection, a fan of divergent, or a nude collector.  i’d happily pack one of faction eye palettes and the cheek palette for a weekend trip. Abnegation and Erudite eye palettes have nice colors that blend out well and build up nicely, making it fool proof for beginners and versatile for pros.  Dauntless eye palette rounds out the collection with all dark, smokey colors.  please visit back soon for a more in-depth look at the eye palettes and a look from the erudite palette!  i know it’s sold out right now online, but it is going to be restocked.  if you’re in the pasadena area, the Sephora there gets shipments every tuesday and thursday.

Readers, tell me what you think! are you a divergent fan?  do you own any of the Divergent line or waiting to get your hands on one? not a fan? leave your thoughts down below!