One Week, One Palette: Lime Crime Venus

For the tenth week of my one week, one palette project, I chose my Lime Crime Venus palette. 

Truthfully, this palette has not gotten a lot of use from me. And I think it's mainly because I didn't know how to use it. Or perhaps that I didn't yet have the courage and creativity in my makeup to really use it in the best way possible. 

I know the Modern Renaissance palette is incredibly popular right now, and I have an entire post dedicated to why I returned it. To sum it up, I already had the Lime Crime Venus palette, it was already an infrequently used palette in my collection, and the Modern Renaissance shades were so soft that they muddied on me. But since red tones are so popular at the moment, I decided to use Venus last week to showcase what kind of looks can be achieved with it. 

Top, from left: Venus, Shell, Aura, and Creation

Bottom: Icon, Rebirth, Divine, and Muse

The only thing this palette was really lacking for me was a matte cream brow bone color, but I don't count that as a negative toward the palette because I don't think every single palette needs to have one of those shades. I only mention it because I needed to pull in Liberatus from the Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye palette every day. 

Aura could have absolutely been used as an inner corner highlight, but I just used my favorite, Make Up For Ever Pearl, every day. 

And just a note, I've been having some mascara transfer issues lately, and I had a lot last week. I've switched mascaras so hopefully that will be fixed. 

Below are six looks I did last week. 

Look 1:

Shell on the inner third of the lid, Rebirth on the outer two-thirds of the lid, Divine blended into the crease, and Muse padded onto the outer corner. Rebirth and Divine on the lower lash line. 

Look 2:

Muse on the inner and outer lid, Venus padded on top of Muse, Aura in the center of the lid, Creation blended into the crease, and Divine blended above Creation in the crease. Creation and Muse on the lower lash line. 

Look 3:

Venus on the lid, Creation and Muse blended into the crease, and Icon and Muse padded onto the outer corner. Venus and Icon on the lower lash line. 

Look 4:

Shell on the lid, Rebirth blended into the crease, and Venus and Muse lightly padded onto the outer corner. Venus on the lower lash line. 

Look 5:

Aura on the lid, Creation blended into the crease, and Muse padded onto the outer corner and blended into the crease. Creation and Muse on the lower lash line. 

Look 6:

Aura on the lid, Divine blended into the crease, and Rebirth padded onto the outer corner. Divine and Rebirth on the lower lash line. 

I really enjoyed using this palette last week. It's interesting because I wasn't sure if I enjoyed the palette on the first two days, and I assumed this would be another palette that I could declutter. However, something changed on the third day, and for the rest of the week, I really enjoyed using the palette. 

I had never touched Rebirth before last week, and it was easily my favorite shadow in the palette. And for me, that shadow along with Shell are what make the Venus palette just a little more special (in my opinion) than Modern Renaissance. Shell was another favorite of mine. It wasn't something I had really played with much before last week, but I really loved it all over the lid. Aura is typically a shade that I wouldn't like all over the lid because I think the starkness of the white clashes with my skin too much, but I adored Aura on the lid, especially when paired with the other colors in the palette. Divine has always been one of my favorite shadows in the palette, and my opinion of it hasn't changed. I loved Creation and thought it had a beautiful tone, and Venus and Muse are both solid shades that are kind of the cornerstone of the palette. Icon was fine. As far as performance it worked well, but I have other browns in my collection I like a little more. I was more interested in the berry looks, so Icon didn't get much use from me last week. 

I tried to create some looks that could be achieved with Modern Renaissance, but I also wanted to do some that could not to show the similarities in the palettes as well as the distinct differences. And to be completely truthful, while I really enjoyed the looks that could be created with Modern Renaissance, I more enjoyed the looks that couldn't. And that's good for me because I returned Modern Renaissance and saw that it was not a palette that would add anything to my existing collection. And the good news is that if you have and love Modern Renaissance but want to achieve certain looks with colors from the Venus palette, you can probably just buy one or two singles to supplement Modern Renaissance instead of purchasing another palette. 

Look 4 was my favorite of the week, but I also really loved looks 5 and 6 and also enjoyed look 3. I think the reason I loved look 4 so much is because it's a look that I would have never done before embarking on this project. Rebirth is an intimidating hot pink, and I always wondered how I could wear it. I went all out on the first day and put it on most of my lid. And while I thought it was pretty, on the whole I'm not a huge fan of matte shadows on my lid. I much preferred Rebirth in the crease in look 4 and padded onto the outer corner in look 6. Though Rebirth was my favorite, I used Muse the most because, as I said, I really think that is one of the palette's cornerstone shades and I wanted to use it to its full potential. And I really loved it. 

What I love most about this palette is that there are no "wasted" shades. And what I mean by that is while there are only eight shades, I feel like it has an incredibly diverse color scheme. I chose to emphasize the pink and berry tones, but plenty of professional or neutral looks can also be created. For example, Aura on the lid with Creation in the crease and Icon padded onto the outer corner would give a very pretty neutral look. Or Divine could be padded onto the lid and blended out with Icon or Creation. There are few palettes in my collection where I really feel there are a ton of possibilities, and the Venus palette is definitely one of them and also likely the smallest. I therefore have to give credit to Lime Crime for curating this palette so well. 

However, I find it important to discuss that I know a lot of people don't want to buy products from Lime Crime. I certainly went through a period where I did not want to support the brand whatsoever. And it's not that my mind has necessarily changed, but I do think there are several factors to consider, such as past behavior versus current behavior. If a company shows growth in some capacity, I think that's a positive step forward. I know that many companies have a sordid history, and I don't think that just because it's a common occurrence that we shouldn't care. We should care, and we should make our voices heard. But I do think that on the whole Lime Crime has made some positive strides in the way that other controversial brands have not. With that said, I purchased the Venus palette a while ago from the Urban Outfitters flagship store in New York City. As of right now, I cannot find the Venus palette on the Urban Outfitters website, so I don't know if it's only sold in stores or if the flagship store is a special location. Personally, I still don't feel comfortable purchasing from Lime Crime's website, and I certainly would not purchase through any means other than PayPal. There is nothing else from the entire brand that I am interested in purchasing, so I can't say that I support the brand or not. If I wanted to purchase something from Lime Crime in the future, I would have to consider several factors. And if I proceeded, I would do so with caution. I think, as always, people should perform their own research and make an informed decision that suits their own comfort. 

I am absolutely not trying to talk anyone into buying the Venus palette (or any other palette I use during this project). Rather, my hope with this post is to realistically show that you can use items in your collection to recreate looks from the hot "palette of the moment." And to maybe let me be an example of what not to do. I owned the Venus palette already (along with the Kat Von D Shade and Light Eye and many other neutral matte shadows) and I still bought Modern Renaissance because everyone hyped it so much. And when I got it home, I realized that not only did I have all of these colors already, but I had them in larger sizes (the pans in Modern Renaissance don't have much product) and of quality that worked better for my skin. This is why I advocate really breaking down and evaluating what you already have so that you do not waste money getting sucked into the latest and greatest thing and buying what you already own.