What I'm Not Buying: Too Faced Sweet Peach Glow Highlighting Palette

As part of Too Faced's "totally unexpected" relaunch of the Sweet Peach palette, Sweet Peach has been franchised to include lip glosses, blush, and a cheek palette. This post is going to specifically discuss the cheek palette. 

I won't be buying. 

It's no secret that Too Faced has become one of my least favorite brands because of their marketing that hinges on hype and "fear of missing out" tactics, rapid product release schedule, gimmicky nature, and utter decline in quality. The Sweet Peach palette was a culmination of all of this, and my thoughts on that palette can be found more in depth here. 

Once they had successfully orchestrated a disastrous release of the Sweet Peach palette, Too Faced claimed that they had no way of knowing the product would have been as in demand as it was. And I don't buy that at all. I especially don't buy it because now we are getting an entire Sweet Peach line of products. I find it hard to believe that all of this could be conceived and executed in the months since the initial Sweet Peach release. 

With that said, a few months ago, teaser images of the Sweet Peach collection surfaced, which again tells me that this mega release has long been planned. I am of the opinion that Too Faced is banking on three things to sell this collection:

• Hype
• Peach scent
• Packaging (which includes a smiling peach)

The Sweet Peach Glow costs $42 for a peached-toned highlighter, blush, and bronzer. At this time I don't know the size of each of the products within this palette, so it is difficult to gauge the value of the palette. I can say that while $42 for a face palette isn't terrible or wholly outside the typical price range for a mid-range brand, I also think this price could have been lower. Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kits, for example, contain four highlighters and cost $40. 

One positive I can give Sweet Peach Glow (with the caveat that I have not actually seen swatches to gauge color depth or pigmentation) is that I think it may be able to work on medium and deep skin tones. While I doubt the peach bronzer would work as an actual bronzer on many skin tones, I do think it has the potential to be a very pretty highlighter on deeper skin tones. Depending on the pigmentation, I could see the blush and highlighting powder also looking lovely on medium to deep skin tones. 

Another positive that I can give the Glow palette is that it actually looks peach. Within the highlighter, blush, and bronzer, I can see peach tones, which is already a step up from the Sweet Peach palette. However, the peachiness is most easily seen in the promotional photo (top). This photo of Sweet Peach Glow, which looks to have more realistic lighting, shows the highlighter and bronzer with less peach undertones:

As a standalone product, apart from its name and associated hype, I don't think this is a very desirable product. Admittedly, I don't know what the market is for people who want an entirely peach cheek palette, but I assume most people who want a peach blush already have one. I also assume that these same people already have a highlighter and bronzer that flatter their skin tone. With that in mind, it seems as though this palette was created based on a gimmick and wanting to ride the coat tails of Sweet Peach's success. As a consumer, I find that frankly obnoxious. I would be much more interested in a product that appeared to have some thought to it for practical use rather than, "Look, more peach stuff!"

The biggest audience I can see for this product is someone who collects Too Faced products, someone who collects highlighting palettes, and someone who wants to collect the Sweet Peach line. Now, I'm not saying there is anything wrong with being in that audience. Although I don't personally collect makeup, I know many people do and many people collect all kinds of things. I don't pass judgement on people who thoroughly enjoy collecting makeup. But from a business standpoint, I don't think it's a great move on Too Faced's part to make a palette that seems to only appeal to collectors because it is under the guise of being for the average makeup consumer. 

Because this palette is so specific in its peachiness, unless peach is someone's go-to color, I don't think the entire palette would get a ton of use. If someone does a look and thinks peach would look nice of the face, I can see them using this palette. But I don't think for most people it would be an everyday product. And for $42, I think that's a lot to spend for a once-in-a-while type of product. 

Within my own collection, as I've mentioned, my favorite peach blush is Laura Geller Cantaloupe:

Photo: Temptalia

I also have the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit in Gleam, which has some peach- and pink-toned highlighters:

And I have already found my all-time favorite bronzer, Hourglass Luminous Bronze Light:

Photo: Temptalia 

This bronzer is so perfect for my skin that I honestly have no desire to look for any other bronzer, peach-toned or not. 

Thing is, I bet that most people can look at their collection and find suitable replacements for the products in the Sweet Peach Glow palette. Despite that, people will still be drawn to this product and will try to come up with every excuse imaginable for why they should still buy it.

• It will be nice to have all those products within the same place. Really? Is it that much of a hassle to have the bush, highlighter, and bronzer you already own not in the same place? If it's that important to you, couldn't you just depot them into a custom palette? 
• It will be great for travel! Will it? Really? Is your go-to face look mostly peach-based? Is this really a realistic everyday, perfect face palette? 
• I've been wanting to try a blush/highlighter/bronzer from Too Faced. Have you? Then why haven't you already? And if so, pick one and just buy that separately. 
• A peach bronzer sounds fun. But is there a reason you don't already own one? Have you already found the tone that works for your skin tone? And is it not peach?

And then, of course, there is: 

• The packaging is cute. 
• It smells like peaches! 
• I don't want to miss out. What if everyone loves it and then I don't have it?!

For the first two reasons, if you are willing to spend your money for packaging and synthetic peach scent, if those things are that important to you, then I guess buy it. Your mind is probably already made up, and there won't be many arguments to change it. 

But if you're caught on that third point, I think it's really, really important to take into consideration how quickly trends change in the beauty community. For example, look at how many people are still talking about the Sweet Peach eyeshadow palette right now. Most people stopped talking about it within a month of its release. And I highly doubt that any person who encounters you will ask if you are wearing the Too Faced Sweet Peach Glow on your face and then be impressed if the answer is yes. I can almost guarantee that such an encounter will never happen. And if you were wearing this palette and someone complimented your makeup, I would bet the exact thing would happen if you were wearing any other peach blush, highlighter, and bronzer combination. Because the entire purpose of products like these is to make you look generally healthy and nice. They aren't meant to call attention to themselves. 

As I've said, I think the main audience for this is someone who wants to collect Too Faced products. Personally, I feel as though Too Faced's quality has significantly dropped over the past year. I also think it would have to be difficult to be able to develop exceptionally high quality products at the speed of Too Faced product releases. I think Too Faced very carefully observed the current trends within consuming beauty products and saw the benefit of serializing products. The sales of the Urban Decay Naked 2 and Naked 3 palettes probably would have been significantly less had they not been part of the "Naked" line. That's why Urban Decay created a "Naked" everything. Too Faced repeated this with the Chocolate Bar line and then found their gimmicky stride in products with food names and related scents. They sat back and watched as people went crazy trying to get their hands on all these products to complete collections. And capitalized on it by releasing product after product as quality dropped. But people continued to buy the latest release regardless of quality, so what incentive is there to adopt any other sales tactic?

I've never been the biggest fan of Too Faced, and I always felt a little different because of that. It's not that I ever thought their products were bad, they just weren't as good to me as others. I'm left with only the Chocolate Bon Bons and Peanut Butter and Jelly palettes, and these are the last palettes Too Faced has released, in my opinion, that were of really good quality. Watching Too Faced this past year has really been a turn-off for me. It just looks visibly greedy. But there is no incentive for them to change unless people start becoming smarter shoppers. The Sweet Peach Glow palette looks nothing more than riding the coat tails of the Sweet Peach palette. It doesn't strike me as something expertly curated that is meant to be a staple in a person's makeup bag for several years. It's an expensive "hot product of the moment," and I won't be buying.