What I'm Not Buying: Lime Crime Venus 3

Weeks after releasing the Venus XL, Lime Crime has released yet another version of the Venus palette, Venus 3. 

And I won't be buying. 

I was tagged by many people letting me know about this palette, and I wanted to thank everyone who did. It's always helpful for me to know the products that you all are most interested to hear about, and I appreciate the engagement around the ideas of the anti-haul and smart shopping. 

Despite everything that I know about Lime Crime (I won't be getting into their past in this post, but if you're interested, I detailed that information in this post), I still can't help but be excited and interested when they announce a new shadow palette. That's not to say I can't wait to buy these new products, but I'm excited to just see them. And that's because the Venus and Venus 2 palettes were years "ahead of their time" or ahead of trends. 

Venus was an entire palette of warm pink and red tones years before Anastasia Beverly Hills Modern Renaissance entered the scene. Likewise, Venus 2 debuted long before ABH Subculture. Neutrals were still the focus of most palette releases when the Venus palettes came along, and I remember thinking they were too "out there" for me. Now, shadows from Venus are some of the powerhouse shades in my favorite custom palette, and I have fallen hard for the mustard tones that first appeared in Venus 2. 

Lime Crime is certainly not without an unfavorable history, but they have traditionally been the indie brand to watch in terms of innovative color stories and new trends. (Lime Crime Cashmere certainly put the "greige" lip color on trend.) And I guess that's why Venus 3 leaves me really disappointed. 

You see, unlike so many of Lime Crime's earlier palettes, we have definitely seen color schemes like this before. 

Let's look at the palette:

We've got a palette full of purple, pink, and taupe tones. Now, that's not incredibly surprising since the Pantone Color of the Year is Ultra Violet, and I expect that we will see many purple-toned palettes in the coming months. But it's also not like we haven't seen purple-toned palettes before. 

When I first saw Venus 3, I immediately thought, Oh, this is Viseart Amethyst Theory:

This palette released about a year ago, so it's curious to me that Lime Crime would come out with this palette at least a year late to the game. When this palette launched, many people raved about there finally being a purple palette, but, really, there's only two purple shades in it. And there's really only two purple shades in Venus 3 as well. 

Let's look at swatches:

Looking at these swatches, there's:

• A matte cool pink
• A shimmery pink
• A shimmery pink champagne
• A shimmery white-pink
• A matte cool brown
• A matte fuchsia/purple
• A matte warm pink
• A shimmery taupe

It's interesting because Beam (second shadow on the top row) looks like a shimmery violet in the pan, but in the swatch it looks like a shimmery pink. And that was one of two shadows that looked somewhat purple. So now, this "purple" palette that only had two purple shades only really has one, and it's fuchsia at that. 

Truthfully, Venus 3 is not ahead of trends, it's not unique or interesting, and it is not something that we haven't seen before. It's a collection of pink shadows that look more interesting in the pan than they do in performance. Added to that, it doesn't appear to be a very versatile palette. There are four shimmery shadows, but I would guess that they don't look too distinct from each other when applied to the lid. And that's half the palette. You can make a pink look, violet look, and taupe look. Other than that, the colors are very monochromatic, which doesn't usually allow for multiple options. 

In addition to Viseart Amethyst Theory, Venus 3 looks like Huda Beauty Desert Dusk:

Natasha Denona Lila:

Kylie Cosmetics Purple Palette:

Colourpop Element of Surprise:

Zoeva Love is a Story:

Dose of Colors Marvelous Mauves:

And Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts:

These are all palettes that have been available for some time, and while they all don't have the exact color scheme as Venus 3, they certainly embrace the idea of neutral shadows with a couple pops of fuchsia or purple. 

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the marketing of this palette. This is something that I talked about a lot in the early posts on this blog, but it bears repeating. These were the "first images" Lime Crime released of Venus 3:

I cannot tell you how frustrating I personally find this kind of marketing campaign. All these pictures are saying is:

Look, we have a new palette! We are going to tell you absolutely nothing about it, other than the fact that it exists and will be released at some point in time, but we fully expect you to be excited by this! Look, it's a picture of nothing! Get excited!

I understand that brands need to market their products, but they are looking out for their own best interest. As consumers, we should be looking out for our own as well. Many brands are guilty of this particular marketing tactic, where they try to drum up hype and excitement just on the idea of a new product. And just the idea of something can be incredibly powerful. 

We saw this most clearly in the Too Faced Sweet Peach palette release. Too Faced released the name of the palette, Sweet Peach, and images of the packaging. And that was all that consumers needed to fill in the gaps for themselves. It was going to be a peach palette! There were going to be so many different shades of peach! Then people made the decision—without even seeing the palette—that they were going to buy it. When the palette was finally shown, people were incredibly disappointed. Where's the peach?! Still, they had already made the decision to buy, and it was difficult to change that mindset because they also had fear of missing out. Too Faced intentionally released low stock, the palette sold out immediately, and then it became a frenzy of people trying to buy this palette they didn't even like. 

It was a complete disaster from a consumer standpoint, but it was an incredibly effective marketing tactic. Soon after this, Too Faced was able to sell the company for over $1 billion, which was a culmination of expert marketing tactics over a few years and several key product releases. Other brands took notice, and this is now an almost universal marketing tactic. 

This brings me back to my earlier point that Venus palettes in the past have been exciting because they brought something new to the table. But this marketing tactic, which is just like so many others, puts Lime Crime squarely in the space of "following" the trends rather than setting them. They were banking on the assumption that consumers would see this nothing image, see that it was an eyeshadow palette in the same packaging as the Venus palettes, and make the decision to buy based on the previous two Venus palettes. The tactic is based on riding the coattails of their previous, successful palettes. 

The reason I bring all of this up is that it's important as a consumer to recognize this tactic and not buy into it. If you saw Venus 3 and felt it was incredibly exciting and just the palette you were looking to add to your collection, that's great. But if you saw the nothing marketing images and felt the impulse to buy without even knowing what it looked like, that might be something to keep in mind before your purchase. As consumers, we should be buying products because they excite and inspire us, or even better, if they fulfill a purpose. 

Personally, I have never considered myself to be a "makeup collector," and I like for everything in my collection to have a place and purpose. I am not passing judgement on people who do collect makeup because everyone is different. But for me, buying the Venus 3 palette "because I want to have the entire Venus collection" is not a good enough reason to spend upwards of $40 on eyeshadows I already own.  

If you're interested in this color scheme, I would recommend taking a look at Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts instead. Queen of Hearts is a more inclusive palette, and it can create a multitude of looks. I own Queen of Hearts, in addition to a slew of other palettes and single shadows, so there is absolutely no reason for me to buy Venus 3. I was disappointed to see that Lime Crime didn't bring anything new or innovative to the table with this product, and I'm not personally too excited to see a collection of colors that I've seen done again and again in the past year. 

There's nothing drawing me to the Venus 3 palette, and there is not a single shade in it that I don't already own a few times over. I don't need this palette, so I won't be buying. 

What I'm Not Buying: Lime Crime Venus XL

Lime Crime has released their latest palette, which is an extra large version of their popular Venus palette, aptly named Venus XL. 

And I won't be buying. 

I have never received so many requests to write an anti-haul post, and I'm sorry it has taken me a while to get to it. However, it was thrilling to receive so many requests, and I just want to thank everyone who either messaged me, commented, or tagged me in a post on Instagram. 

Part of the reason that it took me so long to write this post is that when I first saw the Venus XL, I really, really wanted to purchase it. And I wanted to make sure that I was confident in my decision not to before writing this post. The original Venus palette has been a favorite of mine (though it has since been depotted), and the expansion of the XL palette is really gorgeous. 

Lime Crime has definitely been one of the most controversial brands in recent years (we will get into that more later), but they produce some of the most beautiful makeup items. And Venus XL is no exception. 

I knew I shouldn't buy this palette, that I had all of these colors already, but I was still tempted by it. And despite everything that I have learned and that I have written about in this blog, I still felt pulled in by the color scheme. But then I faced reality. Yes, this is a gorgeous palette. But I truly have all of these colors already. 

Let's look at the original Venus palette:

And Venus XL:

What's nice about this palette is that there aren't any repeat shades from the original Venus palette. So if you already own Venus, there won't be any overlap. But with that said, I think there are several shades in Venus that absolutely should be in this palette, especially since this is a "Venus XL" palette. Most specially, I think "Venus", "Rebirth," and "Muse" should have been included. There are certainly shades that are comparable in Venus XL, but I think it's really lacking those deep red shades and a bright coral. 

The most obvious palettes in my collection that dupe this color scheme are my duped/edited Desert Dusk palette:

And my duped Just Peachy Mattes palette:

Between these two palettes, I have every single shadow in Venus XL duped. And this is obviously why I was so drawn to it—it's clearly a color scheme that I love. These two palettes are arguably my top favorites in my entire collection, and it would be so pointless for me to buy another palette just to have all these colors again. 

Let's look at swatches:

It's funny because swatches are supposed to help sell a palette, but I've recently found that they do the opposite for me. When I see pictures of the palette and see the colors organized in a certain way, I feel so drawn to it. But when I see swatches, I feel like I am brought back into reality. Because these are all very basic colors. In fact, I would say that my two palettes above easily have more unique colors than this palette. 

Added to that, there are so many colors in here that look incredibly similar. My guess is that "Passion", "Aphrodite", "Nu Classic", "Celestial", "Triumph", and "Supreme" would all look very similar once applied onto the eye. Same with "Eden", "Inspire", and "Goddess." 

And when you look at it that way, it seems there are only 10 unique colors in Venus XL: dark pink, bronze, berry, mauve, hot pink, brown, orange, light pink, cream, and dark brown/plum. Meaning, there are about eight shades in this palette that are repeats. And even then, there are three different shades of pink included in the "unique" shade count. 

There are countless palettes that look like Venus XL, including, Jeffrey Star Blood Sugar:

Huda Beauty Rose Gold:

Huda Beauty Mauve Obsessions:

Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts:

Violet Voss Hashtag:

Violet Voss Holy Grail:

Natasha Denona Lila:

And Colourpop She:

My guess is that due to the success of palettes like Huda Beauty Desert Dusk:

And, of course ABH Modern Renaissance:

Lime Crime wanted to be included in the conversation again. I've said this previously, but before Modern Renaissance was released, Venus was a huge hit and was sold out for long stretches of time. However, Lime Crime has not been included in the conversation in a while, and while some of that had to do with Lime Crime being a slightly lesser known indie brand, it was largely because they had a huge string of controversies, and big influencers publicly boycotted them. 

And so when everyone was praising Modern Renaissance for having this really unique color scheme, people weren't really hearing about Venus, which came first and has a similar color scheme without all the boring (in my opinion) neutral shades. 

It's common knowledge that when one brand has a huge success with a new product that is trending, most brands will scramble to come out with something in a similar color scheme. A few years ago, when the major palettes were Urban Decay Naked and Too Faced Chocolate Bar, having an orange shadow would have been "too bold" for a neutral palette. But after the success of Modern Renaissance (which has an orange shadow), Urban Decay came out with Naked Heat, Tarte came out with Tartelette Toasted, and we even have Colourpop Yes, Please!, which is a palette I can't see being popular only a few years ago. 

But I think Lime Crime is just too late to this trend, which is interesting because, in a way, they started it. When I first learned of the original Venus palette and heard it was popular and selling out, I looked at it and thought, Who would ever want to wear those colors?! I would constantly look like I have pink eye!

Little did I know that in a few years, those would be my "go-to" shades. 

But I kept looking at Venus and wanted to know why it was so popular. And eventually, I wanted it too. Even after I had it, I didn't know what to do with it. I was so used to only wearing light neutral shadows (I even remember when I started wearing gold and thinking I was so bold!) that the colors in Venus were so intimidating. But now, those colors have been trending for a while, and I don't think Lime Crime could just say, "Hey, remember us and our Venus palette that's several years old?" Instead, they came out with a new one that was only different because it was bigger, repeating shades several times over. 

I think a lot of this has to do with Lime Crime trying to come back from controversy. It's worth investigating if you don't know the story (I recommend this Racked article), but Lime Crime founder Doe Deere has had a tremendous amount of controversy surrounding her, and everything culminated in a 2015 data breach that compromised thousands of consumers' personal and financial information. 

Doe Deere also started attacking consumers on social media and in private messages, including this well-known message sent to a customer:

Following this, the boycotts began, and eventually, Doe Deere stepped away from being the public face of the company (though she is still the CEO). To my knowledge (I could be wrong), Lime Crime hasn't had any recent controversies, but they are certainly one of those brands who you need to make a personal decision regarding if you want to support them or not. 

Personally, I have owned the Venus palette. It has since been depotted, and I only kept a few of the shades. My palette was purchased before I knew about all of the controversy surrounding the brand, and it was purchased from Urban Outfitter, which is an authorized retailer of Lime Crime makeup. With that said, I personally have difficulty buying from Lime Crime. 

Lime Crime has made a point to say that they have greatly improved their security since the 2015 breach, but, whenever shopping online, I aways recommend paying through PayPal or a similar service instead of directly entering credit card information. I do feel that the brand is moving in a generally more positive direction, especially since Doe Deere isn't directly in charge of social media and isn't personally attacking consumers, but I have to admit that is an incredibly low bar. 

I also know that it is nearly impossible to find any brand that doesn't have something ugly in its history. I'm not excusing that, just saying that it is a sad reality. And people need to make personal judgements on who they support and who they don't. 

It has been a few years since the height of Lime Crime's controversies, but I am still left with poor feelings toward the brand. 

Brining it back to the Venus XL palette, I feel largely the same way I felt about the Jeffree Star Blood Sugar palette. It's a color scheme that I am certainly drawn to, but it is also one that I already own. And at this point, you probably do too. I also feel like this palette will only be able to create a few distinct looks. And for $56 plus tax (shipping is free for orders over $50), I would want to create a variety of looks. 

Frankly, if you are willing to buy from Lime Crime, love this color scheme, and don't already own these colors, I would instead recommend buying the original Venus palette. It's $38, has all of these colors, and doesn't repeat any shade. You can also purchase Venus through a few third-party retailers if you don't want all of your money to go directly to Lime Crime. With that said, those retailers also have problematic histories, which brings me back to the point about almost every brand having something unsavory about them. 

Overall, I think the best option would be to buy a few singles from Make Up For Ever, Makeup Geek, or Colourpop, such as Come and Get It, 143, Making Moves, Stay Golden, Wait For It, and Slim Fit. 

In general, I found that I'm not too impressed with this release by Lime Crime. And I know I said that I wanted to purchase it when I first saw it, but when I think about Venus and Venus II, Venus XL feels uninspired and lazy. The Venus palettes were ABH Modern Renaissance and Subculture before those palettes even existed and the color schemes were made popular. I always felt Lime Crime was ahead of all the other makeup brands and trends, but now it seems they are trying to undo some of the damage caused by the 2015 boycott and are pandering to the makeup-obsessed who will continually buy what they already own. I have certainly fallen into that category in the past, but I am happy to say that I no longer feel that way. 

Venus XL doesn't bring anything new or different to my makeup collection, and if I had to choose between it and my duped/edited Desert Dusk palette, I would choose my palette any day. There are too many options available at a lower cost for me to spend upwards of $60 on this palette. I don't need it, and I'm not going to buy it. 

Recent Looks: New Wet N Wild, Urban Decay, Fyrinnae, Kat Von D, Elf, Colourpop, and more

2018 is here, and I'd like to wish everyone a happy New Year. In terms of weather, 2018 is not messing around, at least in New York City. We've had the lowest temperatures I've ever been in, which has made the prospect of leaving the house not very attractive. And then this bomb cyclone moved in, which typically would have given me some snow blues, but it resulted in a snow day. As someone who grew up in the desert, I always dreamed of having a snow day, so those are always a little fun.

Thankfully, despite the one day of snow and the lingering bitter cold, it has been unusually sunny in NYC, which keeps my spirits up.

In terms of recent looks, I received some makeup over the Christmas holiday. I mentioned this in another post, but the item I was most shocked to see was the Kat Von D Metal Matte palette. I've mentioned before how this was my "one that got away" palette, but I was satisfied overall with my decision not to buy it. And then I received it as a gift, and I had to laugh when I opened it. I've used some of this new makeup this week, but I've also used some older favorites.

Here are some recent looks I've done.

Look 1: Wet N Wild Not A Basic Peach

(for shadow number reference)

Lid: 7 

Transition: 1 and 10

Crease: 3 and 4

Outer corner: 9

Brow bone: 2

Lower lash line: 5

Look 2: Wet N Wild Not A Basic Peach

Lid: 5

Transition: 1

Crease: 4

Outer corner: 9

Brow bone: 2

Lower lash line: 7

Look 3: Kat Von D Metal Matte*

Inner and outer lid: Ignite

Center of lid: Twinkle

Transition: Fringe

Crease: Silk

Brow bone: Bone

Look 4: Fyrinnae Illusionary and Elf Mad for Matte Summer Breeze

Lid: Illusionary (over Pixie Epoxy)

Transition: Elf 4

Crease: Elf 6 and 7

Deepen crease: Elf 8

Brow bone: Elf 1

Look 5: Stila Glitter and Glow Smoky Storm and Viseart Neutral Matte

Lid: Stila Smoky Storm

Transition: Viseart light peach

Crease: Viseart darker peach

Outer Corner: Viseart black

Brow bone: Viseart white

Look 6: Wet N Wild Rosé in the Air

Lid: 5

Transition: 4

Crease: 8

Brow bone: 2

Inner corner: 3

Look 7: Duped Modern Renaissance 

Lid: Urban Decay Toasted

Transition: ABH Buon Fresco

Crease: ABH Love Letter

Outer corner: ABH Love Letter

Brow bone: Viseart white

Lower Lash line: ABH Love Letter

Inner Corner: Make Up For Ever Pearl

Look 8: Kat Von D Saint and Sinner*

Lid: Immaculate

Transition: Martyr

Crease: Devil 

Outer corner: Revelation

Brow bone: Amen

Inner corner: Absolution 

Look 9: Duped Modern Renaissance/custom palette

Lid: Lime Crime Shell

Transition: ABH Buon Fresco

Crease: Natasha Denona Nina's Orchid

Crease: ABH Love Letter

Outer corner: ABH Love Letter

Brow bone: Viseart white

Lower lash line: Natasha Denona Nina's Orchid

Inner Corner: Make Up For Ever Pearl

Look 10: Colourpop My Little Pony

Inner half of lid: Firefly

Outer half of lid: Princess Sparkle

Transition: Flutterbye

Crease: Twilight

Brow bone: Butterscotch

Inner corner: Snuzzle

Lower lash line: Firefly and Princess Sparkle

Looks 1 and 2: Wet N Wild Not A Basic Peach 

In my last weekly looks post, I mentioned that I had purchased two of the new Wet N Wild palettes, Rosé in the Air, which is supposed to be a Modern Renaissance dupe, and Not A Basic Peach, which I imagine was inspired by Too Faced Sweet Peach and other peach-themed palettes. I like Not A Basic Peach so much more than Rosé in the Air. The shadows required a bit of building, but the overall payoff was very impressive to me. The shimmer shadows aren't as striking as some more expensive brands, which is a bit of a letdown for me, but they are not bad by any means. The mattes seem to be hits and slight misses. Some of the mattes are really rich, but other barely show up on me. Regardless of the price, I would still recommend Not A Basic Peach, and I don't see myself decluttering it any time soon.

Look 3: Kat Von D Metal Matte
*This palette was given to me as a gift

As I've mentioned, this palette was a very unexpected gift that I received for Christmas, and for my first look, I wanted to use some of the more unique shades in it. I couldn't decide if I wanted a mint or lilac shimmer on the lid, so I chose to use both. The result was... subtle. The mattes worked great and the shimmers were also pretty, but the colors I chose were so light and pastel that it was difficult to tell the difference between them on the lid. I'm certainly looking forward to using this palette more, but my impression after one use (which is not much, so definitely take this with a grain of salt), is that if you were also lamenting this as a palette that got away, I don't think you're really missing out on too much. It's a beautiful palette, but there's not too much in it that I don't already own.

Look 4: Fyrinnae Illusionary and Elf Mad for Matte Summer Breeze

I received two Elf palettes for Christmas, which included Summer Breeze. Before this, I had never owned any makeup products from Elf. I've owned the lip scrub and a few brushes, but I hadn't tried any makeup until recently. To be honest, my expectations with this palette were pretty low. Sure, it has a gorgeous color scheme, but I just really didn't think it would hold up to other shadows in my collection. And I'm happy to report that I was wrong. This palette is really good, and it certainly impressed me. I paired it with one of my favorite Fyrinnae shadows, and I think the overall look is really pretty.

Look 5: Stila Glitter and Glow Smoky Storm and Viseart Neutral Matte

If it's not obvious, this was my New Year's Eve makeup. I received a ton of compliments on my eyes that night, and people commented on how striking the glitter was. I've written about the Glitter and Glow products a few times now, and we all know that I like the Viseart Neutral Matte shadows. As always when using a Glitter and Glow, the look was so much prettier in person than in a photograph, and it was something I really enjoyed.

Look 6: Wet N Wild Rosé in the Air
Look 7: Duped Modern Renaissance 

I don't know if it was obvious, but I attempted a bit of an experiment this week. I've written several times at this point that I did not like ABH Modern Renaissance and that I thought it would be a simple palette to recreate in one's own collection, with the exception of the berry shades. I wanted to see how similar of a look I could create with Rosé in the Air as with a pseudo Modern Renaissance.

Again, I have to say that I didn't really like Rosé in the Air all that much. I used the shade that is most similar to Antique Bronze from Modern Renaissance, which was the shade that specifically made me decide to return Modern Renaissance. I really, really hated that shade, and so I was not surprised to find that I didn't like it in Rosé in the Air either. This look required quite a bit of building, and in the end, I didn't think it had a ton of great payoff.

The next dayI tried to recreate that look with a duped Modern Renaissance. And what's interesting about this duped palette is that I have two shades that are actually in Modern Renaissance—Buon Fresco and Love Letter.

In case you're wondering, the dupe for Modern Renaissance is the first two rows of this palette:

Obviously it's not an exact dupe (hello, gorgeous orchid), and while I own a satisfactory dupe of every shade in that palette, this is roughly what my ideal version of it looks like (I've since rearranged it a bit). 

As I mentioned, I don't like Antique Bronze, but a shadow in my collection that I do love and that is similar enough in color is Urban Decay Toasted. I then used the two shadows that are actually in Modern Renaissance, and I was happy with the recreated look. I suppose you can judge for yourself if you think the looks are similar and how close of a dupe Rosé in the Air might be for Modern Renaissance: 

Rosé in the Air

Urban Decay Toasted, ABH Buon Fresco, and ABH Love Letter

As I've said, I don't like Rosé in the Air much, but mainly because the shimmers don't pack much of a punch. With that said, Rosé in the Air is not bad. I imagine that this will be something that I declutter from my collection soon, because I already own all of the shades. 

Look 8: Kat Von D Saint and Sinner

*This palette was given to me as a gift

I've got to say, the more I use this palette, the more I really like it. It certainly is unique, and it's one that has really pushed my creativity. Ironically, this look is one of the least creative ones I've done with the palette, but it was also one of my favorites of the week. I really love the look of a deep olive paired with orange, and I thought the look was neutral while also being a little smoky. I've talked about this palette quite a bit at this point, and I'm happy it was gifted to me. 

Look 9: Duped Modern Renaissance/custom palette

I'll make a larger post on this later, but with this palette, in addition to duping shades in Modern Renaissance, I also expanded upon the shade range to include more shimmers, which is something I always felt was lacking in Modern Renaissance. This was my other favorite look of the week, which isn't surprising considering I love these pink sunset looks. One thing to note is that I reversed my typical crease and outer corner colors with this look. Typically, I put the red color in the crease and the purple on the outer corner, but with this look, I put the purple in the crease and red in the outer corner. I really loved the end result! 

Look 10: Colourpop My Little Pony

I'm still undecided on this look and on the Colourpop My Little Pony palette on the whole. I do like this frosty green look, but it came across as a little too frosty/silvery on me. With this palette, I've largely found that the colors in the pan don't actually look that way when applied to the lid, which is pretty disappointing. I definitely thought the greens would be more distinctly green, but then I've also found that the mauve/burgundy shades come off as hot pink instead of mauve/burgundy. The pigmentation is great, as is the blendability, but the differences in color make this palette a little challenging and disappointing to use.