I don't recall if Max Factor had any contouring products before, but they recently released their sculpting palette and they made it an all-in-one & fits everyone type of product that will probably appeal more to makeup artists or those who often do makeup for other people than your average makeup user. There are similar palettes on the market, though not that many that are sold in drugstores here, most of the competition is online. There are eight cream products in the palette, four are contours, two are lifting concealers and two are highlighters.
Texture: The creams in this palette are more on the thicker, waxier side. While this means it's a lot less messy than creamier formulas, it also means they work best when they've been warmed up a bit before application, so I find fingers are actually the best way to pick up and apply these on the skin. For blending you can use a brush for a more speedy result, though for concealers I still find it's best to tap them on the skin with fingers for a more seamless blending result. Pigmentation differs and it's quite simply that the lightest have the least colour pay-off, while the darkest shades hold most pigment. Contours work ok and are pigmented when you apply them, but they are also very blendable, which means you need to build them up slowly, which at contouring isn't a bad thing, but it takes time. I can only grab the colour with fingers and apply it on the skin because not even my densest brushes could pick the colour, but they blend easier and better with a brush once on the skin.
Shades:
Contours
There are four contours in this palette, three are warm and one is a cool taupe one.
Top left - a warm caramel shade.
Bottom left - deep chestnut brown.
Top right - cool taupe. This is the only shade that fits my porcelain skin tone.
Bottom right - a medium brown. This one looks almost cool in the palette, but it's warm on my face.
Concealers
Both concealers lack pigmentation for any significant coverage. It'd say they've got light-medium coverage if I layer it.
Top - a neutral pale shade. It's a tiny bit too dark for my NC-W10 skin tone, but it should be perfect for NC15.
Bottom - a warm NC25 shade.
Highlighters
I can't call these highlighters on my skin tone, since both aren't pale enough to create a lighter/brighter effect on my skin tone and neither do they have shimmer to create an illuminating effect. They should work on darker skins a lot better. Pigmentation is the same as at the concealers, so not particularly good.
Top - neutral pale shade. I'm impressed that Max Factor created something so neutral and not pink.
Bottom - yellow toned pale shade.
Lightest contour, concealer and highlighter. You can't see the last two.
Staying power: I could only check how long the contours last, since the concealer and highlighters did a poor job of covering anything and I couldn't tell when they were gone. The contour lasted decently for a cream product. I couldn't say in hours, but it holds on quite a while, though not to the end of the day. It's of course a lot better if you have a good base and if you set it with powder.
Packaging: The palette has a tight closing system, which is very important at creamy products. I also noticed the pans at the back kind of look like the could be replaceable, but I haven't tried to push any of them out and I haven't seen any individual replacements being sold.
Price and availability: The palette is sold in drugstore and I think I was the price tag was 19.99 €, which comes at 2.5 € per pan.
I like the idea and it's great that they created such a product, but it could be a bit better. I can work with the contours and even from that just two colours, while the rest of the palette is sadly a waste for me. The concealers are not the best in terms of coverage (they can be used as highlighters on darker skin tones) and the highlighters need to be shimmery for me, because my skin tone is already too pale for creating light areas. But for those have a darker skin tone or need something like this when they do makeup on other people, at least the contour shades are a nice thing to have. For me I'll stick to L'Oreal's Infallible Sculpt palette in 01 because I don't need any extra shades and I don't even use contours much.
Have a great day!
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