Valentine's Day 2018, what were you doing? Romantic dinner? Putting new flowers in a vase? Instagramming your new knockoff MK handbag with the all important #boydonegood?
I'll tell you what I was doing, and it was much more satisfying and heart warming than any of the above; I was stalking the Kat Von D website waiting for the Divine collection to launch. I had been waiting for this day since last October, when the collaboration was announced and there was absolutely no way I was missing out on this palette and lipstick!
Last October Kat Von D Beauty announced an upcoming collaboration with much loved, late drag queen Divine. I don't know enough about Kat to make the connection between her and Divine, so it was a little surprising to me, but nevertheless I thought it was amazing news as drag is such an inspiration in my makeup and my life. I was HERE for this palette without even knowing what was in it!
For those of you who don't know your "herstory" (yeah, I watch RuPaul's Drag Race too you know), Divine was a well known and much loved drag queen who rose to fame in the late 60's - early 70's. Her work with legendary director John Waters made Divine into a modern day icon and an inspiration for many, not just drag performers. One of Divine's most famed roles was as Edna Turnblad in the original Hairspray movie, and more recently there was a whole episode of RuPaul's Drag Race dedicated to her (season 7, episode 9 "Divine Inspiration").
I will say that despite asking for a release time and price on these items, nothing was given (in response to my query or any others that I tried to look for on social media) other than a generic "Coming soon!" which I didn't particularly enjoy. I get severe makeup FOMO and launch dates give me pure anxiety so not knowing drives me up the wall!
Anyway, I actually got an email from Kat Von D Beauty at around 9:30am GMT, so I imagine it launched around midnight. I headed over to the website, and despite the awful layout for mobile users, I completed the transaction easily enough. One thing I really like is that you pay your customs and duties at the checkout with this website, rather than having to wait 3000 years for Royal Mail to process it and then add their lovely £8 charge on top of that.
I have ordered once from the Kat Von D website and I wasn't hugely impressed by the time it took for them to dispatch my parcel - I had ordered the Metal Matte Mini last time, and by the time it arrived at my house, it was only a couple of days before Debenhams launched the damn thing! However, I was very pleasantly surprised to get a dispatch notification the following day, and it arrived 5 days after that. I was really pleased with this, especially considering I ordered from the Jeffree Star website 4 days prior and despite paying for the faster shipping option, my tracking still shows the parcel as being in the USA.
The products were packed pretty nicely, they came in a plain cardboard box with the Kat Von D logo on the inside and plenty of that big bubble wrap. I did have a slight issue with one shade in the eye palette, Babs, which was not sitting in the pan properly. Luckily it hadn't shattered, it had just come loose from the pan but it pressed back into place pretty nicely.
Here's the collection - an 8 shade eyeshadow palette and a Studded Kiss lipstick. The packaging is a crazy neon green colour, which I absolutely adore but don't necessarily associate with Divine. The palette has Divine's eyes on the front, with the shade names on the back and when you open the palette it has a good sized mirror with Divine's iconic eyebrows printed onto it, which I think is such a fantastic touch! The lipstick is the regular Studded Kiss packaging in the neon green colour and it has a vanilla scent to it (which I personally find revolting, but thankfully it doesn't linger because I love this shade).
Let's take a look at the lipstick first;
The shade name is Divine, and it's a very pretty and extremely wearable pinky nude colour. I do tend to wear liquid lipsticks most of the time, but I really love the formula of Kat Von D's Studded Kiss lipsticks. If I am going to wear a traditional bullet lipstick then I would either reach for Charlotte Tilbury or one of these as they are so smooth and creamy and the pigmentation is fab. They glide on easily and aren't patchy or drying. This is a very pretty every day shade, not necessarily something that screams drag at first glance, but in a lot of her more well known images, Divine is usually seen wearing a red or nude lip, so I absolutely get why this shade was chosen. This was the same price as the regular Studded Kiss range, $19 (or £17 in Debenhams if you're buying from the UK when it launches here).
The palette is exactly the same size, shape and layout as the Pastel Goth palette from last year. If you read my review about that, you'll know I absolutely loved it and definitely thought it was worth the price, so I have high hopes for this too! This palette is $38 (the same as Pastel Goth), so I think it'll be around £35 when it comes to Debenhams.
The shades in this palette are Babs (a shimmery champagne), Hard Magic (matte black), Baltimore (shimmery navy), Waters (pale matte blue), Filthy (shimmery gunmetal), Pink Flamingos (shimmery neon green), Female Trouble (matte white) and Hairspray (silver glitter). I am completely in love with the shade names, they are so fitting and were definitely a great choice! I am a big fan of the shade selection too, although I have seen mixed reactions online. I know a lot of people wanted to see a purple shade named Ursula (the character from The Little Mermaid was based on the way Divine did her makeup), but I have not yet met a purple shade from this brand that I have liked, so I'm personally very glad that it wasn't part of this palette!
If you already own other Kat Von D palettes, then you'll probably have a couple of these shades - there are several palettes with a matte black and white in them, and Waters is quite similar to the shade Doom from Pastel Goth. There's a shimmery bright green in the Saint and Sinner palette too, but it's definitely not the same as Pink Flamingos.
I really like these shadows, I haven't seen anything like Hairspray from this brand yet and it's a nice surprise to see such a glittery eyeshadow. It's really nothing like the Metal Crush shadows, it's definitely more like a regular eyeshadow formula, but it's so full of glitter. Waters is such a pretty blue, and can be applied lightly for a wash of colour or built up for a really bold look. I will definitely use this palette, the only shade I probably wouldn't bother with much is Filthy because I much prefer bright colours, and if I use a black or grey to deepen up a look I usually reach for a matte rather than a shimmer, but that is just personal choice.
This is a limited edition collection, it's currently available on katvondbeauty.com and Sephora, but will be launching in Debenhams on March 7th.
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