Greetings from sunny Florida everyone. Before leaving the UK, I had the good fortune to be contacted by Realher cosmetics and offered a trial of some of their products that were launched for Fall/Winter 2019-2020. If you're unfamiliar with the brand, Realher is a cruelty-free, paraben-free prestige makeup brand built around the message of the empowerment of women. Their mission is to remind all women that we are valuable, worthy and beautiful human beings, and this ethos is reinforced by mantras that are inscribed onto their products.
If my reaction to opening the box full of their products is anything to go by, empowerment is not just a tool for self-improvement, it's also a pretty gosh-darn smart marketing strategy. When I initially opened the box and laid eyes on Realher's beautifully-packaged contents, I found myself loudly blurting out "Hell yes we do" as a sort of knee-jerk response to seeing the mantra "Women Rule the World" staring out at me in bold gold font.
Glossy marketing aside, these products are more than just pretty objects sporting clever mantras. When I opened the products I was sent, I was really struck by how lovely, and how practical, the colors were. The first box I opened was the Women Rule the World lip kit, consisting of a liner, a liquid matte lipstick, and a sheer gloss.
At first I was apprehensive about the "I am Gorgeous" liquid matte lipstick. I'm not a huge fan of matte lips having lived through it once already in the 90s, but I found this formula to be really buildable and easy to work with. Even for matte-suspicious customers like me, the liquid matte lip color provided a wonderful base for anything else you might use over the top of it, and it can be used in a very sheer application. The liner and gloss were also lovely, and the light pink shade of the gloss in particular works well with just about anything you put with it.
The next product I road tested was the "Ultimate Glow Getter" cheek trio. This trio of colors is marketed as a highlighter, a blusher, and a contour shade, but for the sake of my cosmetic sensibilities, I'm calling the "contour" shade a "bronzer." These shades all worked really well for me, despite the fact that the blusher is a very light shade and my skin tone is a bit to the olive side of things. The formulas were silky and blended seamlessly, leaving a wash of sheer color behind.
Of all the Realher products that I took for a spin, my absolute favorite was the "Be Your Own Kind of Beauty" eyeshadow palette. This palette is one of the most well thought-out multi-color eyeshadow palettes I've seen. You know how in every palette there are always a few shades that you know you are never going to touch? Well, not so with this one. Based on neutrals and golds, this warm(ish) palette has just the right amount of glow while still being neutral enough to wear with my more cool-toned silver hair. The formulas are elegant, and the colours are vibrantly pigmented yet buildable and easy to apply with a light touch.
After this little road test, I had nothing but love for Realher cosmetics. Rich formulas, saturated colors, easy application - it's all in there. The prices are fair (think high-end, not drugstore), and the shades are flattering. You can visit the Realher website for a list of retailers where you can find and sample their products, or you can find them on the Amazon US site. Check them out, they have some seriously lovely products!
Addendum: While I was out on the dock trying to capture these products on camera, a baby alligator swam by, undoubtedly attracted by my radiant glow from these lovely products.
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