To start with, the Anastasia Beverly Hills (ABH) kit retails for $40USD, so with conversion it would currently cost around $52AUD, whereas the Australis kit retails for $16.95AUD. The ABH kit comes in two preset shades (light-medium and medium-tan), or you can create your own custom kit on the ABH website, whereas the Australis kit only comes in one preset shade.
The ABH kit comes in coated cardboard packaging with magnetic closure, and is slightly smaller than the Australis kit. The ABH pans are also removable meaning you can replace the pans with refills when they run out. The Australis kit comes in reasonably sturdy plastic packaging with a clasp closure.
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| ABH - left, Australis - right |
As you can see in the side by side photos, the Australis pans are slightly larger than the ABH (3.5g vs 3.1g). The products look very similar in the pans, however they come off quite differently when swatched. The texture of the product is quite different between the palettes - as you can see, the Australis kit (right) is far softer and deposits A LOT more product, whereas the ABH (left) is far harder and finer in texture when applied.
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| ABH left finger, Australis right finger |
The colour of the products also differs slightly, more so between the contour shades. (For reference the ABH kit is in the shade light-medium). The contour colours in the Australis kit are slightly ashier (particularly the middle shade) compared to the ABH colours which are slightly on the warmer side.
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| Top swatches = Australis, Bottom swatches = ABH (corresponding colours are paired) |
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| Top swatches = Australis, Bottom = ABH (corresponding colours are paired) |
The highlight colours are quite similar shadewise, the main difference is the texture, which is particularly noticeable with the shimmery highlight shade.
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| Top = Australis, Bottom = ABH (corresponding colours are paired) |
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| Top = Australis, Bottom = ABH (corresponding colours are paired) |
Now for a test run - I'll show you guys how they look on my face. Keep in mind I'm extremely pale so the contour shades definitely require a lot more work to look natural than they would on someone tanned, and the highlight shades don't make a great deal of difference on me either.
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| Australis |
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| ABH |
As you can see, the Australis contour shades have a tendency to look muddy, especially on my pale skin, whereas the ABH blends a lot better and gives an overall nice, natural contour. To be fair though, I did apply both of the products basically the same way, but if you take off a lot of the excess with the Australis palette and ignore the particularly ashy middle shade, it is possible to get a decent result from that palette too.
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| Australis |
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| ABH |
TL;DR the Australis palette is far softer and more pigmented, which makes the contour shades a lot harder to work with but the highlight shades do a great job (the contour shades also actually work great as eyeshadows). The ABH kit provides a much more natural contour but the highlight shades (especially the shimmer ones) make a negligible difference on the face.
The contour shades in the ABH palette are definitely easier to work with, however I'm not sure it's necessarily worth the investment for personal use. It's great for working on clients of course, because you have an array of shades in front of you ready to go, but honestly I think I'd rather just use a separate bronzer and highlighter if it's just on myself.
I know this was a lengthy review but I hope it helped!
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