85. Beauty // Sleek Face Form Contouring Palette

I have a big face.

There, I said it. It's out there in the open... my face is huge! I have chubby cheeks, a big chin, no real definition; it's not great.

I first heard about contouring when I had my make-up done at the Benefit counter earlier in the year; my make-up artist managed to completely change the shape of my face. I had cheekbones! I had a jawline! I had everything. I vowed that, come payday, I would return and purchase some products that would stop my moonface. But I didn't. I totally forgot.

That was until somebody on Twitter (sorry, I can't remember who!) mentioned Sleek. I'd never heard of Sleek before so I was slightly dubious. However, I googled the company and found lots of brilliant reviews, in particular for their Face Form contouring and blush palette. I quickly popped it in my basket and a couple of days later, it arrived.

As you can see, the packaging is pretty nice (the images look like chunks of chocolate or fudge, *drools*). It comes in a small cardboard box which - unfortunately - is quite hard to get open (well, I struggled...) and in the end, I had to rip the end off as I couldn't get the palette out of the box.

The palette itself is exactly as you'd imagine: sleek. The colours inside are gorgeous! I went for the Light 373 palette, as I'm fairly pale but have rosy cheeks so I'm by no means Snow White. The blush is a beautiful rose shade, the contouring powder itself is a deep, rich golden-brown and the highlighter is, well, white, I guess, although mine is now slightly pale pink as I used to same brush for my blush and highlighter: rookie mistake!

I've been using this palette for the last few weeks but most days I only use the blusher. Why, you ask? Well, I'll be honest. I'm not a huge fan of this palette. I don't know whether it's the way I've been applying it, or if it's my skin, or the brush I'm using or whether - well - it's the product itself, but it just doesn't seem to work for me.

The blusher is great but, to be honest, it just does the same as any other blusher, except it has a little more sparkle, but the contouring powder makes my face look dirty. Seriously, it looks like I have sideburns when I use it. I watched a tutorial online of how to use it and, even when I followed the guide step-by-step, it still looked the same. The highlighter, on the other hand, makes my face ridiculously shiny! I had been applying it down the centre of my nose and above my cheeks, but after a couple of days of use, I decided not to bother.

Another issue that I had with this product was that, when I wore it, it was extremely obvious. I looked as though I had caked on another 739532 layers of make-up, and that is not a good look. Even by the end of day one, my make-up looked cracked and, well, just weird.

I'm really disappointed and disheartened by this product as I was expecting to absolutely love it. I think it'd be better - for me, personally - on a night out where the lighting isn't quite so bright, but in the daytime it just doesn't look right on me, I'm sorry to say!

You can purchase the Sleek Face Form contouring and blush palette from the Sleek website for £9.99, if you want to give it a go yourselves.