Sugarpill x Little Twin Stars Review

This has been a while since it was released - although if you'd like to order this, other stockists/retailers still sell them, such as Beserk for those located in Australia. 

Although I personally didn't have a super high expectation for this release, a close friend and I have matching Little Twin Star keychains, so out of love for Sugarpill and also Sanrio's cutest twinsies, I thought, I definitely have to get my hands on this. 

The Little Twin Stars collection was released by Sugarpill in collaboration with Sanrio. 

This collection was described as such: 

Kiki and Lala travelled to Earth to learn how to be the best, shiniest stars they could be.  Now you too can shine bright with them! Sugarpill has teamed up with Little Twin Stars to bring you a six-color eyeshadow palette, sparkling liquid lip color duo, and exclusive makeup bag not available apart from this set - all in a collectible keepsake box for storing your favourite treasures! The perfect gift for yourself or your sweetheart!

Official stock picture taken from here.

Lastly, this release was available in a 'complete set', that came with a large cardboard box with a glossy print outline of the Twins, and also a limited edition makeup bag.

The exclusive makeup bag is available in this complete collection only!

The shades in this collection are exclusive and will not be rereleased individually. Don’t miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own this limited edition collector’s gem! Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever!

Eyeshadow palette: 

The palette features a variety of luminous shades that can be worn as blush and highlighters too:

Cloud Maker - Foiled silvery blue

Star Ribbon - Matte aqua

Twinkle, Twinkle - Foiled astral gold

Dream Dust - Frosted peachy nude with pink champagne duochrome

Sky Candy - Frosted baby pink

Wish - Sparkling copper

Let's start with the eyeshadow palette. The net weight is 2.5 grams x 6 (6-Pan Eyeshadow Palette)

For comparison, ABH eyeshadows are about 0.5 grams (they're always on the pricier end of eyeshadow per gram as well) in comparison, so this palette is definitely meant to last because of the sheer quantity of product. 

The palette itself is quite travel friendly, despite the huge eyeshadow pans inside, and also is quite compact and doesn't waste a lot of space for excessive packaging. I enjoyed this, it's travel and relatively eco-friendly! 

Nyanko Sensei helping me out with this palette photoshoot!

Personally speaking, compared to my previous experiences with Sugarpill, these eyeshadows performances feel a little lacking in comparison. I own the Heartbreaker palette from Sugarpill, which included the shades Acidberry, Velocity, Mochi and 2am, and while this palette has since been discontinued in its original form (I bought this in 2014), but you can still buy the shades as individuals. I find the performance of those shadows to be varied across all of the colors then, Velocity and 2am being the pretty good, and Acidberry and Mochi being not as easy to work with, and also had the Sparkle Baby palette, which included Candy Crush, Kitten Parade, Frostine and Hotsy Totsy (which has since been discontinued), and the Oh Honey! palette, all of which had really great pigmentation, ease of application and minimal fall out. 

Compared to the other eyeshadow formulas, Star Ribbon feels a little more stiff, but the shimmers have always had a slight 'wet' and almost crumbly texture to them, which gives great payoff especially with swatches or application with the fingers, but whatever the formula was used with this palette feels a little different to me, because the shimmers feel a little more crumbly, and the matte a little difficult to work with. I double checked the ingredients list, but they seemed to match up on the most part so I'm not quite sure what happened there. 

The biggest disappointment of this palette is Star Ribbon. There's a stiffness to the matte formula they've created for this palette that doesn't really quite work too well, it's just a little on the sheer side and doesn't work well as a sheer teal- especially coming from Sugarpill's typically pigmented shadows. It doesn't layer very well and ends up being a little patchy, but it adheres well enough without a primer and blends out relatively well, with minimal fall out. 

Cloud Maker is also not amazing, it has a nice shift to it, but it doesn't layer very well without looking a little chunky on the lid, but also blends out nicely and feels very buttery. 

Twinkle Twinkle and Wish are great, aren't patchy at all, and also have the same buttery texture as Cloud Maker. I like the interesting uses you can have with either of these shadows as well, they look a little different in color depending on how much you build these up, which I really liked, as they both seemed a little too similar in the palette to me.

Sky Candy is the lovely peachy pink in the palette, and while it is a little on the sheer side, but builds up to a nice soft pink which works really well for the cheeks as a multiuse product. 

I think Dream Dust is my favorite color to use out of the whole palette, it shows up as a pink-beige but really is a light shimmery beige with a lovely pink shift. The formula works well for this, and blends out like a dream. You can build this up for it to show up more like a pastel pink, but I personally feel it works best semi sheer. 

Official stock picture taken from here.

Personally, I was really disappointed at the amount of neutrals in this palette, and I feel there was a bit of a lost opportunity with this palette. It seems that they tried to split the palette in half, the top half for Lala's pink tones, and the blues for Kiki, but honestly speaking I think that this palette is really hard to use. On its own, it's not a very cohesive unit and really needs other palettes or eyeshadows to make this work well, and a quick look at a bunch of reviews from other people also had the same issue, that there weren't really many looks you could create with just this palette alone.

I bought this despite knowing that I don't usually gravitate towards any of the shades in this palette, so in some way, this was very much a collector's thing. 

If I had to recreate this palette, I would have loved to see a lighter, sparkly champagne gold, rather than Wish's royal gold. I would have toned down the teal a little, and also made Cloud Maker a light blue with blue and white glitter/reflect rather than a ice blue foiled finish. 

For Lala, I definitely would have kept Dream Dust and Sky Candy (though I also wish it was a little more of a neutral pink rather than a warm pink), but changed Twinkle Twinkle to a mid/dark tone Lavender/Wisteria color, like the color of this banner. 

Taken from here. 

Thank you Google for eternally fueling my budget photoshop fantasies. 

I made a quick mockup of this palette, because a darker shade in a plethora of strong neutrals, a strong teal and foiled reflective pastels would have made a huge difference to the overall balance of the palette. Since having bought this palette, I honestly have never made a look that I really enjoyed in this palette, or really enjoyed any of the shades on their own.
Overall, I didn't really like this palette at all, and I'd have to rate it a 5/10, especially when taking into consideration the general quality of Sugarpill's products.

Liquid Lip Duo: 

The Liquid Lip Colors in famous matte-to-sparkle formula:

Kiki - Heavenly aqua infused with celestial golden sparkles

Lala - Sweetest bubblegum pink with glorious gold twinkles

While the net weight for the liquid lipsticks were 5.4 ml / .18 oz, and it was actually the first time I had tried their liquid lip formula.

I really enjoyed these - they're definitely my favorite liquid lip formula out of the ones that I've tried and owned. The formula is a lightweight, mousse-like formula - unlike some more liquid/runny types. They're not tacky, they set quickly, they're super light and breathable, and they'll last you through a Korean BBQ on a Friday night with your friends (I've tried, and there was minimal smearing, although the oil will melt the areas closest to the inside of your lips, but that's a given.) I usually can't wear liquid lipsticks without wanting to wipe them off immediately, and Sugarpill's formula definitely changed my mind on these. 

In comparison to a few of their other shades (Kim Chi and Strange Love) they also have a soft doe foot applicator. 

Of the two, I prefer Kiki. It's lovely, opaque, and has full coverage in one swipe. I actually found this color also really pretty on me, which was a bit unexpected considering that it's a bright teal.

Lala is a little less opaque, and a little thinner in consistency and formula. It works better with two swipes for full coverage, and it builds the product up a bit and has more of a tacky finish in comparison to Kiki. For the color however, it's really an unflattering color on me, with its cool toned pink, which clashes horribly with my yellow/neutral undertones. 

However, I have a really big and persisting gripe with this duo and that is the packaging of this product. I travel quite a bit, and I like to take lipsticks out with me to do touchups as well, so Kiki, the bad boy, basically had most of his face scratched off by 4 month usage mark. The picture below was taken just as I realized the faces were scratchable, and tried it with my nail.
Don't do that, because they WILL scratch and Very Easily, and even more so than the standard Sugarpill liquid lip heart logo. I had a simliar issue with with the KimChi and Barbara logos, which I can only assume was a limited edition printing difference (I was told by the customer service that 'foil printing' is the culprit.)

After a few days in my make up bag. 

I have to say, I was really disappointed when I recalled this selling point - 

The shades in this collection are exclusive and will not be rereleased individually. Don’t miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own this limited edition collector’s gem! Once it’s gone, it’s gone forever!

It seems, not well thought out to sell something that is a limited edition collector's gem once in a lifetime product, with such flimsy packaging. Personally speaking, I bought this collection primarily as a lasting lifetime collectors item, especially because of the special aspect of it (the packaging). I emailed customer service and got this reply:

 Unfortunately, we don't have any tips or tricks on how to keep the print on our lipsticks from fading as this is how they come from our manufacturer. We believe the best way to store them would be in the lipstick boxes they came in. :)

With the way this collector's edition was packaged, there was no lipstick boxes (it came as a duo box). I emailed back, would I get one? What else can I do? 

Their reply: 

Unfortunately, due to the nature of foil printing, there is no way to make it scratch resistant so the print will begin to scratch off with time and wear. We do appreciate your feedback and are open to exploring other printing options in the future!

I can't help but feel a bit let down - as I paid $80USD for this item, and expected that limited edition labels would last a bit longer. I would also have expected perhaps an extra carton, or a replacement. Unfortunately, I just can't help but feel a little let down by the reply, "your comments and concerns have been passed along to our management team!". 

 Additionally, the palette, sold to what I can only imagine, not as impressive of a sale margins as they had hoped. It sold for a whole year without going out of stock, and they regularly dropped the price down from 25%, to 50%, and then 75% during Black Friday, the original price of the entire set retailing for $79 USD down to $19.75. (Edit: as of July 2020, the palette is now on sale for $14, and the liquid lip duo for $6.)

It's honestly kind of grating to see this, having bought this at the original price ($80 USD), while my friend ended up purchasing this for $40, although if you were to purchase it, I imagine the formulas are well on their way to expiry.

I am wholly disappointed by the oversight regarding the 'limited edition' aspect of their packaging because it doesn't last, and also, that I had to pay quite a bit more and still not see any actual response from a brand I believe that cares deeply about their products and consumer use. From this experience, it also gives me pause before I decide to buy from Sugarpill again because of the disconnect I feel between the brand image and customer service, and knowing that I won't be able to have my concerns recognized should I run into another problem. 

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this release, the eyeshadow palette was overall a let down, and the packaging on the liquid lips really soured my experience with the shades. I would not have purchased this at full price, although I confess, even on clearance I would hesitate. 

If you're interested in getting your own set and located around NZ/AUS, you can get the full collection here: https://www.beserk.com.au/products/little-twin-stars-makeup-collection?variant=3715873472525 

For Sugarpill generally (or just the eyeshadow palette or liquid lip colors): https://www.beserk.com.au/collections/sugarpill