Review: Senna Cosmetics Face Sculpting Kit

Is it just me, or is a good contour product just really hard to find? A lot of the ones I see recommended are too light to show up on my skin tone (Illamasqua Hollow, OCC John Doe), others are too warm (Too Faced Chocolate Soleil, Tarte Park Avenue Princess), and still others are discontinued (Chanel Notorious). Recently though, I had the chance to try out the Senna Cosmetics Face Sculpting Kit thanks to a friend who let me test drive it. I hadn’t tried anything from the company before, so naturally I was intrigued and jumped all over the chance to test it out.

Packaging

The Senna Face Sculpting Kit is an all-in-one contouring and highlighting palette. They’ve done a great job making sure you have everything you need – it comes with a contour color, two highlight shades, a brush to apply it with and an instruction card all housed in a vinyl zip pouch. I tested Shade 1, which is for “fair to tan” skin, and there’s also a Shade 2 with darker colors for “dark to deep” skin tones.

The included brush is their #20 flat foundation brush which you can use for your foundation as well as to apply the products in the Sculpting Kit. I couldn’t find any information on the bristle type, but I think they’re synthetic. The tips are a little bit coarse, but the flat side is comfortable to use and you can apply a nice sharp line.

The translucent lid of the compact shows the gold harlequin logo, a symbol of the company’s motto – “Beauty. Illusion. Transformation.” The founder previously worked in Hollywood makeup artistry, and the packaging design shows it. The compact is slim, sturdy and opens easily. The lid allows you to see the product at a quick glance, which I have to assume would be very handy in a makeup artist’s kit. The zip pouch keeps everything together and would wipe clean easily if it got messy. I wouldn’t describe the packaging as luxurious, but it’s very practical.

Colors

There are three shades in the palette – one for contouring and two for highlighting.

The highlight shades are pale lemon yellow and pale pink. The placement diagram recommends using the pink shade down the center of the face and the yellow shade at the tops of the cheekbones. The contour shade is a cool grey-brown that mimics natural shadows nicely. It, of course, is for anywhere that you’d normally use a contour color – under the cheekbones, temples, along the sides of the nose, etc.

Left to right: Yellow, Pink, Brown

All of the shades have a strong color in the pan but are very natural on the skin. It’s possible the pink shade may not be light enough for the very fairest skin tones, but the other two look like they’d work nicely. All of them are very pigmented (the swatches above are one swipe) and completely matte.

I was really curious to see how the shades compared to similar products in my collection, so naturally I swatched them together – here are the results, and some notes on how the other shades compare.

Left to right-

• Senna yellow shade
• Silk Naturals Candle Glow – deeper in color, shimmery
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Radiant – much deeper and more bronzy, shimmery
• Becca Shimmering Skin Perfecter in Opal – much more golden, shimmery

Left to right-

• Senna pink shade
• Shiseido Luminizing Satin Face Color in High Beam White – white, brighter
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Mood – pinker, shimmery
• Hourglass Ambient Lighting Powder in Incandescent – a bit lighter, shimmery

Left to right-

• Senna contour shade
• Kevyn Aucoin Sculpting Powder – undertones are more red
• Too Faced Chocolate Soleil – lighter, undertones are more orange

Texture, Application & Wear

This kit is a cream-to-powder finish, which is really convenient to use. You can apply it with fingers or a brush; either works, but I prefer using my fingers to apply and a brush to blend. It blends easily and sets to a powder-like finish. I didn’t have any issues with over-application or blending, but cream products are nice because you can always go over it with a bit more foundation if you need to. There was one day that the yellow shade seemed to emphasize flakiness at the tops of my cheeks, but to be fair, my skin was really dry that day; other than that all the colors played really well with dry skin. I’m not having any issues with oiliness right now, so I’m not sure how it will behave on oily skin. The wear was really nice – a bit of fading after 7-8 hours, but it didn’t get patchy or cakey.

In Short: I was interested in this mainly for the contour color, and I was really pleased with it. The highlighters are also great, especially if you want something without shimmer.

Contour & highlight with the Senna Face Sculpting Kit

The Senna Cosmetics Face Sculpting Kit ($48) is available at sennacosmetics.com.