Makeup by Mario Master Palette from Anastasia Beverly Hills: Review and Swatches!

As soon as I saw the Makeup by Mario palette on Anastasia Beverly Hills' Instagram I needed to have it. It's the perfect semi-neutral palette for me: plenty of wearable shades along with a few pops of color. I've been curious about Anastasia's eyeshadow formula for ages but the Modern Renaissance palette looked too warm for me, so when this one came along I snatched it up!


The Master palette is a limited-edition collaboration with makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic. It includes twelve shadows in a variety of finishes with each shadow being named after a person or place that was influential to Mario,

The palette is smaller than I expected considering it contains twelve shadows and a brush, but each pan is a good size and I think it's worth the $45 price tag. The palette is black cardboard with gold accents and it includes a mirror and a usable dual-ended brush. It has a strong magnetic close. The packaging looks very sleek but I feel that it could have more pizzaz! Packaging isn't a huge issue, of course, it's what's inside that counts!

This palette includes nine shimmery/metallic finishes and three matte finishes. The mattes were very well selected, in my opinion, because there is a good lid, transition, and crease shade that will work for almost all skin tones. For the most part, the shimmers are warm-toned and look really nice together. Let's break down the shades individually! I put an asterisk next to my favorites.

Hollywood: shimmery pale yellow-gold

NYC: shimmery red-toned brown

Kim: shimmery warm medium brown

*Muse:shimmery mahogany

*Marina: metallic rose gold

Claudia: satin navy

                           From left to right: Hollywood, NYC, Kim, Muse, Marina, Claudia

*Lula: matte beige

Isabel: matte burnt orange

*Violeta: matte warm brown

*5th Ave: metallic gold

*Bronx: shimmery olive

*Paris: metallic golden brown

                                From left to right: Lula, Isabel, Violeta, 5th Ave, Bronx, Paris

As you can see, there are a lot of shades I love from this palette and I can see myself using each one. The two most colorful shades, Claudia and Bronx, are still neutral enough to wear out and about. Marina is probably my favorite color, I don't have anything else like it! I love all the jewel tones.

Hollywood is the only shade I have a problem with. It is just slightly darker than my skin tone, and I don't like to use darker colors as a highlight. This will look beautiful as a highlight on medium and dark skin tones but I would have preferred a lighter champagne color.

As for the formula, it really is top-notch. I'm obsessed with it. The mattes blend easily and are very pigmented, but the shimmers are the best part of the palette. You only need to pick up the smallest amount on your brush to cover the entire lid. Some of the softer shadows like Paris and 5th Ave have some fallout so I recommend tapping the excess off of your brush before going in on the eyes.

These also last for ages! Yesterday (using a primer) I wore Paris all over the lid with Violeta in the crease and the look stayed on with minimal fading and no creasing for over TEN hours! Considering I was in a hot, steamy pool for four of those hours I'd say that's really impressive.

This palette is available online here and will be in stores soon!

Let me know what you think about this collaboration in the comments below!

Xx Katie