See how the new makeup compares on different Sims!

The Sims 4 Essential Glam Kit is a brand new creator kit, released alongside the Grange Mudroom kit and created in collaboration with the custom content creator crypticsim. Crypticsim, also known as Nathan, is a popular custom content creator, specializing in makeup and other forms of glam to expand your sims looks!

The Kit Description & Info

Per the Electronic Arts website, EA App, Steam, and any platform for the viewing of Sims 4 Kits…

Upgrade your Sim’s makeup collection. Easily transition from subtle daytime looks, featuring soft eyeshadows and neutral lip glosses, to striking smoky eyeshadows with bold lipsticks. Transform your Sims’ makeup look with items like foundation, contour, and highlight. Add unique items like faux freckles and beauty marks to complete your look. Whether it’s for date nights, weddings, award ceremonies, or graduations, this Kit guarantees every Sim can showcase their unique style.

– The Sims 4 Essential Glam Kit Pack Description

Kit Preview Thumbnails

Individual Items

To showcase the items properly, I created three sims with varying skin tones, although these won’t represent the wide variety of skin tones available in the game and how they may interact with the items. While I didn’t change the preset swatches using the hue, opacity, saturation, and brightness sliders for these images, I did pick out swatches I thought would work well if there was a swatch present that did so. However, if there wasn’t, I picked the swatches that showed up the most so the actual texture of the asset was visible. In total, there are 27 assets that come with this kit. Per category, there are…

• 1 Skin Detail
• 3 Blushes
• 4 Full Face Assets
• 8 Lip Products
• 5 Eyeliners
• 6 Eyeshadows

Eyeshadow

Eyeliner

Blush

Lips

Full Face Category

Skin Detail

Full Looks (Before & After)

In-Game

With many of these items from The Sims 4 Essential Glam kit being light-reactive, meaning that they had a sheen or shine that changed and reflected light, I felt it was necessary to show how the items actually looked in-game and in different forms of lighting. These were all taken on Ultra Graphics settings during a sunny day and then a cloudy night in Tartosa, so results may vary based on the world, weather, lighting, or graphics settings.

Natural Light

Looking back on these photos, the actual textures from this kit really shine in bright natural lighting, as they tend to look smoother on the skin and make a sim look very fresh and glamorous.

Indoor Lighting

I also thought indoor lighting looked nice, but some of the highlights became a bit harsh under the simulated artificial lighting, and any pieces that had grainy or uneven textures became more noticeable.

Darkness

Darkness is not The Sims 4’s strong suit, but the makeup stands up pretty well. Obviously it doesn’t look as great as warm outdoor lighting, but the darkness softens the features and helps avoid the harsh lines found on certain assets.

Our Review of The Essential Glam Kit

If I had to give this kit a rating, I would say it would be an overall 8/10. I personally really love it and know that if I work with the swatches a bit, I could add tons of variety to my sims outfits and make putting makeup on them with no or low custom content less of a chore, and more of a fun feature. However, certain textures do have issues with very obvious gradients, blending issues, and graininess that becomes more or less visible based on your sims skin tone.

For $5 USD or your currency equivalent, and in comparison to the makeup we’ve received in previous expansions, I feel that this is a really good deal for those trying to work with little or no custom content, especially those on console who don’t have access to custom content at all. However, I personally know I’ve also seen custom content from creators, including Crypticsim, that had smoother textures and less issues with skin tone discrepancies.

I am still happy that I got it, and I like the direction that The Sims Team is heading with kits and creator kits; While they do seem oversaturated currently, I think being able to pick and choose for features or assets you like instead of forking over much more for an Expansion, Game, or Stuff Pack solely for certain pieces from it is a much better deal for most players.

The Sims 4 Essential Glam Kit is out now, as of August 21st, and retails for $5 USD or your local equivalent currency. Have you purchased the kit or do you plan to do so? What are your thoughts on what it adds and the quality of these items?