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| BH 60 Color Day & Night Eyeshadow Palette |
Overall, it's been a very positive experience!
Ordering, Delivery, Packaging
First-off, the company themselves are a pleasure to deal with. Certainly, my own transaction was foolproof, fault-proof, streamlined and without any hitches. I went online (site here), I picked out one of the available palettes (this one), I ordered it and it arrived within the week. Impressive, as it's coming from the US and via standard post - so clearly there was no messing around at the other end; I ordered it, it was packaged and dispatched immediately.
Shipping costs? Not cheap - it wound up costing me the same to ship as the cost of the palette, $24 in total for the palette and shipping, split pretty much 50-50. That said, with the Euro-Dollar exchange rate, you'll still have change from a €20 - for 60 eyeshadows. The packaging itself was more than adequate for protecting the palette from knocks and bumps, so that was well thought out too (and no polystyrene either, which I can't recycle, so another thumbs up on that front - it's the little things!)
What about the palette itself?
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| The outside of the palette |
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| The palette - stock photo from the BH website |
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| The palette - my photo |
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| Comes with a mirror on one side, handy |
Let me pre-empt this by saying that I wasn't expecting this to be particularly brilliant, but I'd settle for "ok" for the price. I was pleasantly surprised that it lived up to my expectations and then some.
What's good about it?
- It has a really great range of colours - from day-time neutrals to more night-time shades (but then again, that's the point of this palette :-))
- There are quite a few both mattes and shimmer shades. This is great; I hate getting palettes that feature solely shimmer shades, as do most drugstore or less expensive palettes.
- In addition, the matte shades actually work - a lot of cheaper palettes feature very chalky or hard-to-work-with mattes. They take a little working with, but they are perfectly acceptable.
- There are some really beautiful and vibrant (shimmer in particular) shades including several golds, bronzes, cranberry, blue and purple shades.
- They blend very well and there's very little fallout.
- As mentioned, it is far from expensive and purchase-to-receipt is fast and faultless.
- In terms of pigmentation, these take a few layers, but are quite reasonably pigmented.
- In terms of lastability, these - surprisingly - lasted me most of the day, either with or without a primer.
- The mirror on the lid is a nice addition.
- The wide range of colours means you'll have almost everything you'll need in one place. I've been rediscovering colours I haven't used in ages; I have hundreds and hundreds of eyeshadows, but I don't always remember to pull 'em out and use them. This palette is bringing the fun back!
What's not-so-good?
- There are no - what I'd consider - matte mid-tone browns in the colour region of MAC Cork, Saddle, Swiss Chocolate - those kind of orange-based mid-tone shades which are invaluable for blending out the socket. This is not a huge deal, you can use one you already have, or default to using your bronzer instead. But for completeness, especially in a palette of this size, I'd always like to see a mid-tone shade, a black and a white (there are some matte browns that could be used as mid-tones for uber-pale skin, but nothing for say NC/NW23+)
- There is a matte black included, but it wouldn't be the blackest-black I've ever seen (but not actually not bad at all - it is actually black as opposed to a kind-of-grey-ish-charcoal).
- There's a kind of pinky-beige off-white (also matte) that could serve as a base colour, but I'd like to see a true white and a more creamy/banana yellow-toned off-white in there too, again, just for completeness
- Being picky, the shades take a bit of working with to get product onto the brush and then more than the two-three layers I'd usually give eyeshadow to get them to the opacity you'd want, but nothing out of the ordinary for cheaper eyeshadow (in fact, some more expensive brands suffer this problem too). And once you've used the shade for the first time, it seems to be grand for every subsequent use.
- Being really picky, the palette itself is a bit unwieldy, it's quite large and it's not easy to hold in one hand and apply with the other - but then again, this isn't how I operate with makeup, and I suspect most people don't either.
Shade size?
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| Each of the shadows is quite small... |
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| ...most eyeshadows would be "normally" the size of a Euro coin or larger |
These are teeny-tiny, but I did mention that this is an inexpensive palette! I don't see this as a con, if these were larger, 60 of them wouldn't fit into the palette.
Would this replace my trusty Sleek palettes?
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| ... and from the side (you can see the shimmer shades a bit more clearly) |
Probably not, but this is only for reasons of size - the Sleek palettes are small, sturdy and very handy for travelling with (some reviews of Sleek palettes here, here and here). In terms of usability, however, these are every bit as good as my Sleek palettes. If you're looking for some good eyeshadows and don't want to spend a fortune, if you're looking for some Christmas gift ideas, you could do far worse than this, coupled with a good lay-down brush (my current favourite is this one from Illamasqua; dense enough to be used as a lay-down brush, fluffy enough to be used on its side for blending!)
Categorically and definitely recommended.
