Beauty Bay Colour Theory Launch

Last month, online beauty superstore Beauty Bay launched their first own branded products. All following the same layout and concept, the three Colour Theory palettes contained a whopping 42 eyeshadows. I purchased mine when they released, but it has taken me this long to summon up the enthusiasm to write about it.

As was to probably be expected, these palettes are produced in China. This is not always a bad thing - Morphe have become a household name (in the beauty community, anyway) by selling gigantic eyeshadow palettes rammed full of more colours than you could possibly need at over inflated prices and consumers just can't get enough of their new releases. Anastasia Beverly Hills also manufacture their palettes in China.

These palettes are a bargain, in that they have 42 decent sized shadows for £24.99 (don't forget that Beauty Bay do student discount too, so there's an extra 10% off there) and free shipping as it's over the £15 mark. Unlike the BPerfect Carnival palette, I think that this is a pretty reasonable price point.

The palettes are all laid out in the same manner. Each row is for a different stage in your eye makeup (base, transition, crease etc) with the columns making seven different eye looks. Of course you can follow the steps, or you can mix and match to make your own unique look. The possibilities really are endless. Or they would be if there weren't 376 shades of brown in each palette.

There are three different palettes in this range - Origin, a really pretty warm toned palette in pink packaging, Evolve, a very neutral palette with the odd pop of colour in yellow packaging, and Identity, which is described as "bright and bold shades". Well, there are some bright and bold shades, but it's mostly neutrals.

Origin caught my eye first. With it coming up to autumn, warm tones will be everywhere and I do love a pink eyeshadow! I decided against it as it looked too similar to the Lime Crime Venus XL palette which I have and I use fairly often. I decided to go for the "bright and bold option" and chose Identity.

The palettes launched at 12pm on September 13th. I managed to pick one up without any issue. I wasn't online the moment they launched, but I got mine about an hour later. I think they did sell out of all three palettes that day though.

This is what arrived - the palette came in a black palette with a very pretty blue holographic inner. The palette was in a blue holographic box, and came with some stickers and possibly a beauty bay discount code (I sold this as soon as I was done taking pictures for this blog so I really can't remember what else was with it) and some other postcards and stuff. These were all inside a pretty but completely unnecessary plastic bag.

They definitely get points for the stickers, I have such a thing for makeup companies who send me stickers, I love it!

Here's the inside of the palette - each column is numbered, and the rows are labelled for an easy step by step application. I decided to go for row 5 as I liked the red shades, but I fell at the first hurdle as the base shade was about 387 shades darker than my skin tone. No bother, I wiped it off and thought I'd crack on but substitute the base shade from column 1 instead. Fine, decent enough but not exactly up to Sugarpill standards (I use white eyeshadow every single day and I compare any white shadows to Tako from Sugarpill as it's my absolute favourite).

The transition and crease shades applied nicely, although when it came to the liner shade I struggled to get anything particularly visible against the other shades. I ended up blending the red liner shade on my lid and then the whole thing just went downhill from there. All of the colours just blended into one red mass, and even when I tried adding in some pink and purple to create a bit of dimension, I was just left with red everywhere. The shimmer shade that I used on my inner corner and browbone was less than impressive too. It's probably ok if you wet  your brush before applying, but having to use a wet brush for eyeshadow is SUCH a pet hate of mine that I won't use eyeshadows if I need to do this. This was the result.

You can see that there's no issues with pigmentation, it's a nice shade of red and red shadows are notoriously difficult to formulate, but when I have to blend seventeen thousand different colours on to my eyes and end up with the same colour I started with after two shades then I'm not gonna be happy.

I hate these palettes. But then, I hate Morphe palettes, so I think that the Beauty Bay Colour Theory palettes will go down well with the teenage market, especially given how affordable they are. I'd say they're good for beginners, but if they all blend into the same colour then I'll have to take that back. Maybe the other two are better than this, but I really have no intention of finding out.

The mirror is pretty good though.

Worth The Hype? BPerfect Stacey Marie Carnival Palette

I'll be honest, when this palette first found its way onto my Facebook news feed, I had never heard of BPerfect or Stacey Marie. I'll be honest, even after doing some research I can't actually fathom how this palette is being sold for £40, but we'll go into price later on.

BPerfect are an Irish brand, established by Brendan Macdowell in 2013. Over the past five years they seem to have grown rapidly in Ireland (perhaps why I have never come across them), and their products are stocked in shops around the country, and some stores in the UK too. The brand seems to focus mostly on tanning products (another reason they may have passed me by, I look like a paracetamol with pink hair), but they do stock some cosmetics too.

The Stacey Marie Carnival palette is the most expensive product that BPerfect stock. This is probably down to the higher number of shadows in the palette, and also I assume a commission will be paid to Stacey Marie. That being said, they also stock another palette which appears to be a collaboration with a makeup artist and that retails for £24.99. The Carnival is £39.99 plus £3.50 shipping. This product is available in some shops, so you can save the shipping cost if you can find it in stock near you, and it is also available on Beauty Bay who do student discount and free shipping if you spend over £15.

I do like this palette, actually. I think its so refreshing to see a palette which focuses on bright shades, rather than shoving one or two in there for the "pop effect". This palette has 24 eyeshadows in a range of matte, duochrome and metallic finishes and two highlighters, one which would suit light to medium skin tones and one for medium to deeper skin. I am never really a fan of palettes that have highlighters for a range of skin tones as I just don't get use out of the darker ones. I have seen a lot of girls on social media buy this palette for their makeup kit though. I personally don't use Chinese produced shadows in my kit, but I guess that's where the different highlighter shades might be useful.

The packaging is nothing special. It's a black cardboard component that came wrapped in clear film. There is no outer box or slipcase, and for £40 I'd personally like to see a little more attention to detail on the packaging, but then I am a total packaging junkie!

These shadows mostly swatch nicely. I did struggle with the purples and one or two others, but purple shadows are notoriously difficult to formulate so I'm not going to be too critical of that. They do, for the most part, perform well on the eye with a good quality brush although I did experience some patchiness and blending issues with a couple of shades - mainly Naked, Basic and Wasted. I didn't notice any staining to my eyes, but the brighter shadows (particularly the greens) stained my white bristled brushes really badly which I found to be quite disappointing.

As I've said previously, my main gripe with this palette is the price point. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand that smaller businesses can't afford to buy in the quantities that the likes of Morphe and BH Cosmetics do, but I just don't think that this palette is worth £40. If it was £25, or possibly even £30 I'd be telling everyone to snap it up. That said, this palette has been received extremely well on social media, with makeup enthusiasts and artists alike raving about it. So take my opinion as you wish, but I'd probably wait for a sale or try and find one with light usage on a makeup selling group or app instead.