Hi fraands!

Today’s post is all about the super-hyped Carli Bybel palette from BH Cosmetics! Now, I know I am a bit late to the party with this one but I honestly had no intention of ever buying this palette until I was scrolling down the BH Cosmetics site for brushes and saw that they were in stock. So I bought 2. As one does.

Carli Bybel, a popular youtuber, created this palette intending for it to suit a majority of skin tones and at a low price. BH Cosmetics are known for their affordable yet good quality products, so I decided to give this one a go!

PRICE
Starting with the basics, this palette cost USD $12.50, which is around AUD $17. Shipping is USD $5.50 on top! These prices changes often as BH Cosmetics have sales quite regularly.

PACKAGING

The palette is quite light and does feel cheap. It is made of laminated cardboard which is both a blessing and a curse in disguise. The glossyness means that eyeshadow wont settle on it and look obvious whilst the cardboard material looks obvious if crushed around the corners by daily use/dropping it (which I may or may not have done). The colours are not tightly packed and there is quite a lot of space around each pan. It is not that bulky, but it isn’t sleek either.

The palette contains 10 eyeshadows (5 shimmer, 5 matte)  and 4 highlight shades. What I found odd about the positioning of the colours was that the top row of the eyeshadows had all mattes and one shimmer and the bottom row had all shimmer and one matte – not too sure why they couldn’t have had one row of shimmer and one of matte? Or am I just being pedantic….

COLOUR RANGE
       EYESHADOWS

The eyeshadows are mainly neutral and plum shades. There is one light nude shade (comparable to Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette’s White Chocolate), two lighter browns, a plum (comparable to Make Up Geek’s Bitten) and a dark black-brown. In terms of the shimmer shades, there is a champagne colour, a gold, a rose gold, a copper and a shimmery plum. The colour variety in this palette makes me very happy! Usually, there are too many nude colours which all look the same on darker skin. I’ve seen some people complain that there is a lack of colour variety in this palette but I would have to disagree!

    HIGHLIGHTERS

The highlighters are each very different to one another. The lightest is a pinky-silver, followed by a soft champagney-silver, a gold and a bronze.

QUALITY
      EYESHADOW
I’m going to have to review the shimmers and the mattes separately because feel quite differently between the two. The shimmer shades are gorgeous! They are buttery and soft and have an amazing colour pay off. They have a little to no fall out and are very opaque. The matte shades however, are not as consistently pigmented. The lightest shade is the most opaque. I usually steer away from these colours as they look chalky on my skin but this adds a beautiful light shade that I use to lighten colours or from my inner corner to mid-lid and darken with a brown. The two lighter browns are on the taupe side and have a decent colour pay off. The two darker shades are a different story. When swatched, they are very patchy. They are not as opaque as they should be. When applied to the lid, you will need to build it up to show the colour presented in the palette. When using a brush, the bristles kick up quite a bit of excess powder which can get a bit messy!
 HIGHLIGHTERS
These shades allll show up on my skin tone and I find them all wearable! The darkest shade is a bit too dark for my skin tone but can be used as a bronzer topper! The pigment is quite buttery and soft. However, they are rather powdery compared to the refined highlights I have been using from Anastasia and Becca. This can tend to give a chalky effect but as they are highlighters, it is not as obvious. These shades are also opaque enough to be used as eyeshadows.

TALC
Okay so I decided to make a separate category for the fact that these products contain talc – and a lot of it! As soon as you open the palette, the smell of talc is almost overbearing. When I flipped the palette over to read the ingredients, the first thing listed – meaning the main ingredient – is talc.
Now, why is talc bad? In the past, it was believed that talc – created by crushing rocks together – shared the same cancer causing properties as asbestos. It had been linked to ovarian cancer and lung cancer. But now, cosmetic-grade talc has been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and is said to be safe to use. But why is it still a big deal? Talc has absorbent properties that make the eyeshadows stay on longer and not cake. This is bad for sensitive, dry skin as it just dries them out even more, causing them to itch and may cause rashes.

SUMMARY
Ok so I’ve pretty much said everything I possibly could  about this palette. The look, the smell, the feel, the touch. And I guess I can’t say much about what it sounds like.

Overall, I like this palette! I won’t say I LOVE it, but for the price – it is great! Considering the fact that “drugstore” eyeshadow palettes work out to be the same/around the price of this one, I’d definitely be reaching for this one a lot more. It has great pigmentation and a good selection of colours for every day use – both day, and night. The only thing throwing me off this palette is the inclusion of talc. I have dry, sensitive skin and I did get drier eyelids after using this every day for a week. In saying so, with vigilant moisturising and removal with coconut oil, the dryness can be combatted. It’s up to you and your skin type!

If you have this palette, let me know what you think about it below!