BH Cosmetics Love in London eyeshadow palette review

BH Cosmetics: the affordable makeup brand so many people rave about, but that I had not yet had great experiences with till I tried this. For me the Royal Affair palette was a bit underwhelming, so when I spotted Love in London I wasn’t suddenly all about it. But spot it I did and get it I did and so I decided to try it. I’ve been raving about it ever since. I even put it in a giveaway as I love this thing so much. So why didn’t I review this yet? No other reason than to say there is so much makeup and only so little time.

Review: BH Cosmetics Love in London eyeshadow palette

The BH Cosmetics Love in London eyeshadow palette is one that keeps going in and out of stock in different places. Your best bet for getting this year round is probably the official BH Cosmetics website. In Europe, the brand has a German website that you can set to English and they ship throughout the European Union as far as I know. In any case, that is where I got mine because at Beauty Bay this keeps going out of stock. This palette retails for €15, but since this is now an older palette I think you can buy it at a much more affordable price point nearly year round.

What does Love in London have to offer?

The Love in London palette had me excited as it is a more cool toned palette. Sure there are some warm tones in this palette too, but the cool tones is where it is at for me. I think the fact that this palette features some warmth is what makes this an appealing palette to many different people. It won’t look muddy or yuck on you if you have an olive undertone and because this palette also has quite a bit of depth I think this can work for fair to darker skin tones alike. In short, this palette has a lot to offer and caters to a range of makeup needs at an affordable price point. What’s not to love?

What is the color story like?

When looking at this in the pan you may not get super excited about the palette. Out of a 16 pan palette you get ‘only’ 7 matte shades, everything else iis a shimmer. But I think you get exactly those mattes you need to create a setup for a look and the shimmers can give you the variety you need to create the most stunning looks. At first glance this may not look super cool toned, but once on the eyes this is one of the best cool toned neutral palettes I have tried in a long time. For me, the shades Tea, London and Duchess are what sets this palette apart from being yet another boring neutral palette.

What does the palette swatch like?

Swatches never tell the full story, but I cannot help but point out how nice these shadows look. The mattes don’t swatch the best but on the eyes they still perform great. The shimmers are buttery smooth and look at that charcoal grey! Isn’t it lovely? My reason for not loving the Royal Affair was never the quality of the shadows, but more so because the palette was a bit bland and boring in my book. I have slowly come back round on that though as I am really on a neutral kick lately and this palette has been part of making me see that a neutral shadow look still looks best on me.

3 Looks, 1 Palette

Of course I won’t let you down and I have, as per usual on this space, created as many looks it took to use every single shade in the palette. I created a smokey glam look, a cool toned navy look and a soft everyday look.

With the first look I did I went for my comfort zone. I used some of the deeper brown toned mattes to create a basis for the look. I then used Prestige which is a stunning taupe all over the lid and I complemented it with some of the deeper mattes to smoke things out. On the lower lash line I used Lolly and Biscuit to create a shimmery but hazy rose gold look. Overall I feel this is the kind of look that I think can appeal to many people as it is super wearable yet still defined and smokey. This is the kind of palette you can easily take from day to night.

London, Tea and Palace were just begging to be put in a look together so that’s what I did here. Crumpet turned out to be the best matte crease shade on the planet for me and the palette also features enough mattes to blend things out and create a stunning overall look. Posh, which is the matte black, works great for deepening things up without making it too dark and smokey. And doesn’t Palace just make for a stunning inner corner highlight? These are the kinds of looks I just can’t get enough of.

And then I was left with a few shades that didn’t spark my interest straight away. Queen being the most notorious: a bronzy gold, it has nothing to do in this palette if you ask me. Yet, blended out of the mobile lid and adding a bit of a matte on top to tone down the shimmer I thought it still worked fine. I used Duchess, another favorite shade in the palette, on the lower lash line. There is just something about a berry/ purple on the lower lashline when the rest of the look is a bit more warm toned. Overall this is a pretty look that turned out much better and neutral than I thought it would.

My final thoughts

BH Cosmetics’ Love in London palette is one that surprised me for a few reasons. The most important reason was of course the fact that the Royal Affair palette didn’t wow me the way I had expected. This did, so now I wish I had tried this before the Royal Affair so I would be more positively skewed in my opinion towards the brand. Another reason why I like this palette is the color story. This is where the Royal Affair lacked for me the most but this palette hits the nail on the head on both fronts: it has great quality AND a color story I love. Top it off with the fact that this palette now retails for around the €10 mark most of the time and you have yourself a great, versatile cool toned palette that isn’t boring and can work for many different skin tones.

Would I recommend the BH Cosmetics Love in London eyeshadow palette?

Are you kidding me? Do you really still need to ask me this question? I have been recommending this palette left and right ever since I put it on my face earlier this year! This is a stunning palette and a must have if you are a lover of all things neutral. In fact, I got myself the new Blueberry Muffin palette by BH Cosmetics in the Black Friday sales as I thought it would be a great complimentary palette to this one. In short, my BH Cosmetics love affair has officially started, so stay tuned for more.

What is a palette that swayed your opinion on a brand?