So you want to be a Hot Mama? You have to hand it to make up brand The Balm: there product names are about as witty as it gets. Pair that off with some retro looking packaging and you have a combination that sells. I had tried a few of their products before, but not that many. So when I spotted this classic blush when I was in Italy, I decided to snatch it up.
The Balm Hot Mama blush
Haul time! Last week I showed you what I packed when I went to Rome, today I’m showing you the bits I brought home. Be aware: I shopped to my heart’s content. Why? Because Italy has Sephora, which means instant access to brands I can only dream of getting my hands on. So that is where my focus lies. I also shopped at Kiko and at an Italian beauty store where I bumped into The Balm, which makes this a make up laden video. Hope you enjoy!
I came. I saw. I shopped.
You will probably know The Balm from their make up. Some of their eyeshadow palettes and also their Mary Lou-Manizer highlighter are some cult products in the beauty community. But did you know they do skincare too? I didn’t. Until I found this Time Balm White Tea Sunflower Skin Clarifier. An interesting product that I didn’t know anything about and that took some time for me to figure out how to use this properly. But once I figured that out, it became an important part of my make up routine.
The Balm Time Balm White Tea Sunflower Skin Clarifier with Witch Hazel extract
I’m feeling summer is a great way of catching up on long overdue reviews. Where I posted a mascara review last week, today I’m bringing you a review of The Balm’s Balm Voyage palette. I picked up this palette in Barcelona. I walked into Primor, which is the Spanish version of a high end drugstore and lo and behold: they sold The Balm. The stand had been picked over, but they still had this and I still wanted to try some The Balm products. So I went to the register, paid for the palette and then lugged around with it for the next two weeks until I got home and was able to take pictures of it.
The Balm Balm Voyage eye, cheek & lip palette
I love make up palettes, eyeshadow ones in particular. They are very collectible and I love using them as well. I like palettes that allow me to use my creativity like the Urban Decay Vice palettes, but I also like a good neutral. This palette has both some fun colors to play with, as well as some neutral for a more every day look. It retails for €42,95 and contains 16 different eye shadows and 3 lip/ cheek products.
The palette comes in a sturdy cardboard packaging with a slip overlay that secures the palette and keeps it closed. A bit of a hassle, but I am a tad afraid of throwing away the slip as I feel the palette might just pop open. I just found out that there is a Vol. 2 of this, which features 9 eyeshadows, a highlight, a bronzer, 2 powder brushes and 2 cream products. That is a tad more complete than this, which focuses on just eyes and a few cream products.
The Balm calls this the Holiday Face palette and I think the idea, apart from the traveling theme that has been used, is that you can take this with you on vacation and have a versatile palette for on the go. I find the palette a tad too bulky for that. It’s rather large, but slim and lightweight, but the fact that the packaging could pop open or the slip tear at any given moment makes me reluctant to chuck this in a bag and take along. It does come with a mirror and a few ideas of how to use the shadows together.
On the back you’ll find a complete overview of the palette. The shadows can be used wet or dry and the lip/ cheek products are a rich cream. The ingredients are listed on the back too, which is a pro. Many make up products ingredients can only be found online, but not on the product itself. So good job to The Balm.
Let’s have a look at the cream products first. Like I said, I took this half way round Europe in a backpack before taking these pictures. And you can see that the cream products have started to bubble. They melted due to the heat in hotel rooms and that’s why I’m afraid their texture or conservation has been compromised. When I bought this, I really bought it for the shadows. I hardly ever used cream products on my cheeks and when I want to wear a lipstick, I’ll take this that as this requires a brush if you want to apply it nicely. So despite the pretty colors and great pigmentation I’ve never used these, and I don’t think I ever will.
No, the reason why I bought this palette was because of the eyeshadows. There are some random pops of color in here such as mint green, a blue toned purple a nice petrol and a mustard yellow. The neutrals in this palette are also not your bog standard neutrals. There is a dark mauve and a stunning looking khaki shade, as well as some rose toned. This, to me, looked like a very versatile palette at first glance, which is why I picked it up.
Because that is what The Balm gets: making products that aren’t just pretty and high quality but also less predictable. The shade range in this is phenomenal and I love how you are not stuck with the everlasting matte black and creamy whites. There is a mixture of cool and warm toned shadows which again helps it to be more versatile. However, I do find this palette hard to work with. Precisely because of the fun color combinations. I just don’t know where to start!
A3 – B3 – C3 – D3 – A4 – B4 – C4 – D4
A3: a frosted silver
B3: a matte taupe that leans more brown than grey
C3: a matte milk chocolate brown
D3: a shimmery champagny gold
A4: a dark shimmery grey with a brown undertone
B4: a satin matte dark brown
C4: a shiny reddish dark brown
D4: a shiny dark khaki/ olive green with a hint of gold
These are the swatches of the top 2 rows, which includes the more neutral and darkest shades. There are 2 mattes, one almost matte and everything else has a bit of shine, shimmer or straight up frost to it. Pigmentation is great: these shadows are buttery soft and apply well. Even the matte shades, thought C3 is a tad harder to work with as it has a rougher texture.
A1 – B1 – C1 – D1 – A2 – B2 – C2 – D2
A1: a shimmery dusty rose
B1: a matte flesh/ peach toned color that pulls more beige against my skin
C1: a shimmery vanilla shade
D1: a shimmery mustard yellow
A2: a shimmery duochrome bluetoned purple
B2: a shiny mint green
C2: a matte teal/ petrol color
D2: a shimmery dusty pink
Like the first set of swatches, the pigmentation here is bang on. Again a matte (C2) has a bit of difficulty and C1 isn’t all that intense, but since that is pretty much the only highlight shade in this palette I feel that is not too much of a problem. The colors are quite random though and that’s what makes this palette harder to work with. However, I did come up with two different looks.
Eye shadows used: A2, C3, C1, C2
Because the reason why I bought this palette is for one that stunning purple as well as the teal color, I knew I had to feature them in a look together. I used the purple all over the lid and on the eye it doesn’t appear as vibrant as in the pan or on the swatch. I found it very easily blends away and thus you need to go back in and really build up the color after every step you take. The pop of teal is a fun touch, but again, it could have been more vibrant.
Eye shadows used: A4, D4, B3, D3, D2, B1, C1
A much more successful look was this one, which focuses on the champagne gold and the stunning olive shade. As you can see 8 different eye shadows went into this look and that’s why I don’t think this palette is a great every day one, but more a special occasion one. This look is intense and smoky and I love that for a party or special occasion but this is not a great every day look for work.
Despite the fact that you can get some stunning looks with this palette, I do not find myself reaching for it as much as I had thought when I bought this. The colors are stunning, pigmentation is great and the selection is unique. However, the shadows blend away very easily, making shades less vibrant on the eye than on a swatch or in the palette. To get an intense eye look, requires work and going back and forth between shades and reapplying them.
The buttery softness of these shadows is exactly what is plays up when you use them on the eye. This is not a throw in your purse, every day make up palette, nor is it fit for traveling. But, if you are looking for a palette that has great pigmentation, an unexpected color selection and you don’t mind putting some time and effort into your make up look than this is for you.
Have you ever used The Balm make up products? What is your experience?
For this rendition of the 30 Day Make Up Challenge, I decided to think outside of my comfort zone. I decided to pile on the make up and even though this may not be very extreme for some people, it is for me. I often only have 15 minutes, if that, when I do my make up when I go to work. So to submerge myself into make up for an afternoon is always a nice and welcome change. To create this look I decided to combine a few make up techniques I see many youtubers and instagrammers use, but which it just way too much for me on the daily. So this is my ‘extreme’ make up look.
The first thing I needed was a good dose of color. I mostly opt for ‘safe’ neutral make up looks when I go to work. I sometimes add a pop of color by adding a bit of colored liner or color on my lid, but I usually leave it at that. I also stick by the rule of not pairing bold lips with bold eyes when I go to work. No need to overstimulate my students and having them spend the first 10 minutes of a lesson deciding where to look. I used blue and purples on the eyes and reddish tints on the cheeks and lipst. I feel they sort of go together, but then again, not really at the same time. I had a reason for this pairing though and that mostly had to do with the make up techniques I wanted to try out.
On to the make up techniques I used. I tried to do a 5 in one here: flawless glowy skin, that is contoured and bronzed up, with a strong brow and ombre lips. Pfff that is quite a lot to work with. I also used a chuckload of products to create it and spend over 30 minutes, maybe even close to 45 minutes to create this make up look. That is at least double the amount of time I get to spend on my make up on a regular basis. When I do my make up in the mornings, I do create a full face of make up, but it’s not as ‘perfect’ and full on as this. I apply foundation, concealer and powder. I also try to create some sort of eyelook, but I usually keep that fairly simple and use no more that 2 – 3 shadows, but mostly I go for 1 shade looks. I apply just blush to my cheeks and a lipstick to my lips and that’s about it. I also do my brows, but I just fill them in a bit. You can see my more every day make up look in this video.
For the eyes I mostly went with some bold colors, but I didn’t go int with any crazy techniques. I don’t have that much eyelid space, so I have limited room to work with. If I make looks like these, a winged liner is also no option for me as I need to draw such a thick line to make that work that it would mostly cover up the amazing colors of the eye shadows. So I kept it simple: a bright purple all over the lid, a darker purple shade in the crease, highlight on the browbone and a bright ocean blue in the inner corner. I personally love this combination and feel it truly makes my eyes pop. Read below for a complete low down of how I created this entire make up look.
I used a blend of both drugstore as well as high end make up. Basically I ransacked my make up collection to put this look together.
Products used:
Face:
Eyes:
Brows:
Lips:
How did I use all these? I started with my brows. I first ‘drew’ my brows with Catrice’s brow definer. I focused mainly on the first part of my brows with this. Then, I evened it all out with some brow powder and set it with a brow gel. Secondly, I did skin. I primed my face with a glowing primer, and primed my lids using the Kat von D eyeshadow base. I then used a matte and high coverage foundation and concealer and set all that into place with a matte powder. Finally I added Painterly by MAC, to even out my eyelid color.
For cheeks I first applied a contour and blush. Then I bronzed up my face with a shimmering bronzer and I also took that down my neck. However, I did forget to take in the sides of my neck, so you can see that in these pics I’m about 2 shades darker than I normally am. I went in with blush and a liquid highlight and for extra effect, I topped that up with some powder highlight as well.
For the eyes I didn’t go crazy with techinques. I applied a darker shade in my crease first. Then I originally added Omen by Urban Decay, but once everything was done I topped that off with the purple eyeshadow by MUA. It brightened everything up and really amped up the look. For a fun detail I added a bright blue in my inner corners. I used a darker purple shade on my lower lashline and also defined my Outer V with this. I used a highlighter on my brow bone, a nude eyeliner on my waterline and I tightlined with a black eyeliner. As a final touch I topped up my lashes with mascara.
Lips wise I decided to try an ombre lip. I applied a dark red lip liner on the outer edges of my lips and then filled in my lip with a brighter red. I topped it up with a bright red, glossy lipstick which I applied with a lipliner to not get a very full on effect, but that still nicely covered the liner and evened everything out.
Yep, this, in my book, is an extreme make up look. So much make up, so full on is great for a shoot or when you’re being filmed I’m sure. It is not suitable for an every day make up look, but it was definitely fun to do and to play around with my make up again.
What would you do for an extreme make up look?
Highlighter. Never a make up product I cared for much. Until last year. I bought a pretty one from Dior in spring, and a little bit later I bought a stunning highlight by MUA. But both products were trumped the minute I placed my brush in The Balm’s Mary-Lou Manizer. I had heard many good things about this highlighter on Youtube. And when I found it at a bargain price, I knew I had to pick it up and try it.
The Balm Mary-Lou Manizer highlighter
This product comes with a bit of a story. I was traveling round Europe last summer and my last stop on that trip was Copenhagen, Denmark. There I found some great Scandanavian stores, one of them & Other Stories (by H&M). I knew & Other Stories sells make up too so I browsed the store at length and came across a table with The Balm products. And they were on sale. For 15 DKK a piece. That is roughly €2 each. Normally The Balm isn’t a cheap brand so I checked with the lady at the register and indeed, all The Balm products cost a mere €2. I made a quick decision and bought this highlighter among 2 other things. The original price of this product is €15.
The Balm Mary-Lou Manizer
And would it be worth €15? I also have one by Dior which was €50 euros, and till I bought this that was my go-to highlight shade. Packaging wise this product doesn’t seem like much. The compact is simple and fuss free. There is a large mirror in the lid and the box and cover have an identical cheek-in-tongue picture with a hint of retro.
In total the product contains 8.5 grams which is a decent amount of product. The ingredient list isn’t too long but doesn’t contain much that I truly understand. Other than mica (it’s a powder) and dimethcone (a silicone), the entire ingredient list is nothing but abracadabra to me.
But it’s not the packaging or ingredient list that truly count. What counts is the product inside and how it performs. At first glance this powder looks like nothing special. When exposed to neutral light this just looks like any old champagne/ beige colored powder. So what’s all the fuss about? Well you need to look a little bit close for that.
The Balm’s Mary-Lou Manizer is supposed to be a highlight that is non glittery and gives that ‘glow-from-within’ look. When tilting the product towards the light a hint of sheen can be detected, but this doesn’t show its true nature until you swatch it. As you can see in the picture below, the shine is truly there and a light hand is needed in other to not look like a grease ball.
Swatched this product barely looks like a powder. If you hadn’t seen this compact, I’m sure you’d have believed me if I’d have told you this is a cream. But nothing is further from the truth. This is a powder highlight that goes on like a cream. The texture is buttery soft and you barely notice this is a powder. And it does what a good highlighter is supposed to do: intensify that cheek bone glow.
Above: no highlight
Below: highlight
In the close up the difference or the effect of this product is not as noticeable. Above I applied no highlight. Below I did and you can see some sheen (and I also feel like the bumps and lumps are less noticeable) but not as strong as in a more full face picture like this one:
Here you can see the product in full swing on my cheek bone. BAM! Highlight. Here I may have even applied a little bit too much. Because this product isn’t glittery it only needs a little bit to create a natural glowy look. Apply too much and your face can look shiny to the point where it may come across as looking greasy. It is therefore a very full on highlight, but still very pretty.
The color of this highlighter is spot on for my skin tone. The Dior one I have is quite a bit too gold on the daily (but very pretty in summer) and the MUA one is a tad too pink to go with many different looks. This is the perfect champagne/ beige shade that allows it to go with anything and everything I wear. Whether I’m wearing neutrals or something a lot more heavy: this always works.
I have taken to not only wearing this on my cheeks, but I have applied it to many other parts of my face. The bridge of my nose, my cupid’s bow, brow bone and inner corner are all places where this highlight can work its magic quite wonderfully. To show you the effect of the highlight, you can see the pictures above, but I am also wearing it in these looks: look one, look two, look three.
Yes, this product has definitely become one of my favorites and is now a staple in my make up routine. Every day when I do my make up I whip this out. The fact that I got it at such a bargain makes it even better, but even at €15 euros this product is well worth its price point. If you can get your hands on this and you’re fair skinned like me, this is one of the best highlighters to have.
What’s your perfect highlighter?
*Raises hand* I hereby confess that I am a make up addict. But if you’ve been following this space, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I buy, use and enjoy make up more than the average person. This has led to an extensive, yet evergrowing collection. I like to try new things, be it high end or budgetproof, easily accessible or a niche brand: I love make up high and low. On this journey, I have met products left and right. Some were great, some mediocre and some just plain bad. And this is my confession.
Bourjois Pearl Eyeshadow Vert Pétillant no. 48
1. What is the oldest item in your collection?
The oldest item I have, I no longer use. It’s too old to be a viable product. I’ve had this eyeshadow for almost 15 years. I bought this as a teenager, when I first started using make up during my clubbing days. It was so expensive to me at the time, but I loved using this. The lid has broken off since and it is no longer usable but I keep this as a memory to my first forays into makeup.
The Body Shop eyeshadow no. 13
2. What is the newest item?
I’m lying if I’d say this is my newest item, that would be all of this beautiful stuff which I picked up in London last week. But I pre-planned this blog post and at the time of picture taking and blog planning, this eyeshadow was my newest item. It is my favorite brow bone highlight. It is by The Body Shop and by now discontinued. They had these in a little basket at my local store for a few euros and I picked up a back up because the one I have has hit pan and will run out sooner or later.
Dior DiorSkin Transat highlighter in Nude Tan
3. What is the most expensive item?
A high en blush and/ or highlighter was still on my wishlist and this spring I found both of them at the same time in the Dior Transat 2014 Spring collection. I have more high end blushes by now, but this highlighter takes the cake. It cost nearly 60 euros and is the most beautiful thing ever. I daresay that I barely use it simply because it is so stunning and I don’t want to ruin the print. You can find a full review here.
MUA single eyeshadow Matte no 16 & Pearl no. 9
4. What is the cheapest/most affordable item? (that you use a lot!)
Since I have quite a bit of make up, no products get used a lot to be quite honest. But I do really like these MUA eyeshadows. They only cost 1 pound in the UK and 2.50 euros in the Netherlands. The flesh colored high light gets the most use out of these two. It’s a toss between this and the TBS highlight if I don’t know what to go for.
The Balm Nude Tude eyeshadow palette
5. What was the biggest bargain?
Hands down, the biggest bargain I ever found make up wise. This palette retails around 40 euros online. I found this at & Other Stories in Kopenhagen, Denmark this summer for 15 KR. That’s 2 euros. 2 euros! They weren’t allowed to sell it anymore the girl told me so they had to get rid of their stock and were now selling all The Balm items for 2 euros each. I picked up the much raved about MaryLou-minizer as well, because for that type of money, which make up junkie could resist? I am using it in this Get Ready With Me video.
Sephora & Pantone blush in Tangerine Tango
6. What was the biggest waste of money?
I bought this blush thinking I’d get tons of wear out of it. I think I’ve used it twice since I bought it more than two years ago at a Sephora in New York. The only reason why I still have it, is because it reminds me of that trip. The problem isn’t so much the product. It is very pigmented, and so I easily look like a clown if I’m not careful, but that’s not it. It’s the packaging. I love this type of packaging on my Inglot palettes, but for this blush? Just no. The pans are too big and I keep thinking I nick the product. It’s also pretty powdery and the white and see through plastic get messy quite easily.
Sleek Matte Me Lip cream in Brink Pink
7. What product have you brought but forgotten about?
This just doesn’t just go for this product, but for liquid lipsticks in general. I love them on. They have great lasting power, and have come out in some stunning colors. But liquid lipsticks are such a nightmare to apply. Maybe it’s just me, but regular lipsticks are just so much easier. With these on is on and I find it difficult to make alterations once applied. Note to self: use more liquid lipsticks (it’s not as if I don’t have any…).
Catrice All Matt Plus powder & Liquid Metal eyeshadows
8. What product is good quality for money?
Again, not a product but an entire line. Despite the fact that it is getting more and more expensive as we speak, Catrice still offers great value for money. I’ve tried plenty of products from their range. From nail polish to face products, eyeshadows, to lipsticks and blush: Catrice has it all and nails it almost every time. Oh and they do some pretty cool limited editions too!
Urban Decay Naked Basics eyeshadow palette
MAC Impassioned lipstick
Maybelline Color Tattoo in Pink Gold
9. Three products you’ve been loving at the moment?
How about my entire stash? Nah just kidding. Apart from these three products, I find myself reaching for my Estee Lauder lipstick in Impulsive and Benefit’s Coralista box powder almost every day.
I tag everyone who would like to take this on!
What would your answers be?
