Monday, December 5, 2011

theBalm; Balmbini Vol. 2

Swatches and Review
Balmbini Volume 2 Eye Shadows

Jinxy Jasmyne, Promiscuous Pearl, Manic Maribel, Open to Offers Olwen & Lavish Latoya


Comparison: Balmbini Vol 2 on top row, theBalm's Cast your Shadow bottom row
Promiscuous Pearl/HIII-YAAA!, Manic Maribel/Meep Meep, Open to Offers Olwen/Sensational & Lavish Latoya/Kissy Kissy.
Can you see the similarities?

Oh & my Open to Offers Olwen's pan is overfilled. I guess it's good that there's "more product" (by a few grams) BUT, I get really irritated when my palette was not filled at just the right amount because it kind of damaged the top of the packaging & had it mushed with blue over it :(


This is theBalm's Balmbini Volume 2. This palette contains five eye shadows, & four of them can double as an eyeliner, while the other eye shadow is also a highlight, as well as one lip/cheek creme & one lip gloss.

Here are the reviews from the Balmbini Vol. 2:
Promiscuous Pearl: This is an eye shadow that is also a highlighting shade. I found this shade to be chalky and stiff because my brushes and applicators was not picking up a lot of this product. It is sheer, so for my swatches, I swiped it on with my applicator three times. This is similar to the Mary-Lou Manizer and the HIII-YAAA! from their Muppets Cast your Shadow palette which I prefer them both over Promiscuous Pearl.

Jinxy Jasmyne: Okay, so I bought this palette just because I was excited about this shade, and although this shade IS very pigmented, there is a lot of fall out that comes with it. This is a really matte black, but it is so soft that my tapping my brush into it lightly kind of dug a small hole into it! When I first opened this, there was already a tiny hole and I didn't mind since most of the time when I buy some eye shadows, there are small holes in it & it covers up with a swipe of a brush, but the brush basically well.. made the hole bigger. :( I love the outcome of this shade, it is buttery and pigmented, but it is not worth the mess this comes with. I tried almost everything to prevent the fallout, but it still did not work. If you are interested in a deep black and can deal with the fallout issues from the buttery softness of it, I think this is worth it.

Manic Maribel: This is a copper color. It is super pigmented & nice. However, this color is easily dupe-able and very similar to Meep Meep from the Muppets Cast your Shadows palette.

Open to offers Olwen: This is a shade that was also in Shady Lady Vol. 3. It is a gorgeous blue shade, but it is comparable Sensational from the Cast your Shadow palette. However, Open to offers Olwen is a tad lighter than Sensational. If you don't already own a color like this or similar to this, this is a good color to have in your makeup stash as well :)

Lavish Latoya: This is a purple with a silvery sheen to it. It is comparable to Kissy Kissy from the Muppets Cast your Shadows palette.

Overall, I think this is a good palette for those who do not own too much of theBalm products because all the colors are easily dupe-able within theBalm, and even some shades you may probably find similar to in other brands such as Urban Decay and Too Faced. This palette costs $28 and you can get it from theBalm's website. It is a good deal for the amount of product that you get, but it's not worth it if you already have colors very similar to this. Also, when you compare my pictures from Balmbini Vol 1 and this one, I would choose Balmbini Vol 1 over this because Vol 1 actually focuses more on this palette as a face palette, than a eye shadow palette. I was excited about this palette when I first heard about it, but when I learned that it does not include powder blushes, it was a huge let down. With that said, I don't think I will be keeping this palette because the colors are really similar to their Muppets palette and the only color I was actually looking forward to was a pain to deal with especially when it stained my arms & eyes for a whole day! :(

* all of these eye-shadows were swatched over Urban Decay's primer potion.
The pictures are mine.

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