I was so excited when David from Fashion Addict sent these new BYS palettes for me to perfect my smokey eye! They are beautiful and Denim in Distress is out of my comfort zone with all those blue shades whereas Glam Rock just fed my purple addiction. So what did I really think about them?
You might remember when I talked about the BYS Metallics in brown palette as well as the Diamond Shadow palette, maybe even the Animal Instincts palette - to summarize? I loved them all. They were creamy, pigmented, lasted for ages and great for daily wear.
Denim in Distress
Never in my life would I have thought I would own a palette full of blues. I personally think that the color is tacky on anyone and don't care much for it. So I chose it because of that reason! To find a way around the tackiness that I believe it comes with and to go beyond what I'm comfortable with.
I love the selection of blues in this, none of them are that vibrant blue that I dislike with a passion but instead are workable, subtle and deep colors instead. My favorite is that final blue shade on the top above the matte black which has a gorgeous blue twinkle to it, this color works wonderfully as a liner color.
Swatched dry and without a primer, I was impressed with how these colors translated on skin. Every color I swatched had me praising its pigmentation! They are all noticeably different and I actually got excited about using them in a smokey eye look. The best part about the palette is the first shade on the top which is a nice shimmery neutral color that can be used as a highlight or in the inner corners of the eye to brighten up any look. This palette shows how thoughtful and more complex BYS has become with their newer collection.
Glam Rock
When I first saw this I fell in love with all the purples and knew I had to have this. Plus, I haven't seen very many purple smokey eyes that are dark and edgy, I've always seen lighter versions. Hence why this palette is perfect - it is full of gorgeous, rich shades of purple.
The color that impressed me the most from this was the last shade on the top, a lovely gray-ish purple with green-golden glitter specks. Even the first soft lilac shade is lovely, I really don't think I can choose which purple is the best from all - they all are beautiful in their own way, I seriously love them all!
I fell from cloud nine pretty quickly upon swatching these though, they really came off as faded and almost as though if you blew at the swatches they would blow away. The swatch above is pretty much my finger dab and an applicator dab as I really didn't think much of the initial swatch I made. So make no mistake, that swatch above is really not what I had initially but I built it up so you could actually see the colors...although seeing the differences in them is a bit of a chore.
Disappointingly, although the colors on the bottom are identical to the Denim in Distress colors they seemed a lot less pigmented. As for the purples, well that first lilac shade was barely noticeable when I first swatched it. It makes me wonder whether I have one of those bad batch palettes? I think Glam Rock has the potential to be a popular palette but if this is the quality of all palettes I think it would be a waste of money. So hopefully it is just my palette that's faulty.
That said, when I did use a brush to do a test look I found that it worked better with the colors (and if you use a primer too) so perhaps they are just a little hardened and need to be stirred up.
Unfortunately you cannot see it in my photo (because I still have yet to perfect swatch photos) but that last shade when built up is truly amazing and does have those lovely green-golden glitter specks showing through. All in all the colors are lovely and I look forward to working with them more.
I love these palettes because...
- They are affordable
- The pigmentation is remarkable for such a cheap product
- The complexity of colors has really improved with this collection
- The simple casing which works well when traveling
I didn't really love these palettes because...
- Glam Rock didn't have the pigmentation Denim in Distress had but maybe it is just my palette
- They are a bit chunkier than the usual 8 shadow BYS palettes
- Some shades seem very identical, especially the grays - blacks in both palettes (VERY subtle difference)
