Happy TUESDAY! It’s officially NOVEMBER so I have a ton of fun Thanksgiving and super-fall blog posts planned for you. Everything from my ultimate Black Friday/Cyber Monday ultimate shopping guide, my updated makeup reviews (I have a whole new way I’m reviewing products that you’ll see in this post!), fall-to-winter transitions and some much needed life updates coming your way! BUT. Today – we are going to be in-depth reviewing, swatching and showcasing the newest launch from one of my FAVORITE affordable and drugstore brands: BH Cosmetics. This is their new collection Royal Affair. It’s definitely a new favorite (considering it all came packaged in pink sequins – a really win) and the colors couldn’t be more perfect for fall either. I am going to be thoroughly breaking down each part of this collection AND talking ingredients (to let my biochem degree shine for a little bit) so you can make an educated choice on how to spend your money. Let’s dive into this.
BH Cosmetics “Royal Affair” Review: Glam Look, Swatches, Opinion
GLAM LOOK:
SWATCHES:
eyeshadow swatch
lipstick swatch
glitter swatch
highlight palette swatch
REVIEW:
10 Piece Metalized Brush Set – $25
TYPE OF BRUSHES: These are synthetic makeup brushes – which means they have manmade bristles. It doesn’t say on their website but I assume its from nylon as that is very common. Because they aren’t natural, they don’t have a cuticle. They are perfect for cream and liquid products (specifically foundation and concealer) because they don’t suck in the products. Natural bristles soak product in, which makes them great for powder but not as great for liquid. Another pro to synthetic bristles is that they pull towards each other which means they are really easy to use for precision application.
HOW THEY PERFORM: I really like BH Cosmetic brushes – so I definitely wasn’t disappointed in these. They are soft, hold product well and don’t hurt the blendability of the shadows. This particular set is an AWESOME one because it comes with so many different blending brush sizes. You have a large, medium and small which makes it PERFECT for detail work.
20 Color Royal Affair Eyeshadow Palette – $18
INGREDIENTS: The first ingredient in the eyeshadow is talc – which is a super common filler ingredient in eyeshadow. The third is mica, another very common filler ingredient. Neither is known to be a carcinogen – but can become an irritant if inhaled directly into your lungs. Talc is used typically used for matte shadows, where mica is used to shimmer / gradient finish shadows (which explains why both are listed here). The next ingredient is Ethylhexyl Palmitate which is also very common and doesn’t have many side effects BUT is a derivative of palm oil, so if you don’t like to use palm oil because if the deforestation of the rain forest, then this probably isn’t the product for you. Synthetic Fluorphlogopite is another top ingredient – which is more commonly known as synthetic mica. This doesn’t have any major side effects that we know of. Magnesium Stearate is the next ingredient, and is mainly a bulking ingredient. It has a very low toxicity level and is widely used in cosmetics and the food & drug administration (you may know it better as the greasy coating on vitamins). The only ingredient on the list that is mildly concerning to me is the use of Dimethicone. I don’t love this ingredient as something to be using in daily skincare simply because like petroleum products, Dimethicone can occasionally make dry skin worse over time so if you struggle with dry eyelids, this may not be a great product for you. Overall, this isn’t an ingredient list that shocks me in a drugstore eyeshadow palette. It’s a very typical ingredient list.
HOW IT PERFORMS: I really liked the colors in this palette. I used 2 mattes and 3 shimmers for this look and was SUPER impressed. Honestly – the way it performed on the eye was FAR beyond what the swatches showed. The swatches on the matte shadows were really poor and patchy – but they didn’t perform that way on the eye at all so I was pleasantly surprised. The shimmers swatched beautifully and looked amazing on the eye. They are creamy and metallic and applied well both with a brush AND with your finger.
INGREDIENTS: The first ingredient on our list is Trimethylsiloxysilicate – which is essentially an emollient and skin conditioning product. There aren’t any reports of major side effects and it isn’t toxic – which is good news. It essentially just guarantees that this liquid lip isn’t massively drying on your lips. Isododecane is a fragrance ingredient, which means one of two things: it’s either a perfume ingredient or a masking ingredient. Since the lip products do not have any scent that I can pick up, I’m going to assume it’s a masking ingredient to cover any bad smell that may have been trying to peek through. The rest of the ingredients aren’t super exciting – and they’re also very typical for drugstore liquid lips but surprisingly, they contain for products that are lip conditioning that other drugstore liquid lips I’ve found, and it holds true because they really aren’t very drying at all.
HOW THEY PERFORM: These are the typical formula for their liquid linen lips. They aren’t NEARLY as drying as other liquid lips and they are super pigmented. I used two coats of this shade on my lips in this look to even out my lip line, but you could definitely get away with one. I love the lighter shades for a good neutral pink and they last for hours, even through eating and drinking.
Royal Affair Glitter Set – $19.50
INGREDIENTS: These contain very basic glitter ingredients – and are ground extremely finely. Please use extreme caution to not get any INSIDE your eye as they can cause irritation and can scratch your cornea (like any glitter product). The ingredients used are mainly dyes and colors – like Ferric Ammonium Ferrocyanide, Red 34 Lake, and Yellow 5 Lake. Because it contains red 34 lake, there is a disclaimer stating that it is NOT intended to use near your eyes. This is a “use at your own risk” because red 34 lake IS known to stain or irritate the eye area and therefore cannot be sold as an eye product according to the FDA. I still do use red 34 lake near my eyes because I don’t have an allergy to it, though it doesn’t still sometimes stain my eye. So use at your own risk!
HOW THEY PERFORM: These are also the typical glitter formula that I have so many of. I think I have 20 BH Cosmetics loose glitters – and if you see me wearing loose glitter 99.9% of the time it’s going to be a BH Cosmetics loose glitter. These colors are STUNNING. I particularly love the gold glitter because it’s more of a champagne color and it’s ULTRA sparkly. 10/10.
INGREDIENTS: The ingredients here are almost identical to the eyeshadow palette – aside from the fact that it doesn’t contain any talc. This is because they are all shimmer products and talc is used for matte products. It’s very common – and a nearly identical ingredient list to the Sephora brand highlighter palette sold at Sephora. All in all, nothing really strange or out of place here. It also doesn’t contain any known allergens or irritants.
HOW THEY PERFORM: I really liked this highlight set – it just isn’t super practical for all skin tones. It’s totally beautiful and shimmery – there is really great color pay off and it’s VERY metallic. The two light colors are really nice on my pale skin, but I would really have to just use the other colors as eyeshadow because they give too much of a dark reflection on my cheek bones. If you were just a bit darker in skin tone than me, this would probably work perfectly for you.
PIN THIS FOR LATER:
I hope you guys found this new way of doing reviews really informative and helpful when it comes to deciding what to try and buy. I know choosing makeup can be a daunting process – but hopefully this lays it out in a way that is easy to digest and really breaks down those complicated chemical ingredients in a way that makes sense to you. I always find swatches to be SUPREMELY helpful in decided whether or not to purchase a product myself.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and whether or not you would buy this collection!
