Are The Beauty Bay Products Any Good?

If you haven't shopped on Beauty Bay, where the hell have you been buying the majority of your makeup from? I feel like Beauy Bay has been a staple in many women's lives for the past few years and it is because they bring the best hard to find, cheaper brands to the UK market.

I find myself visiting two beauty websites above any others: Beauty Bay and Cult Beauty. However, I do visit them both for different reasons. If I am looking for cheaper brands, often from America, I will go to Beauty Bay. Whilst I will visit Cult Beauty when I am feeling a bit boujie and when I know I am looking to spend some coin. Cult Beauty is typically a little bit more luxury but there is one major difference, Beauty Bay now stocks its own makeup range as well as stocking tons of other brands. Cult Beauty have released makeup bags but not their own products, as of yet.

I remember when Beauty Bay began selling their own products, I didn't care at first but as the range grew so did my intrigue. Also one of my friends asked me if I had tried anything so when she said she wouldn't mind seeing a review I decided I would do one. I don't get many requests for blog posts so when I do, I make sure I do it.

The time came for me to give the brand a go when it was the first anniversary of the launch, Beauty Bay celebrated with 50% off their products. It seemed like the best time to add some products to my basket. I didn't really have anything in mind before I started adding things to my basket but I did try to pick up as many different products as I could so I could give an overall opinion on what Beauty Bay have created.

I ended up picking 4 items and the whole basket came to £21.28, which when you consider everything I purchased, I actually got quite a lot. I was really excited by some of the products I saw when I was browsing the collection. They had a bit of everything when it came to their shadows but they are quite limited in their other products. However, I very quickly built my basket.

I ended up getting one of their EYN 9-Pan shadows, a You x Beauty Bay palette, a Gelee Glow highlight and a Liquid Glitter Shadow. As I said I tried to get a mix of products. This sale happened about two months ago so I've had a bit of time to try these products and unfortunately you will not currently be able to buy them at the price I bought them for.

EYN: 9-Pan Eyeshadow Palette

Beauty Bay are sort of known for their large Morphe-esque palettes with 42 different shades but I've got to say these palettes simply do not appeal to me. I mean what am I going to do with all of those shades? I'm not all about creating crazy looks, all I wanted to do was test them out and see if the shadows were any good. In the end I went for a 9-Pan palette because I knew I would actually use it. Plus it was only £3.25 with the discount .

Beauty Bay have 3 different colour schemes within the 9 pans but the finishes vary. You can buy a palette with solely shimmer or matte shades, or you can get a mixture of both finishes. I went for the mix of both finishes but I do think this is a great idea as I know my mother only uses matte shadows and I can only assume it is the same for others. This allows you to pick a palette that you are actually going to use.

The main reason I was attracted to this palette was due to the shade range. This was the only shade range that I knew I would use every shade; I picked up the Fiery Palette. Everything else was slightly too cool toned or too bright whereas this had the warmth I like in a palette. The 9 shades have been well picked and create many cohesive looks. My one problem with the shade selection is that Chocolate Souffle is the darkest shade and it isn't super dark so it isn't necessarily the easiest to create a dark smoky eye with.

However, there are some beautiful red/orange shades. In a way it reminds me of a smaller, cheaper version of the Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette. It has a very similar warm, red tone to all of the shades, which I think makes this palette perfect for Autumn/Winter. I had the same thoughts about the Naked Heat Palette but because this has fewer shades it is slightly easier to use in my opinion. I cannot fault the shades, they are all very true to colour when you apply them but I take a bit of fault with the formula.

The formula is quite stiff, for all of the shadows it doesn't matter if it is matte or shimmer, they are all equally as stiff and therefore it makes it difficult to pick up product. However, they are quite pigmented so you do still get a good colour pay off. One issue is that you get a fair amount of fall out which becomes more of a problem with the darker shades.

Other than that, the formula of the matte shadows isn't too bad, instead it is the shimmers that I take issue with. The shimmers are stiff which is rather unusual but also I just don't think they are shimmery enough. These have a high pigmentation and not a lot of shine. In my opinion they are more of a satin finish. Slightly disappointing but at least the shades themselves are nice.

At £3.25 this was a really good palette to buy and even at £6.50 I think this is worth buying. It isn't amazing but I think they are better than the smaller Revolution Palettes which are even more expensive. I can't say I would rush to buy more but if I was trying to create a specific look cheaply then I would certainly look at these palettes. I have found myself reaching for this palette so it can't be that bad.

You x Beauty Bay Palette

Not only do Beauty Bay create the EYN palettes but they have also started to collab with influencers such as Saffron Baker and Jordan Lipscombe. All of these palettes have come in the same packaging and the You x Beauty Bay collection is the same. They contain 6 shadows, a highlight and a contour, essentially making it the perfect travel palette. 

The collection that I purchased from was inspired by Summer and you can certainly see that within the colours of this palette. There is a lot of warm brown tones and the bronzer is rather full on. Really I feel like I should have thought about this more because even online this palette looked too dark for me but I just think I wished it suited me. Plus I really wanted to try one of the 'You' palettes and this was my favourite. However, as you can probably tell by this set up, the shades were too dark for my pale complexion.

The eyeshadows and highlight are extremely glittery and seem to have the opposite problem of the 9-pan where the glitter comes across too strongly. This isn't too bad in the eye shadows but I do not like this trait within a highlight so I have avoided using it. There are 3 matte shadows and the bronzer is matte. The matte formula is better but it is powdery and you do get quite a bit of fall out, literally once again the opposite of the other palette. These shadows do make a bit of a mess so you do have to go careful when using them.

The shades were definitely what drew me to this palette but much like the 9-Pan, I do not think this goes dark enough. There needs to be a darker shadow so you can create a more defined smoky eye. I know darker shades are harder to formulate but they shouldn't be avoided, they are necessary for a palette and require work. Other than that all of the shadows work together to make a cohesive look and none of them go patchy which is a win. 

In comparison I have to say I prefer the 9-Pan palette. I liked the idea of this palette but I just do not think the formula works as well and it is more expensive. I paid £9 for this palette and normally it is  £12.50 and there is no way it is worth that. I was expecting good things but my expectation did not align with the quality of the product. The packaging is nice but that is the only real redeeming quality about this product.

Liquid Crystal Eyeshadow

The Liquid Crystal Eyeshadows did greatly intrigue me. I am a big fan of the Stila Glitter and Glow eyeshadows but they are ridiculously expensive, £24 for one shadow and it isn't something you wear everyday. I wanted to find out if the Beauty Bay version would be a worthy alternative. Realistically they do create very different shades and they are slightly different in terms of formula but I do think the Beauty Bay version is a good alternative, it is just the colour range that lets it down. 

The Stila glitters have some of the best shades like: Kitten Karma, Rose Gold Retro and Smoky Storm. Whereas there are two gorgeous neutral shades and quite a lot of bright colours in the Beauty Bay line up. I ended up buying Rutile as it was the only shade left and to be honest it was the only shade I would buy anyway. The only other shade I would have purchased was Precious Tropez which would have been quite brightening but I like the effect Rutile has.

Rutile is a cool toned bronze with silver glitter. However, alongside the glitter there is the colour pigmentation. The colour is bronze and that comes within the liquid part of the shadow. The colour is absolutely gorgeous and I love that in one of the shots on the website it was used as a liner and within the crease rather than on the eye lid. I've never really seen glitter used in this way before but I really liked it and I would like to replicate this look at some point. I feel like I could only do it with this shade as it is darkest, the lighter shades wouldn't give that same smoky effect.

Anyway moving on to the formula. When you first apply the liquid eyeshadow it looks incredibly metallic and the bronze shade really shines. However, as the liquid dries the bronze sort of sinks in so the glitter is incredibly prominent but the bronze pigment isn't. I found this slightly disappointing because it starts out beautiful and looks exactly how I want it to look. In the end, it sort of just looks like a glitter. This is fine because I did sign up for glitter but I do wish there was a bit more colour, like the Stila Glitter and Glow shadows.

I paid £5.40 for this liquid eyeshadow but these are normally £6 so there wasn't a massive discount. These aren't as good as the Stila ones but they are certainly a good alternative if you want a Stila one and can't afford, or can't justify the price of, the Stila one. The only thing is the shade range really lets down the Beauty Bay version.

Gelee Glow Highlight

The final item is the Gelee Glow Highlight which I was quite excited about because Jelly highlights are a bit of a trend at the moment. As always I was slow to pick up on the trend but I thought this would be a good time to dip into it seeing as the Beauty Bay ones were £3.25. 

They have 6 different shades and I went for Marshmallow Moonlight. Online it looked like a soft pale pink jelly but when it arrived it was not what I expected, in every sense. This is much more pink than I thought it was going to be, it is a cool toned iridescent pink with gold glitter which to be honest wasn't what I wanted. I wanted something a bit lighter but this is quite a strong pink. Not only that but the gold glitter is quite chunky and it does sit atop the skin so this does not give the finish I wanted. This is partially due to the shade and partially the formula.

I expected this to be a jelly consistency similar to the Rimmel Jelly Highlighters or the Inc.redible ones but this is thick. It resembles a thick mousee rather than a Gelee which was the biggest disappointment. As it is quite thick, it applies thick which makes it difficult to blend out. I have only used this on my cheeks and I do not like the way it looks. It might be better on my eyes but I'm not a fan of the shade so I probably wouldn't bother. I feel like if the formula was lighter, this would be better. 

I have to say I am so glad I only paid £3.25 for this because I am not blown away by it and I cannot say I would recommend it. In fact, I wouldn't.  The texture is not what it says it is and this makes it quite chunky. In addition, the highlight is quite light, as in it barely highlights at all. This is more likely to work if you like a subtle highlight but to be honest, I would give it a miss.

Would I Recommend the Beauty Bay Products?

Like all product ranges, you have some products which are really good and some duffs. The packaging for each of the products is nice but not extraordinary. I would say it is decent for the price point. For the price you can't expect miracles but it is good enough and if you are looking to build your makeup collection this is a good place to start, especially the EYN palettes.

I really like the EYN 9-Pan palette and the Liquid Crystal Eyeshadow and I would recommend trying them but I am not a fan of the You x Beauty Bay palette and you can certainly give the Gelee highlights a miss, they are awful. I do think it is worth trying some of their products but just make sure you are selective about which ones.