Bareminerals The soft and the smoky palette *review and swatches*

I was rummaging around TK max the other day, as I do most days for an after work treat and I came across this little beauty from Bareminerals, its called the soft and the smokey and its beautiful packaging is what brought my eye to it at first before I even realised what it was. 

Even the outer packaging was amazing, bar the tear in the corner that I did that taking the price sticker off. This palette wasn't low cost, it was £19.99 for the 8 shades but I have heard people rave about BareMinerals shadows and given it was originally £29.99 or so the tag from TK max said I thought it was worth a go. It is definitely one of the most expensive eyeshadow palettes I own as I normally favour the under £10 drugstore/highstreet equivalents but I had to try one... I did end up buying another palette the day but I'll review that later.

 The packaging of the outer case is very similar to the box, a very beautiful detailed box that is small and is very transportable, which I love as I don't really have any small palettes with most of them being at least 12 colours so that was a plus for me. It also seems a really sturdy box as if it would look after the shadows and stop them breaking while I have them out about about with me. 

Top row left to right - Celebrate, In the buff, Heavnly halo, midnight luminance
Bottom row left to right - A-Ha, true chocolate, Eureka, Mysterious sky

The colours inside are described as earthy tones which I would totally agree with, the colours are very wearable, although the dark colour (mysterious sky) is very pigmented and so slightly hard to wear on my very pale skin, as some looks will demonstrate later on. There is a lighter side will be worn a lot more than the green side but it will be lovely in the autumn time when that comes back round again. 

I'm going to look at the quad on the left hand side of the palette first so the lighter shades.

Top to bottom is true chocolate, A-Ha, In the buff and finally celebrate. 

True chocolate is a matt brown shade that I must is much darker on the skin than it appears to be in the pan. 

A-Ha is a much more shimmery shade that is like a peach bronze colour, the pigmentation is amazing and it's super smooth and easy to blend. 

In the buff is one of my favourite colours in the palette with a peach colour but with more orange in than A-Ha, it comes across very shimmery but again blended without an issue. 

Celebrate is a light beige, ivory-ish colour that is more of a satin finish than the others, I found this works amazingly well as an inner eye highlight and brow highlight of most looks I tried. 

Top to bottom is Mysterious sky, Eureka, Midnight Luminance and then heavenly halo.

Mysterious sky is dark grey with a satin finish and will mostly, with me at least, be used for further smoking out the corner of my eye as its far too dark to wear in my crease on any day but halloween. 

Eureka is a stunning shadow, with amazing pigmentation and smooth texture it is one of the best, if not the best colour (at least in terms of quality) in the palette, its just upsetting its not more of a wearable colour. Its described as being olive green with gold shimmer, but it seems to have a very metallic finish to it. 

Midnight Luminance is a dark brown with a slight shimmer to it, pigmentation is again great and its really easy shadow to blend and use. 

Heavenly halo hardly even shows up on my skin, proving how very pale I am, but its a got a shimmery finish to it and similarly to celebrate will mainly be used to highlight my brow bone and inner eye. 

Now inside the packaging which I haven't taken photos of (sorry) is a diagram of three looks of how to use the shadows so I tried all three out, one after another, now as I have previously said I am not a makeup artist and am in no way trained so these aren't great work but it will give you an idea of the shadows on the eye and what you can do with them. Also apologises for the terrible lighting but its winter in Britain so whenever I take photos its dark outside and the internal lighting of this house is shockingly bad.

This look uses A-Ha all over the lid, true chocolate blended into the crease, Eureka as a liner and celebrate as a brow and inner eye highlight. This look is very much every day and I could see myself wearing this to university and work and such. 

This look uses again A-Ha all over the lid with true chocolate in the crease, it uses Celebrate as a brow highlight and Heavenly halo as an inner eye highlight. this look is very similar to the other one and again I will use for university and the likes, its just a everyday look I think. 

This is the final look and is a lot more intense than the other two, this one takes Eureka as an all over lid colour, Midnight luminance at the crease, mysterious sky as somewhat of a liner and at the outer eye to add smokiness, and then heavenly halo as the inner eye highlight and a brow highlight. 

This palette is chance to become one of my most used, the colours on the lighter side are exactly the shades I love for an everyday look. The darker shades are lovely colours and will definitely be used at halloween and maybe on nights out. The size of the palette will also make it one of my most used as it means I can carry it around and clean up my look through the night/day. The price I don't think is too high if you would use the colours but if this is just one that you would pull out on a rainy day then maybe this isn't the one for you, as if your anything like myself this is on the pricer side of things.