Palette Profile: The Balm's Balm Voyage!

The Stats

Name: Balm Voyage!

Brand: The Balm

Contents: 16 shadows + 3 lip and cheek creams

First off, let's say right off the bat that this palette gets 10/10 for its packaging. It's so retro and gorgeous, as with all products from The Balm, the way the product looks is flawless and is a massive draw for the palette. 

A neat feature of the packaging is that on the inside of the palette, it includes four "tickets" that have suggestions for colours to wear together and they're named after countries. This includes 'Smokey in Shanghai' featuring warm browns and black, 'Mauve in Montreal' with purples and pinks, 'Clubbing in Côte d'Azur' fresh greens and classy browns and 'Sun-kissed In Sydney' with blues and sandy yellows.

So, onto the actual contents of the palette. One thing that I'm not a huge fan of, is the names of the colours. They're named as though they're seats on a plane, and while I think it's cute and follows the theme of the palette nicely, I prefer when colours have names that better describe them. 

Left to right: A4, B4, C4, D4

Left to right: A3, B3, C3, D3

Left to right: A2, B2, C2, D2

Left to right: A1, B1, C1, D1

The shadows swatched more beautifully and pigmented than any palette I've ever tried before. In saying this, some of the colours show up on the eyelid far less true to pan. I feel this particularly about the colour A1 which I adore in the pan, and even as a swatch, but as soon as I put it on my eyelid it disappears, even with a primer. Perhaps I'll have more luck with a white eyeshadow base. Despite this, most of the other colours do come up very nicely on the eyelid, it's just the lighter shades to be weary of. 

What I love about this palette, is that it steers away from the plain, old neutrals, but is still very wearable, and does include some of our safe, brown favourites, like the shades B3, C3, and D3. There is a variety of shimmer shades and more matte shades, although I think even the matte-look ones include some shimmer, however slight. 

My picks for the best shades of this palette? I'd have to say my top three are A1, such a pretty pink champagne colour, A2, this purple is completely hypnotising and ever so slightly duo chrome, so pretty, and D3 a very wearable but still glamorous golden brown, it appeals to my neutral side. I'm a sucker for shimmer shades and as such these three are quite glittery.

The lip/cheek creams are interesting, because they remind me of the crappy toy palettes I had as a kid, that you would dig your finger into the part with the lipgloss. It's a sort of novel feature to me, as I didn't consider it something that would continue on once I started using "grown up" make up. The colours are very pretty, from left to right: Second Officer, First Officer, Captain. The three are reasonably different, and it's apparent that The Balm are trying to appeal to a variety of skin tones which I think is a really great thing.The colours can be built up from quite sheer to relatively opaque, and they're all pretty wearable depending on what opacity you go for. They're completely light weight on the lips, which is lovely (I hate heavy lip products). On the negative side, they aren't hugely long lasting, which is a pretty big problem considering that very few people would want to carry the whole palette around with them, just to re-apply their lip gloss. Second, is that you either have to use your finger, or a lip brush to apply, both of which I find inconvenient to be perfectly honest. 

All in all, I really like this palette. It's not one I'd use every day, but the shadows are buttery, in nice colours, and what more could you really want from a palette? It ticks all the right boxes and at $42.50 it's pretty good value for money. Do you need it? Maybe not, but I'm glad I own it and it's one I definitely reach for when I'm going for something a bit beyond my usual neutral eye.

Talk soon

xx