Barry M Illuminating Highlighting Palette - Worth Picking Up? Drugstore, Affordable, Cruelty Free, Under £10

Ever just nipped into Boots or Superdrug for one thing, like baby wipes or toothpaste, stuck your finger in a sample on a product display out of sheer curiosity and then felt like you needed that product in your life?.... 

Recently, on a trip to Superdrug for some face wash, I did the above.

Barry M and I have a complicated history. Some of their products I love, some I hate, some I start loving and end hating. Dazzle Dust, Love, Concealer, hate. Primers (tried two or three of them), hate. Eyeliners, love. You get the idea... 

About a year ago, I decided to try their Natural Palette. Its a blusher and eyeshadow palette in some very natural shades. I thought I would like it, but I didn't. The product weas really stiff and hard to blend, and I found the colour payoff really poor (for both blush and eyeshadow). As it was around the same price as the To Be Cool in Copenhagen palette from Gosh I bought at the same time, and totally loved, I was more than a little disappointed and swore off Barry M powder products.

Barry M Natural Palette (image from Superdrug.com)

Fast forward to the face wash trip a few weeks ago, when I broke the just mentioned rule and got suckered in by one of those stand alone displays and some cute packaging. It has rockets on it.. nuff said??

So the thing that really attracted me to this palette was how soft and velvety the highlighters felt when I stuck my grubby paws in them. I mean, they are a pressed product so there's only so soft they can be, but they're definitely not smooshed into the pan with a huge amount of force. Also as a very pale girl, all three shades looked light enough for my peely-wally complexion.

LtR: Frosty Cream, Iced Pink and Gilded Bronze

The packaging is cute but it is cheap. It's card that looks like its been coated in thick black paper but not adhered together properly,  and you can see there is air between them in places. It has a magnetic closure but it's not really strong. The mirror is nice though and the design on the front is cute, however I've only had this a couple of weeks and bronze coating on the design has already started to wear off.

Across the second H and the T in highlighter the bronze coating is wearing off

So the palette costs £6.49 and you get three pans that each contains 4 grams. That's a cost per gram of £0.54, so very very cheap. The ingredients, like the packaging, aren't the highest quality with the main one being talc so definitely avoid it at all costs if you are sensitive to that.

So onto swatches, left to right we have Frosty Cream, Iced Pink and Gilded Bronze. Frosty Cream is a very pale yellow gold, Iced Pink is (as the name suggest) a very icy pink, and Gilded Bronze is a light bright coppery colour, but is definitely not bronze.  What I will say is these colours are all designed for very fair, peely-wally folk like me. I would say if your even a teeny bit tan these may be to frosty on you.

Some more intense finger swatches.

As I've already said these powders are very, very soft and as a result are a kick up quite a lot of product when you stick your brush (or fingers) into them. They apply really nicely to the skin, far nicer than expected and really aren't sparkly, which was always my biggest gripe about cheap highlighters. Is it weird to describe something as a work highlighter, because that's what these are to me.

I don't know how well these blended out swatches will show up.

So in summary...

Positive Points

Amazing value

Cruelty free

Good colour range

Not sparkly

Negative Points

Cheap packaging

Only works on fair skin

 Kicks up a lot of powder when using.

Would I recommend it? Maybe, but only to my really pale friends. 

Any Barry M products I really need to try? Let me know

xoxo Scruffy