I am heading off on a summer holiday, and one of my pet peeves has been trying to squeeze in all my essentials into the constricted luggage allowance. This time round, I am carrying 9 eye-shadows, 2 blushes, 1 highlighter, 1 bronzer and 2 lip and cheek stains in my hand-bag. Quite a stash you say? Well here’s news for you, this entire list of goodies is stocked in The Balm Voyage Vol. II palette, and its actually as slim and compact as my passport!

The Packaging

How gorgeous is the retro-print packaging?! It comes in tune with the rest of The Balm Cosmetics packaging, and features vintage-style stamps highlighting different countries around the globe.

The palette is made of sturdy hardboard, and opens up into three folds. Loving the nautical mirror! The size of the mirror is also generously large and user-friendly despite being in such a compact palette.

 

The Contents

For the Eyes:

The palette comes with 9 exclusive triple-milled eye-shadows which can be used wet or dry. The colours are versatile enough to get peachy, shimmery or an absolutely smoked look.

 

For Contouring:

The palette has a peachy blush in the shade Huan Ying, and a deep rosy blush in the shade Dobrodosli. It also includes a bronzer and a shimmery champagne-hued highlighter (which looks very similar to The Balm’s cult favorite highlighter, Marylou Manizer).

 

For the Lips:

These creamy lip-stains can also be used on the cheeks. I like how different the two are from each other, giving scope for a wider range of looks.

 

I really like how the palette has 4 different tutorials printed right on the packaging, allowing users to have a play on the go! I’ll be posting some of my experimental looks here soon 🙂

 

The Positives

• The packaging is super cute, and will look great in your holiday stash!
• The packaging is also really light and compact, and can easily fit into your handbag. It really is as slim and compact as my passport!
• Given its compact size, this is a very comprehensive palette with almost everything you would need on holiday.
• The products included come in very usable shades that would flatter a wide range of complexions.
• The products tend to glide on easily, and last for a good number of hours.
• The lip and cheek tints in particular are beautifully pigmented.
• The palette has a very user-friendly mirror.
• The packaging has separate flaps for the powder and cream products, which protects them from getting mixed up.
• The palette can give you quite a number of very different makeup looks.
• The palette includes 4 makeup tutorials that are printed right on the packaging, so you can always get creative on the run!

 

The Negatives

• The eye-shadows are not very pigmented, and you might need to get into them with a wet brush to get more colour.
• The palette does not include brushes.
• Given the small, compact size of the products in the palette, I found getting my contouring brush into the highlighter and bronzer a little tricky.
• You’d still need to carry a foundation, eyeliner, mascara, etc but overall the palette is pretty comprehensive.
• The product shades have hard to pronounce names, but these go with the ‘travel’ theme as they are taken from all around the world.

 

Pricing & Availability

I bought The Balm Voyage Vol.II palette from Debenhams for AED 236.