bareMinerals The Regal wardrobe palette

Finally! After owning this for much more than a year, I got around to trying it and now evaluating it.

Although this particular palette is no longer available, I hope my review of the products will help get a sense of bareMinerals pressed products in general.

The cover looks very regal with the foil gold lettering.
I’m many familiar with bareMinerals from their loose makeup, especially the mineral foundation. However, I’ve heard that their pressed products are terrific quality so I put this item on my Christmas wish list for 2015 and received it as a gift.

The palette is made of a durable cardboard that’s fairly compact (13 x 8 x 1.7cm / 5¼ x 3½ x ¾”) when closed, although the cardboard does add some bulk. It folds up like a folder:

It reads “Prepare to enchant…”
There’s a good sized mirror which makes it optimal for travel.

A nit: why aren’t the eye shadows in the first portion of the palette when it’s unfolded rather than the second portion? I do my eye makeup first and then blush / bronzer / highlight – I need to access the eye shadow first!

The palette includes 8 eye sahdows, 2 blushes, 1 highlighter and 1 bronzer.

Each individual eye shadow is 1.3g / 0.04oz of product, which is slightly less than the common of a full size single refill pan (ie MAC, mug etc).

The eye shadows contained are in their “Ready Eyeshadow” formula (ie. pressed eye shadows), and the official colour descriptions are as follows (I added the finish in brackets):
• natural – light buttery peach (matte)
• Cognac – gilded bronze (metallic)
• Namaste – sandy brown (matte)
• Treasure hunt – shimmering taupe (shimmer)
• 500 thread count – airy pink (matte)
• Romp – iridescent lilac (metallic)
• Flash – matte purple clay (matte)
• Regal – velvet plum (shimmer)

Another nit: I feel it’s a bit redundant to have both numbers and names for each of the shades?
The 8 eye shadows are evenly divided into 4 mattes and 4 shimmers, with the top row being warmer-toned and bottom row much more cool-toned.  Out of the 8 shades, 4 are limited edition; these shades can be found elsewhere: 500 thread count and Romp (both were part of The dream Sequence quad), Cognac (part of The top shelf duo), and Namaste (part of The Enlightenment duo).

“Natural” disappears on my skin.
I’ve been using this palette because January (on and off, not daily – are you nuts? ) – these eye shadows are outstanding! They’re smooth, pigmented and last extremely well through a full work day and then some (I estimate around 12 hours!) without fading or creasing.

The colours coordinate well with each other – I usually use the top row and bottom row separately to do different eye looks.  The only small issue I experienced was that some shades are slightly much more challenging to blend, especially the deeper matte shades like Namaste and Flash.

My preferred shades from the palette!
It ought to come as no surprise that the taupes were my favourites – Cognac and Romp are amazing! For me, the 2 light matte colours are repetitive – I would have loved to have seen a matte transition colour instead.  After playing around with the palette, I realized that I can use the included bronzer as my transitional shade.

Which brings me to the face products, included are:
• ready blush in The summer Fling – creamy peach (matte) (2g / 0.07oz)
• ready Bronzer in The skinny Dip – light tan (matte) (3g / 0.1oz)
• ready Luminizer in The fantastic Sunset (shimmer) (2.8g / 0.09oz)
• ready blush in The love Letter – warm mauve (matte) (2g / 0.07oz)

The skinny Dip is a permanent product that’s available as a compact, which retails for C$32 for 8.5g. The other face products are limited edition. For me, the blushes are a bit disappointing – I would consider myself somewhat of a blush connoisseur and these blushes are quite powdery and they don’t last well on the skin.

The bronzer is good for an all over warmth but I mostly use it as a transitional eye colour. The highlighter is terrific and subtle enough to wear on the daily basis. As an added bonus, the highlighter can be used as a brow bone / inner corner highlight because both of the included eye shadow highlight shades are matte.

Interestingly, the blushes and highlighter are made in Canada and the rest of the products are made in the USA (yay NAFTA!).  This palette retailed for C$56 / $39 USD bareMinerals claim this has a value of $126 USD.

Besides this palette, I do also own the bareMinerals duo in The phenomenon – which was a Black Friday set from 2014. I thought I’d throw in a quick comparison to see how the quality of the holiday palette compares to a regular duo:

The eye shadow pan sizes are the same:

The phenomenon contains:
• Azure Isis – prismatic lavender (shimmer)
• golden Iris – illuminating amber (shimmer)

I’d say the quality are pretty comparable – they are pigmented, blend well and last a long time on the lids.  These 2 shades are much more of companion / accent colours – I’m not able to do a complete eye look with just these 2 colours. They remind me a bit of how Nars duos are – the odd pairing of colours.

But, good job bareMinerals on keeping the quality of your seasonal limited edition product quality on par with your regular products. and not made in China.  

Here’s how I rate the bareMinerals The Regal wardrobe Palette:

Pros:
• Eye shadows are pigmented, smooth, blendable formula
• Highlighter and bronzer are good
• Can create complete eye / cheek look
• Compact palette size
• good value
• Made in Canada / US

Cons:
• Inconsistency between finishes
• Blushes not as good as eye shadows
• Packaging a little cumbersome

Stash worthiness: 8/10 (eye shadows are 9/10 but the face products brought down the overall rating)

I do like this palette as a travel option – it’s good to have eye and face products all together. I actually don’t think I own a palette that contains eye shadows, blushes, bronzer and highlighter in one (I do have the Carli Bybel palette which includes eye shadows but highlighters only – and the palette is too large to travel in my opinion). What about you? Do you have a go-to all-inclusive palette?  Have you tried bareMinerals’ pressed makeup?

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