The Balm In The Balm of Your Hand Greatest Hits Palette

Here we have the strongest contender for my palette of the year winner – the Balm’s In The Balm of Your Hand Greatest Hits, which is the most glorious collection of some of the brand’s best-sellers.  In The Balm of Your Hand (ITBOYH) contains 4 eyeshadows, 3 blushers, 1 bronzer, 1 highlighter, 1 red lip colour and 1 lip and cheek cream in a nude shade.

The reason I think I love this palette so much is because it feels like each product is an individual rather than just part of the palette.  That might sound strange, but it’s just such a wonderful edit of colours and finishes, with a few multi-use inclusions that make this the sort of thing that I would run out and buy as soon as I heard of it.

Before the gushing begins, let’s look at what’s included.  First up is the top row, from left to right in the palette and top to bottom in the swatch, which features Hot Mama – a shimmery peach shade that lifts skin and can be used as either a blusher or eyeshadow; Instain Blush in Argyle – a pretty, mid-tone pink; CabanaBoy – a deeper, berry shade that can work as both a blusher or a shadow and finally Bahama Mama – a matte bronzer.

The next row down contains the four eyeshadows and highlighter, from left to right in the palette and top to bottom in the swatch (I’ve included with and without flash so you can see the shimmer content) we have two ShadyLady Eyeshadows – Insane Jane which is a stunning, silvery taupe and Mischievous Marissa – a bright copper; Nude’Tude eyeshadow in Sexy – a muddy, matte cranberry; a Balm Jovi eyeshadow in Lead Zeppelin – a deep khaki shot through with golden shimmer, and lastly the highlighter, which is the cult Mary-Lou Manizer.

The final products can be used on the lips; firstly the mid-toned nude shade is from the How Bout Them Apples palette, and the The Balm Girls Lip Cream shade of Mia Moore is a startlingly pigmented red – I was not expecting it to provide such intense colour payoff, as you can see in the swatch!

I love everything about the palette; not only are the included shades strong and wearable – there’s not a filler shade in sight – the attention to detail is spot-on, with the cream colours on the right having their own separate lid, presumably so you can keep it closed when playing with the powder so you don’t end up with overspill.  I really do love every single shade, but if I was pushed to pick favourites, I’d have to go for the beautiful, everyday taupe of Insane Jane, the most perfect khaki Lead Zeppelin and the everyday flatterer in the Argyle Instain.  In the above picture I’m wearing Insane Jane all the way around the lids, Sexy on the outer corners and Mary-Lou Manizer as a highlight on the centres and inner corners, with Argyle on the cheeks and the nude cream on the lips.  This is one palette I will use again and again, but annoyingly it’s limited edition, so if it strikes your fancy then snap it up ASAP! It was supposed to launch a few days ago so I’m not really sure why it isn’t on the Debenhams site, but I’ll update as soon as it’s available, and it’ll be £34.

*PR Sample