By Beauty Bay has just released the new Desert Haze Palette, a vegan and cruelty-free eyeshadow palette inspired by glowing horizons and sun-soaked sands.
By Beauty Bay is known for its affordable yet high-quality eyeshadow formulas. The brand is particularly renowned for its dazzling, richly pigmented shimmers. I’ve previously tried the By Beauty Bay Bright Matte 42 Colour Palette and Jade Thirlwall x BEAUTY BAY 42 Colour Palette and was impressed with the quality of the shadows.
After seeing the beautiful shades in the By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette and at an irresistible price of £16, I had buy it.
In this review, I share my honest thoughts on the new By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette, along with swatches, a makeup look, and whether it’s worth checking out.
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About the By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette
The By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette costs £16 for 20 shades.
It contains a mix of warm, neutral, and cool shades, with a diverse range of wearable and vivid colours. This palette features 10 shimmers and 10 matte eyeshadows, each with varying textures and intensities.
From an icy white shimmer, copper and green duochrome, and neutral plum matte, to a matte butter yellow, matte khaki, and fun coral shimmer, each shade promises to be pigmented, blendable, buildable, and long-lasting.
By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette swatches
Swatches should never be used as your ultimate decision as to whether to purchase a product or not, as eyeshadows can perform better on the lids, and makeup is very much down to the individual’s preference. However, swatches can help you see how pigmented a particular product is and what the formula is like.
To give you an indication of the colours, pigmentation, and textures, I swatched the 20 By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette shades on my bare arm, without primer, below:
How pretty are the shades? While this palette is largely dominated by yellow, orange, and gold tones, there are also pops of blues, greens, browns, neutrals, and purples. The shimmers swatched particularly well. They’re so vivid and sparkly. Some of the matte shades felt chalky but still had good pigmentation.
By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette makeup look
No makeup review would be complete without a makeup look!
I was particularly drawn to the gorgeous butter yellow matte shade called Yucca, so I knew I had to incorporate this trending colour into my look. The deep aubergine matte Scorpion and khaki matte Agave colours also jumped out at me. Plus, the champagne shimmer Hazy looked great for brightening my inner corners. I used the shade Fennec, a neutral brown matte, to blend the edges of the eyeshadow for a softer look.
Here’s my By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette makeup look using these shades.
I like how this makeup look turned out. While I love all 5 shades, I sort of regret using the khaki shade on the outer corner and crease. I think this makeup look would be nicer without it.
Below, I’m going to share my honest review of the By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette, including how pigmented, buildable, long-wearing, and easy the shadows were to work with.
Honest By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette review
The By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette is a nice palette and inspires me to get creative with eyeshadow looks, but there are some inconsistencies with the formula and quality of the shades.
Firstly, the packaging is good but nothing special. But the fact that it’s lightweight and comes with a handy big mirror inside the palette makes it ideal for travelling with.
The eyeshadow pans are big and clearly labelled, which makes working with the shadows straightforward.
The main reason I love this eyeshadow palette is the colour story. I think this palette has the perfect balance of fun, colourful shades and wearable neutrals and browns. While this palette is more warm-leaning, there are some cool and neutral tones, so it’s pretty versatile. Plus, both the mattes and shimmers vary in depth, intensity, tones, and colourfulness, so it’s a palette you can get creative with.
As for the quality of the eyeshadows, the formula varies depending on the shade. When I swatched the shimmers, they’re all buttery, have excellent colour payoff, and deliver gorgeous sparkle. Even for the shimmers that are designed to be more wearable, they capture the light beautifully. The shifting green-copper duochrome called Mirage looks particularly insane, so I can’t wait to play around with that.
However, the mattes vary in quality. Some of the eyeshadows felt smooth and soft, notably Sirocco, Fennec, and Canyon. But some of the eyeshadows felt chalky and swatched patchily, particularly Yucca and Prickly Pear.
Overall, the pigmentation throughout the eyeshadow is great. Some shades, like Sirocco, Yucca, Agave, and Scorched, take a bit of layering to get good colour payoff, but it’s still easy to get your desired intensity with the eyeshadows. Other shades, like Oasis, Heat, Desert Rose, Scorpion, Mirage, and Afterglow, are insanely pigmented.
I found working with the shades pretty easy. They’re buildable, and the intensity of some of the softer shades can be built up in layers with little effort.
Blending Agave was a little tricky. It blended a bit patchily. Once you’ve put the shade on your eyes, it’s quite hard to manipulate the eyeshadow to move it where you want to, so apply with caution. Yucca was better to work with than I expected. It feels a bit chalky, but it doesn’t feel dry or look chalky once applied. I also got more intense colour payoff than I expected for such a soft tone.
Scorpion and Hazy were vivid, effortless to work with, and layered seamlessly.
As for the longevity, Yucca unfortunately faded and creased. After 8 hours, the majority of the colour had worn off and faded. Agave also wore off quite a bit. Hazy and Scorpion stayed put brilliantly and maintained their intensity throughout the entire day.
Overall, I like this eyeshadow palette. Some of the shades require a bit more effort to blend and build, and not all of the shades are long-wearing, but I still think this is excellent value for money.
Rating: 4 stars
If you also love this colour story, the By Beauty Bay Desert Haze Palette is worth checking out. However, it doesn’t perform as well as some of the pricier palettes in my eyeshadow collection. I also don’t think the quality of the shades lives up to the Jade Thirlwall x BEAUTY BAY 42 Colour Palette.
Overall, I’m happy with this eyeshadow palette. I can’t wait to try the beautiful royal blue shade, Oasis, and rich rose gold shade, Desert Rose.
Sarah Sarsby is the owner of Honest Reviews Woman. With over 7 years' experience of writing in the fields of beauty and lifestyle, Sarah is passionate about all things content, makeup, skincare, wellness, and lifestyle. She has combination skin, is obsessed with lip gloss, and loves cookie dough.