Pretty, but not that practical.

(Oh, my. That is quite an attractive screenshot for the video.)

The Bella In Bloom set by Bella Il Fiore is an easily portable makeup kit in an attractive palette. It comes in three different color combinations, I chose the Belle Jardin (Beautiful Garden) to review.


Size comparison with the smaller Bella in Bloom eye shadow palette.

I think that the design of the palette may be my favorite feature. It's pretty and pink and looks a little fancy. The palette measures 5.5" by 6.5", and is about 1/2" thick, making it easy to toss in your purse for touch-ups on the go. Although I'm a big fan of keeping spare makeup in the car for those situations where you left the house looking crappy and suddenly have to go somewhere important, I wouldn't really recommend this for that purpose since it contains lip glosses, which could melt all over the place if left in a hot car.

I'm going to give you a quick breakdown of what's included, and then I'll go into more detail down below.



This set includes a double ended sponge tip applicator and what I am guessing is supposed to be a lip brush. While sponge tip applicators will do in a pinch, you're generally going to get much better results using a nice quality makeup brush, or even your fingers to apply the shadow. The lip brush was super stiff and not great quality, so I won't be using it. (You don't really need a brush with this style of gloss, anyway.)

There are 4 colors of eye shadow in this set: white, brown, pink and taupe. I'm not really a fan of how they are all placed side by side without separators, it makes it too easy to smudge the colors onto each other.

At the bottom of the palette, you have two blush colors: a pale pink and a vivid pink. Along the right side of the palette, you'll find three lip glosses. The lid of the palette is magnetized, and will stay closed even with some pretty rough shaking. It has a built in 2.5" x 4.5" mirror, which is nice.

I pulled up Bella Il Fiore's website for more info on this palette, but it's oddly not listed among their available cosmetics. I can't tell if that means it's been discontinued or that it's new and just isn't up yet. Their website was actually kind of unhelpful in general- I was looking for info on if their products are tested on animals, vegan, etc, but their "about" section is pretty lacking. I sent them a message via Facebook to ask if any of their products are vegan, but it's been over a week and I haven't heard back, so the jury is still out on that.

I didn't personally have an allergic reaction or any irritation from these products, but it's always a good idea to check out the ingredients (see below) and test new cosmetics on a small area first if you're prone to allergies!

So, here is where I tell you guys that I accidentally started writing this review on the extended template before realizing it would work much better in the standard one. Sadly, once you start a review you can't switch templates, so please forgive some really skimpy subsections, since I cover most of this info below under experience. (Template lesson learned!)

None of the products in this kit are scented or flavored. For me, that's a plus since I'm picky about scents and flavors.

Even when used with a primer, the eye shadows don't have a lot of staying power, but the blush will stick around fairly well unless you are sweating or touching your face a lot. I was surprised that the gloss kept my lips moisturized for quite a long time, I expected it to disappear almost instantly!

This seems like a good place to discuss ingredients! Here we go!

Blush: Mica, magnesium stearate, hydrogenated polyisobutene, octyl palmitate, caprylic/capric trigylceride, isopropyl myristate, polybutene, dimethicone, tocopheryl acetate, phenoxyethanol, methlyparaben, propylparaben.

May contain: Titanium dioxide, black iron oxides, yellow iron oxides, red iron oxides, maganese violet, fd&c red no. 40 aluminum lake, chromium oxide green.


Eye shadow: Mica, magnesium stearate, hydrogenated polyisobutene, octyl palmitate, polybutene, bis-diglyceryl polyacyladipate-2, isopropyl myristate, tocopheryl acetate, phenoxyethanol, methlyparaben, propylparaben.

May contain: Titanium dioxide, black iron oxides, yellow iron oxides, red iron oxides, maganese violet, fd&c yellow #5 aluminum lake, fd&c yellow #6 aluminum lake.

Lip Gloss: Polybutene, caprylic/capric trigylceride, ethylhexyl palminate, beeswax, ceresin wax, microcrystalline wax, silica, phenoxyethanol & methylparaben & ethylparaben & propylparaben & butylparaben tocopheryl acetate. (I have no idea why there are so many ampersands there at the end, but that's how they listed it, so I'm just copying.

May contain: Titanium dioxide Cl 77891, black iron oxides Cl 77499, yellow iron oxides Cl 77492, red iron oxides Cl 77491, yellow lake 5 Cl 19140, red 6 Cl 15850, red 7 lake Cl 15850, red 28 lake Cl 42090, Mica Cl 77019, Iron oxide Cl 77499, tin oxide Cl 77861.

I hate when ingredient lists say "may contain". You don't know if your product contains it or not? Anyway, I looked up each ingredient, and only have a few concerns, mostly minor.
*The octyl palmitate in the blush and eyeshadow may cause breakouts or irritation.
*The dimethicone in the blush can clog pores or cause irritation.
*The polybutene in the blush can cause eye irritation.
*Methylparaben, butylparaben, ethylparaben and propylparaben are... well, parabens. This thread on the EdenFantasys forums has some helpful information about parabens.


For more info on cosmetic ingredients, Beautiful With Brains is a great resource.

(See the video above for more info on the products!)
Eyes:


Eye colors in natural sunlight. The top half is on bare skin, the bottom half of the photo is over an eye primer.


Same thing in shade with no flash.

The eye colors are the main reason I chose this palette. I love pinks and browns, and these looked promising. Sadly, they don't really deliver. Although the off white works nicely as a highlight color, the pink and light brown are too pale to really show up, even if you pile them on. I tried, but no matter how many layers I applied, you could barely tell I was wearing them. The darker brown is okay, but also not pigmented enough for a rich color.

The other problem is that the colors don't work that well together. I tried creating a nice neutral look using the two browns, but the lighter has cool undertones while the darker brown is very warm and almost coppery. They just don't compliment each other.

Lips:
There are three lip glosses in this set- one clear and two pinks. When I first touched my finger to the clear to try it out, I was surprised to find that it was totally melty, and I suddenly had a really gloopy finger!



I'd had the palette in the sun for a couple of minutes for photos, but there's no way it should have melted so much in such a short time! (It's January, so it wasn't even hot sun!) The pinks were less melty, but still a little soft.



The glosses are easy to apply and blend across your lips. They are a little bit sticky, but that wears off pretty quickly and I've seen way worse in terms of stickyness. They're unscented and unflavored which is probably for the best, since scent and taste are so subjective. There's a little bit of glitter to them, but you don't feel it on your lips.

Although the pinks look really vibrant, there isn't that much color to them once they're applied, they just give your lips a healthy pink glow. I like the glosses a lot more than I expected to, I hadn't expected the pinks to actually be wearable.

Cheeks:
I don't use blush that often, but it's always nice to have some on hand, especially for days when you need that little extra oomph. The first thing I noticed when trying out the two blush colors that came in this set was that they are sparkly. There's an ultra fine glitter in them, and the colors themselves have a satin finish, instead of the matte you usually see in blush.


Blushes photographed in soft natural sunlight. Left side of the photo is on bare skin, right is over foundation. They're obviously applied way heavier than you'd ever wear them here.

The lighter pink blush is much too pale to be an actual "blush", even on someone like me who looks like they've never seen the sun. It would work better as a face highlighter than to bring color to your cheeks. On the other hand, the bright pink blush is TOO bright. Even if applied lightly, you're going to have to blend this like crazy (and maybe even top it with some powder) to avoid looking like a clown.

In general, this is a fun palette to play with, but I wasn't blown away by anything. I would mostly suggest this to a younger demographic due to the glitter, but there are always exceptions to the rule- wear whatever makes you feel beautiful! If you're used to high end cosmetics, you're not going to get excited about the quality here, but if you're someone that loves to experiment with makeup of all price ranges, this is a set you can have some fun with. However, for $5-10 more, you can find some really nice, better quality makeup palettes that you will love and want to use all the time, which would probably be a better investment.

Would I buy one of these again? Probably not. However, I also have one of the Bella Il Fiore eye shadow palettes, and I would get another one of those, so I think other items from this brand have definite potential.

I wavered between giving this 2 and 3 stars, but made my decision by thinking about how many of the items in this I will actually use. I like the off white eye shadow, the glosses and the palette's mirror, but that's really all that I'll probably use.