BH Cosmetics haul review & lip swatches

BH Cosmetics is an online beauty company in California known for high-quality products at unbelievably low prices (that go even lower when coupled with their frequent sales promotions and coupon codes).

Color Lock Long Lasting Matte Lipstick in Rapture is a super-long-wearing lipstick in a dark, brick-burgundy shade ideal for autumn. It's lightweight and slips onto lips with a huge colour payoff, delivering a layer of colour that sets quickly to a matte finish that doesn't leave lips feeling dry, which many matte lipsticks tend to do.
Once set, the colour didn't transfer, bleed or smear all day (no touch-ups until I took it off with makeup remover several hours later), and stayed put through lunch and several drinks through the afternoon. My biggest surprise was that despite an application of lip gloss overtop late in the afternoon, this lipstick did not wear away. These dark shades looks best with a precise line and careful application,so use a lip brush for neat, clean lip colour that lasts all day.

Pop Art Lipstick Extreme Lip Color in the shade Bam is the rich violet shade I've been looking for, perfectly matte and opaque. I kept thinking it must be time to re-apply after eating a sandwich and drinking several mugs of hot tea, but this lip colour stayed true to the deep hue that I applied, and did not fade into some weird undertone. The formula applies like a butter lipstick but wears like long-wearing liquid lip colour (while being infinitely less drying).
Thankfully this lip product has no smell or flavour. Despite being housed in an adorable hot pink plastic twist-up tube, it manages to avoid feeling cheap like dollar store makeup.
The Pop Art line is replete with colours that may be too extreme for some tastes (mint green, pastel lilac, etc) but also contains several hidden gems, including the grapey-purple I chose here. I wanted something different from autumn's usual lexicon of browns, taupes and cranberry lipsticks, and this shade is perfect. There are also lovely nudes and reds to choose from.

The challenge now will be to find a suitable lipliner to complement these new lippies; in the meantime, reverse invisible liner (not my fav since it makes me feel like I'm applying lipbalm outside my lipline) or nude pencil liner (also not my fav, because it can throw off the intended shade of lipcolour) will have to do. A decent lip primer and/or cleaning up the edges of the lipline with a small detail brush and a bit of concealer also work to keep your perfect pout intact.

  

After weeks of searching, I was delighted to order the Forever Nude Sculpt & Glow Contouring Kit in Medium/Deep. It's the first contouring palette that I found specifically designed for darker tones that had all the elements I wanted in powder (not cream) form. Since this palette is designed for dark skin, even the light colours are not chalky or ashy-looking and at last - a contour shade that actually works, with just the right amount of red undertone to look natural, and dark enough to carve out some definition.


Almost every bronzer and contouring product I've tried was too light, acting like setting powder instead of giving the effect of muted shading. The two bronze powders blend beautifully to sculpt my cheekbones, and the deep, natural blush brings brightness and colour back to the face. I use the yellow powder to lightly bake under my eyes, and the peachy highlighter is very effective to get that wet-dewy look I love right now. This is one of the best makeup purchases I've made this year, I love this palette!


I mentioned that BH Cosmetics often have great deals and promotions, and here's proof. Free with my purchase, thanks to a coupon code I found online, came this lovely Dark Rose Eyeshadow, Blush and Liquid Eyeliner Palette. Yes, I said "FREE". When it arrived, I was thrilled to see that it was much larger than I thought, and the colours inside are much more wearable than expected.


The twelve shadows include satin and glittery metallics as well as very neutral matte transition shades. The blushes are a bit sparkly but still look natural on mature skin, don't be put off by the bright colours. They are so nicely pigmented that they work perfectly as eyeshadows too, with a nice slip that blends and layers smoothly. The metallic shades have more fallout (to be expected) than less sparkly neighbours, but a good eye primer results in creaseless, intense colour that lasts all day.

The hidden gem of this palette turned out to be the exceptional liquid liner pen that came with it. I love this type of liquid eyeliner, and of all the several versions that I currently have, this one became my everyday liner right after I tried it. The opaque darkest black line dries in seconds, is easy to apply and doesn't irritate my eyes in the least. Just like that, I find my ideal eyeliner, squeezed into the bottom of a palette minding its own business. Who knew?

BH Cosmetics really do offer excellent beauty products at some of the lowest prices around. The only item that I wasn't thrilled with is the large stippling brush I ordered, which I found to be too sparse and flimsy to effectively do its job. Since it was only five bucks, I'll find a different use for it and may even try giving the bristles a trim to see if I can make some lemonade from that lemon. So for anyone that's interested in ordering very affordable beauty products online, BH is a company you can trust to deliver beauty supplies that work!