Palette Of The Month - Bare Minerals - The Star Treatment And Prime Time Eyelid Primer

For February's palette of the month I decided to pick a palette that I got for Christmas - The Bare Minerals Ready 8.0 Eyeshadow Palette - The Star Treatment. This palette was unfortunately a limited edition product from the Bare Minerals holiday collection, but I absolutely love it and I would thoroughly recommend it if you can get your hands on it :)

I'm a huge fan of Bare Minerals as a cosmetic line, I love the ease and quality of the products but sometimes you just want the convenience of a pressed powder foundation, blusher or eyeshadow. Whilst Bare Minerals as a company recognised that their customers wanted this more convenient option, they wanted to stay true to their beliefs and stay clear of the parabens, binders, fillers and harsh chemicals that are often staple ingredients in many make up products. After many years of research they finally found a formulation that worked, they combined mineral powders with antioxidants,  plant ingredients, and sea minerals to produce the Ready collection, a range of pressed mineral products, that offer the same quality and skincare benefits as their regular mineral line

From the first moment that I set eyes on the Ready line on the Sephora website, months before it ever hit the UK I knew I wanted to try it. Bare Minerals though isn't the cheapest range out there so I didn't manage to get my hands on any of the products till Christmas

The Star Treatment Palette was one of several limited edition 8 pan eyeshadow collections that were released especially for the festive period. The palettes came beautifully boxed and the box also contained a mini 1.5ml tube of Bare Minerals Prime Time Eyelid Primer.

The palette itself comes in an amazing mirrored silver compact. Gorgeous in appearance but a little bit impractical - it attracts finger prints like crazy, and to keep it looking pristine it needs wiping down every time you touch it - do I have time for that? no not really, but it's still pretty

The inside of the compact features a full sized mirror, and a double ended applicator. The applicator is actually pretty decent quality, it's  double ended and features an eyeshadow brush on one end and a more pointed brush on the other end which you could use for liner. I've actually used this quite a bit and its not a bad brush at all.

Now on to the most exciting part the shadows! The palette comes with 8 - 1g eyeshadows mainly in a neutral tone and all with shimmer. If you don't like shimmer yet again this palette isn't for you. A lot of the shadows also have a metallic finish. As you've probably already realised this is quite a warm toned palette, which suits me down to the ground.

The shades on the top row are from left to right VIP, Connoisseur, Carte Blanche, and Ritzy

The shades on the bottom row are from left to right Kudos, Bragging Rights, Elitist, and Extravagance

These eyeshadows are amazingly pigmented, and they are super soft and smooth. The effect is almost as if you have used a pigment or mineral shadow wet. You don't need to wet these shadows the almost creamy powder texture is apparent without the shadows ever even seeing a drop of water.

In the box you get an application guide giving you an idea of the looks you can create, but for this post I've just used all the shadows individually - apologies that the lighting may be a bit off in some of them but I hope you can see the strength and the pigment and the texture.

First up VIP - the darkest and probably the scariest shadow in the palette. It is a black shade which contains loads of multi coloured sparkle I would imagine that this would be a good contour shade, and you probably use it as a liner too. I've just used it here to create a really simple smoky eye  - just pat it on and blend a bit :)

Next up Connoisseur - this is a really bright, metallic old gold colour, or if you prefer a dark metallic mustard. This shade really looks like metallic foil on the lids.

At first glance the next shade in the palette Carte Blanche, looks like a shimmery creamy white, but it's so much more than that. It's shot through with gold giving it the most amazing iridescent white gold effect. If wearing it on it's own here but this would make a really interesting highlight shade when used alongside some of the other colours in the palette.

The final shade on the top row is Ritzy, a metallic chocolate brown, with hints of bronze and gold.

The second row starts with a really interesting shade Kudos. This shade reminds me an awful lot of MAC's Vex, it's a nude beige crammed full of gold and green iridescence - great on it own or alongside Elitist as a highlight shade.

Bragging Rights is the next shade in the palette. It's a gorgeous true metallic copper, think a brand new 2p coin and your about there.

If your a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I love olive greens, and the next shade in the palette fits the bill perfectly. Elitist is gorgeous metallic olive green that great worn on its own.

The final shade in the palette is Extravagance, a really shimmery light metallic gold, great on it's own or alongside any of the other shades.

All of the colours in this palette are amazingly pigmented, and they have a super soft almost creamy feel. They are really easy to work with and you only need a tiny little bit. Wear time is pretty decent as you would expect with the pigmentation, but when you use the shadows alongside the Prime Time Eyelid Primer, it goes from decent to amazing.

I have to say I didn't expect much from such a tiny 1.5ml tube but because you need so little this stuff really goes a long way. It has quite a thick cream type texture but it blends out really easily.

It is nude in colour but one shade would be suitable for all because it literally turns invisible on the lids so it was impossible to photograph on my lids you just couldn't see any difference.

It leaves a matte texture on the lids and it really seems to smooth out any imperfections. It really worked like a dream especially when I used it with VIP, and some of the stronger shades. I even tried the one eye test with this and VIP and the difference was dramatic. After about 10 hours, the eye which I'd used the eye prime on was pretty much perfect with barely no creasing or fading, where are the shadow on the other eye was still there but it had faded, smudged and creased. I have quite oily lids and I've seen a huge difference with the palette and with other shadows I own when I've used this primer. When I've used all my eyeshadow primers up I will definitely buy the full size of this product, and I'm also really interested in trying out the coloured shadow versions too.

I have to say my first experience of  Bare Minerals Ready has been a hugely positive one the shadows are so pigmented and wearable, and they felt great on the eyes. My favourite shades in this palette are Elitist and Kudos but they are all beautiful. As I say this palette is probably pretty hard to get hold of now but if you can it's well worth it and if not there are similar shades in the permanent Ready line. Have you tried any products from the Bare Minerals Ready line?, let me know in the comments and of course let me know if you have any questions x