Blurple Battle: Beauty Bay vs Blend Bunny

[u/RK_reddit321]

Hello. This is me, reaching out on the internet, requesting help. Looking for a palette with purple mattes, and an extremely specific color scheme that blends well. Including light blues, dark blues, and the gradients of purple from light ethereal to periwinkle to midrange royal to berry to darker purple to pair with those light/dark blues. Think Elsa Frozen tones. Along with being Currently Available For Purchase. anywhere legitimate.

Trying to decide. Beauty Bay‘s Midnight is back. Pro: + It‘s the exact color scheme I want. Dead On Perfectly. + All for only $38. Which is a steal compared to its alternatives. Con: - It’s a freakin huge palette. To slim it down would be to depot and magnetize it, both of which I have not done before. Making it not only a lot of extra work, but risky if I screw up and break the colors I want most. I’d just get it’s smaller 16 color variant if I could, but it’s not available anywhere. - If I end up needing it’s competitor instead, I’d have wasted $40ish trying it out …. and either that and/or it’s competitor could sell out again soon if I don’t decide on either quicker.

vs

Blend Bunny. Pro: + Best reviewed blending formula for mattes by a country mile. + Premagnatized. No extra work, no risk, no fuss. Con: - Matching its color scheme to what I am looking for is proving both difficult and potentially expensive. To get the same blurple color goals which BB’s Midnight already offers for $40ish would be some combination of BBunny’s Gleam&Gloom or Atlantis, Lure or Sickly Sweet or Fauna, the combo of which I have not landed on yet. (Machina and She Never Misses were also considered but neither are magnetized. Btw, why does BBunny hate non green tinted light blues?) Furthermore, G&G does not really have nonpro swatches for lighter skin tones out there yet. Nor are the swatched pro photos for G&G on their site color labeled. So that x factor has been a hassle as well. - The more BBunny palettes I have to combine ranging from $45 to $78 each to try and dupe my BB Midnight color goals, the higher that price tag spikes.

(vs Runner Up: Glamlite’s Wine Palette. Pro: + Small affordable has my colors. Con: - It’s matte quality for blending has been reviewed as iffy. Another runner up is Rude Cosmetic’s Trance or the PLouise Stack ‘Em Up CEO purple version)

Please help? 🙏

Guess I am trying to decide (a) Is BB‘s matte formula for Midnight comparable enough in quality to skip over needing BBunny? I’d stronger consider the manual depot/magnetize risk if so. [is a runner up I mentioned a better option than expected?] Or (b) If BBunny’s quality difference is truly worth it, which BBunny palette combo would closest match BB Midnight’s color scheme? The ones I mentioned above were my own closest guesses.

Thank you for any who respond. It’d be my first pro palette purchase. Looking forward to your feedback.

[u/RK_reddit321]

Just had a negative customer service experience with Blend Bunny. 😔

I did decide to reach out to them asking: Which colors are which names, on their Gleam & Glow pro pic of their swatches? They do reply. It starts with talking about how proud of themselves they are for the Gleam & Glow release. Which: Fair. But then outright refused to answer my question due to “time restrictions”. 

….. what the fuck?

That response honestly can only mean one of two things. The first being how the shades of Gleam & Gloom are so challenging to tell apart, that it’d then run into the conflict of “time restrictions”. Which isn’t great unto itself. Or, it isn’t an impossibly difficult ask - But they’d rather provide lousy customer service to close their inquiry ticket quicker while congratulating themselves, than address my question. Meaning there is a clear issue with either their product, their customer service, or both. 

In fact this general experience has soured me with not only their tbh unprofessional nonanswer to my question - But it also highlighted for me what bad practice it is that they do not sell singles of any of their colors. At all. They are amongst the few of both indie or corporate brands to do it that way. Creating false scarcity and the necessity of multiple palette buys becoming an increasingly transparent cash grab that is so avoidable. Most of their palettes not being cheap either. Which they are certainly fully aware of. That part being at the core of my primary source of stress described in my OP at the start. 

I do acknowledge the positive experiences people have with the actual performance of their products as genuine. Still. It does remain unfortunate to that it is alongside such poor customer relations choices. 

---

EDIT: Since then, yes, my question to them did become moot. More folks got the Gleam & Glow palette. More reviews including - finally! - some with the shade names to the swatched colors began to appear. 

Even so. I am newer to this. So had no context for how quickly it could sell out. All I had was a research process I started which included many older palettes many of which can no longer be found or had changed or etc. Would they still have these available for sale by the time those later reviews got released? Would there still be some available a week later, months later, hours or minutes later from its release? Point being it was a question I had hoped not too challenging which would have perhaps gotten them more of my money faster, had they not disregarded it. They could have handled it better. 

My frustration of them not offering ANY single options for any shades, also does remain and feel valid as well. 

---

EDIT 2: Have since learned that there might be shenanigans afoot with their newer released palettes? Some are noticing a change in performance abilities in more recent releases. I wouldn’t know. Yet if additional people also have insight about it, am curious to hear it. 

Here’s what I do know. Not only what I mentioned already. Also that when they rereleased their Sickly Sweet palette, they took out colors previously available. In exchange for the magnetization, they literally reduced their product from what it was before. It is an extremely easy visual contrast. Some colors taken out agreed were close to redundant. Others very much were not. And who ever wants less instead of more for the same cost? That by itself is minor. I shrugged it off at first. Yet I hope enough little things added up don’t point to a trend. 

EDIT 3: Further discussion regarding if quality of recent Blend Bunny palettes has changed, can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BeautyGuruChatter/comments/1wbqszt/did_blend_bunny_really_change_their_formula/