Urban Decay Eyeshadow Swatches (Part 1)
Urban Decay Dashiki Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Swatches (Part 1)
As I mentioned yesterday, I’m going through a lot of permanent eyeshadows from various brands so that we can add more swatches to the Swatch Gallery. Here are eleven Urban Decay eyeshadows (with no real rhyme or reason), and going through all of the pots yesterday made me wish Urban Decay would sell their permanent range in refills. It would be so much more convenient and take up less space!
- Dashiki is a medium, brightened blue with a frosted sheen. It seems like it would be comparable to MAC’s Freshwater.
- Free Love is a medium-dark coral-orange with a golden shimmer and sheen.
- Haight is a medium-dark blue with a hint of teal and blue shimmer.
- Lounge is a reddened brown with a teal shimmer and flash. It’s more of a duochrome. At first glance, it seems similar to MAC’s Club, and it is, but it has a lot more red in its base (also more pigmented).
- Mary Jane is a steely gray-blue with a silver sheen.
- Psychedelic Sister is a dark violet purple with subtle red undertones and a shimmered sheen.
- Rush is a darkened gold-bronze with antique gold shimmer and a frosted sheen. It’s similar to Illamasqua Ore but less multi-faceted.
- S&M is a medium-dark silver shimmered gray with a frosted finish.
- Shakedown is a muted, played-down mushroom brown with a matte finish. It’s a browner version of Burberry Taupe Brown; matte version of Inglot #402.
- Urb is an olive green with a golden sheen and antique gold micro-glitter. This a less-than-stellar shade because of the glittery finish; it doesn’t apply evenly and can have a lot of fall out during application.
- Woodstock is a bright, medium-dark fuchsia pink with soft pink shimmer and a pearled sheen.
Urban Decay Eyeshadows are some of my favorites–they are typically very pigmented, smooth, buttery, and blendable. The only shades to watch for are any that have the word “glitter” or “sparkle” in the description, because they tend to have a micro-glitter that just doesn’t bind with the color base, which means it either disappears between brush and lid (best case scenario) or you end up with a sparkly under eye (worst case scenario). (Urb is the shade that brings down the overall rating on these.) Their matte finishes are soft and finely milled, but a note on application, these are so blendable that it’s easy to overdo it.
Urban Decay Eyeshadow Swatches (Part 1)
Urban Decay Dashiki Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Free Love Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Haight Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Lounge Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Mary Jane Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Psychedelic Sister Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Rush Eyeshadow
Urban Decay S&M Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Urb Eyeshadow
Urban Decay Woodstock Eyeshadow
Freelove is pretty! Just bought Woodstock specifically to do the most recent look you did with the shade and it came out wonderfully. About to search your site for looks you may have done with Freelove!!
I have both Woodstock and Freelove, and they pair up really nicely. I like to use Woodstock on my lid and then blend it out in the crease and brow bone a bit with Freelove.
LOVE Urban Decay’s shadows. It is rare that I find one I don’t like. Thanks for the post! Love the swatches.
By the way, for anyone suffering from glitter fallout with UD’s more glitter-heavy shadows, something like Pixie Epoxy works wonders!
These are really pretty. I’d love to get into UD eyeshadows, but I just can’t wrap my head around $17 for an eyeshadow that would still need to be depotted. I find myself lingering around the displays in both Ulta and Sephora and then just deciding it isn’t worth it.
I love love love UD eyeshadows, but I don’t think I’d ever pay full price for them as singles. It’s just too inconvenient. I’ve just been collecting palettes, but it can be hard to make sure I don’t end up with dupes now that I have more than two.
The Naked palette is worth the hype, in my opinion, because it’s rather versatile in its scope and finishes, and then nabbing a Book of Shadows (hopefully there will be a new one around the holidays) can get you a varied assortment.
Also, the mattes have popped up here and there under heavy discount (on sites like HauteLook), and if you’d wear them, it’s definitely worth grabbing a few.
Other than Cle de Peu, only Urban Decay eyeshadows give my monolid eyes a dimension and depth. I cannot just pack one shadow over another with my lids…otherwise I look like I have two black eyes. And with one or two shades, the colors look flat. Only until recently have I used Urban Decay….the shimmer, the multichrome, the blendability, and the tons of glitter makes these shadows so wonderful…wish it didnt have parabens etc.
Yay! Thanks for posting these. I have been looking for really great swatches of their shadows 🙂
MUST. HAVE. LOUNGE. OH LORD. SO. GORGEOUS! O_o
I KNOW RIGHT!!! i was just drooling over the same one! lol
I LOVE Shakedown – I am going to RUSH to get it! I am big on mattes and sorry for all you wild color mavens out there – I lean toward golds, browns, taupes and use other shades to accent with only. I have been lemming for UD to come out with some new matte shades adding to that end of their collection. I usually never use up a whole pot of anything – but I have on the UD mattes 2X over now on a couple of them! I have Urb – did not think it was gone and now out again??? I never had it flake on me but sure see it in your photos having that issue. I only use it rarely as an accent or a smudge over my liner. If mine fell in my eyes I would go nuts – so wonder if my super old Urb is an older, less flaking formulation?
No idea, but Urb was a little PITA to swatch alone. I was like, “Hello, color payoff, anyone?”
Yeah, Urb is a bit sheer & the glitter is a PITA, but it’s a beautiful green. I have to replace mine, since it’s in an ancient Face Case. I wish they’d make a glitter free version, like they did Midnight Cowboy/Sell Out.
Oh just discovered I have Shakedown. I thought maybe it was new but now see you are reviewing all the UD shadows because they are such a fav of so many folks – including yourself (next to MAC of course it would seem). I thought I had all the UD mattes in the brown tones. There are 3 I think in the brown tones in matte as I recall.
Even thou I own all of these, as Urban Decay IS my favorite brand of eyeshadows, I still enjoyed oogling over the swatches! 🙂
I love the entire UD line, everything they have is so high quality and fun interesting colors
Oh, Haight, my love for you knows no bounds.
I also have and enjoy Woodstock–used it in a look the other day with some Sugarpill pinks–but Haight was pretty much made for me. It is my UD shadow soulmate. Or…something like that, anyway.
Hey Christine, I don’t really know where to put this but I want to know how comparable/similar the colors from the TooFaced natural eye pallette are to UD Naked, if you can’t find the time to list which ones are most similar from UD and which one is better, can you at least post an email address at which I could ask? Thanks soooo much <3
Totally in love with Mary Jane, ahhh. Thanks for the swatches, Christine!
I love your swatches. I keep wanting to add swatches to my blog but I just don’t have a decent camera to do it. I need a true DSLR and not my digital one.
Do you plan on adding the remaining 40-something swatches plus the 13 from the Deluxe, 9 from Stardust and the 11 from the mattes? Oh and will you be adding the 12 loose pigments?
Urban Decay = my weakness for shadows. lol
I am only swatching what I own – if I don’t own it, I can’t swatch it, sorry!! 🙁 I don’t own all of UD’s line unfortunately!
That’s okay! 🙂 With over… 80 shadows left it’s only wishful thinking on my part.
Hi Christine, do you know if the color Rush was discontinued? I couldn’t find it in sephora, or on the sephora or urban decay websites. After seeing your swatch, I need to make it mine! Thanks!
Free Love looks awesome: so beautiful!!!
Heyo! I’m just starting out with high-end makeup and I REALLY wanted to try out urban decay because I rarely heard wrong about them. I bought MAC’S club and find it is tougher to blend then my other eyeshadows. I’ll try out lounge!! Thanks for the swatches!!
-xXx-
Lounge reminds me of that one eyeshadow from Lime Crime. O: Dragon scales or something?
Lounge is one of my favorite colors of eye shadow ever, it’s enigmatic.. just have to make sure you don’t look tired when you wear it, or otherwise use a dark waterline liner. Bad for those days with dark circles under your eyes, that’s for sure. Baked does the same thing
I bought psychedelic sister as the swatch looked amazing on this site. It was a total let down. A really dull purple.