Urban Decay Smoked Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

Christine — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:25:09 +0000

Urban Decay Smoked Eyeshadow Palette

Urban Decay Smoked Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

Urban Decay Smoked Eyeshadow Palette ($49.00 for 0.30 oz.) includes ten eyeshadows: Kinky (soft ivory peach with a matte finish), Freestyle (light pantyhose nude with matte finish), Mushroom (warm grey with shimmery finish), Back Door (true dark brown with matte finish), Blackout (blackest black with matte finish), Barlust (dark golden brown with metallic finish), Rockstar (deep aubergine with shimmery finish), Evidence (deep navy blue with shimmery finish), Loaded (deep emerald shimmer with metallic base), and Asphalt (deep gunmetal with silver micro glitter and metallic base); one eyeliner in Perversion (blackest black); and a mini Primer Potion (in Original).

Kinky is a pale, neutral beige with a matte finish. It had good color payoff and was soft to the touch, though slightly powdery. This is a new and exclusive shade to this palette. Urban Decay Booty Call is slightly darker and more orange. MAC Vanilla is a little darker. MAC Chamomile is yellower. Bare Escentuals Chance is a smidgen more cool-toned but very close. MAC Blanc Type is very similar.
Freestyle is a light-medium brownish peach with a matte finish. It had good color payoff, but it was a little powdery. This is a new and exclusive shade to this palette. Bare Escentuals Stealth is more orange and shimmery. Inglot #341 is darker and a little pink.
Mushroom is a gray-brown–it’s a very intense taupe. It had good color payoff, and a really soft, dense texture. This is part of the permanent range. MAC Keep Your Cool is more muted. Chanel Illusoire is less brown.
Back Door is a charcoal brown with a hint of gray and a matte finish. This is a new and exclusive shade to this palette. MAC Dance in the Dark is very similar. MAC Legendary Black is browner. Bare Escentuals Amnesia is slightly darker.
Blackout is an intense, deep dark black with a matte finish. It has good color payoff and doesn’t have any powderiness. This is part of the permanent range. Milani Pitch Black is slightly softer. Sugarpill Bulletproof is comparable.
Barlust is a shimmery red-toned medium-dark brown. It has a soft, buttery texture with great color payoff. This is a new and exclusive shade to this palette. If the name sounds familiar, it was used for a nail polish that was similarly colored. MAC Havana is lighter. Bare Escentuals Pumped is more matte. MAC Roasted Chestnut is lighter and warmer. MAC Make Your Mark is softer, lighter. MAC Carbonized is similar but less metallic. Urban Decay Lost is less red-toned.
Rockstar is a dark, smoky purple with subtle red undertones. It has a very buttery and smooth texture with great color payoff. This is part of the permanent range. MAC Indian Ink is almost like a matte version, though it is a little darker. Lancome Zip Me Up is a bit lighter. Estee Lauder Cyber Lilac is a touch lighter.
Evidence is a medium-dark navy blue with a metallic sheen. It had decent to good color payoff, but it was a little dry compared to the other shades. This is part of the permanent range. It’s similar to a host of blues: Tom Ford Cobalt Rush, Bare Escentuals Climax, MAC Thru the Night, Wet ‘n’ Wild Earth Looks Small From Down Here, and Inglot #428–just to name a few.
Loaded is a blackened green-teal. It goes on very, very dark–you will lose some of the strength of the overall green/teal if you blend it out, but it doesn’t look full-on black. This is part of the permanent range. Bare Escentuals Max Volume is a bit lighter and greener. OCC Poison is greener. theBalm Jealous Jordana is less intense, slightly greener.
Asphalt is a medium-dark gray with very, very fine teal and silver micro-shimmer. The color payoff is decent, but it’s a smidgen sheer and not as buttery in texture as some of the other shades. This is a new and exclusive shade to this palette. If the name sounds familiar, it was used for a cream eyeshadow that was similarly colored. Tarina Tarantino Lovely Jewel is lighter. Make Up For Ever #1 is a smidgen darker. Bobbi Brown Gunmetal is very similar. Estee Lauder Black Chrome is a fraction darker. Urban Decay Gunmetal is a smidgen cooler-toned–a hair more silvered. theBalm Inspirational is less shimmery, grayer.

Overall, it’s a good palette; the best performing shades were Mushroom, Barlust, Rockstar, and Loaded. The “worst” (which weren’t bad!) performing shades were Evidence and Asphalt, which were both a little dry. Kinky and Freestyle were a marginally powdery but applied well and had good color payoff, despite being lighter in hue, which was impressive. Three of top Urban Decay eyeshadows are in the palette, too (Mushroom, Rockstar, and Loaded) along with the lovely rich black Perversion eyeliner. I tried a few different combinations (none of which I ended up liking, but for testing purposes, still worked), and I averaged around eight hours of wear with minimal fading but no creasing over bare lids. With a primer, the wear was perfectly intact after eight hours of wear.

One thing I disliked about the palette was the composition. This has no impact on the rating at all, because it’s very subjective and doesn’t affect the quality of the product. Like The Black Palette, it has lots of dark, smoky colors–totally appropriate for the palette–but it seems like this is a palette you’d tote around with you, as if it was an all-in-one palette for great smoky looks. There are too many dark shades to build more diverse looks. I would have loved to have seen one or two more shades (perhaps something cool-toned–maybe a silver, silver-blue–hey, Strip would have been a great addition to the palette).

Kinky and Freestyle are the lighter shades in the palette, but it’s missing a genuinely cool-toned one, and perhaps one with some shimmer/satin in it, rather than matte. I tried layering Kinky over a few shades, but it seemed to make more of a mess than lightened the underlying color. Freestyle read a bit too warm against most of the colors when I tried playing with it. If you want a one-and-done palette, maybe this isn’t it. If you want lots of Urban Decay eyeshadows, it could be a great choice.

Each eyeshadow is 0.03 oz. (compared to 0.05 oz.), which means the palette contains $108 in eyeshadow, plus a full-sized eyeliner, which normally retails for $19, and then a small primer potion containing 0.13 fl. oz., which is worth $7. The palette contains $134 worth of products for the $49 price tag. It’s still a great deal–it’s just not as good as previous palettes, such as Naked and Naked 2, which both contained 12 full-sized (as in 0.05 oz. each, so 0.60 oz. worth of eyeshadow–double this palette) eyeshadows, plus two comparable extras (brush and primer).

Honestly, I don’t mind that the eyeshadows aren’t full-sized; it’s hard to get through a full-sized eyeshadow, especially some of the darker shades, of which there are plenty of in this palette, but at this price tag, it’s a little tougher to swallow, given that they’ve done much more value-packed palettes. It’s something to pay attention to in case this a trend of things to come, but the palette on its own is still a good value and well worth the price tag–assuming you want more than 3 shades!