Urban Decay Smoked Palette

So today I am feeling pretty miserable. I have the flu for two days now and I feel so awful. It’s just constant headaches, aches and pains and running fevers. Oh joy! So to cheer myself up I have decided to write a review about one of my favourite eyeshadow palettes. This is going to a long and picture heavy post so if that’s not what you are into; you may want to switch off now.

Urban Decay Smoked palette

So I bought the Smoked palette while I was actually working for Urban Decay so I got a massive discount, but it retails for €40. The palette contains 10 shades and come with a full size 24/7 Glide-On Pencil in Perversion, a travel sized Eyeshadow Primer Potion (which I forgot to take a picture of) and a how-to booklet by the brand’s co-founder Wende Zomnir.

Get the Look Book: Vixen

The Get the Look Book, how-to booklet is actually quite good. The booklet starts off with a quick how-to on basic complexion tips and tricks. Then it looks comprehensively at different eye looks, with a step by step guide on how to achieve each look. Obviously it’s the Smoked palette so each look is going to be a smokey eye. I do like the variation though. It shows the most basic smokey eye (pictured above) but also does smokey eyes with a variation of colours and styles. This booklet is a great idea for makeup newbies but also for some inspiration to more experienced makeup connoisseur.

Next up the best part of the palette: the eyeshadows. There are 10 eyeshadows in this palette with 4 mattes and 6 shimmer/metallic shades. I like that there is a mixture of matte and shimmer shades in this palette. Kinky is a great all over the eye colour, while Freestyle is a good colour to blend out a smokey eye. Everyone needs a good matte dark brown and black and Backdoor and Blackout are seriously pigmented colours.

Every colour in the palette is creamy and pigmented. I found that, like most Urban Decay palettes, the matte shades are slightly chalkier than the rest, but still have great colour payoff. The shimmer shades are fantastic. They are buttery but with very little fallout. I did find for some reason Evidence, the metallic blue, was slightly harder to work with but could be built up to achieve a good colour payoff. I love all the colours in this palette. The matte shades, the dark shimmers and the jewelled metallics really do allow you to create every type of smokey eye possible.

24/7 Glide-On Pencil in Perversion and swatched

The palette comes with a full sized 24/7 Glide-On Pencil in the colour Perversion. Now if you are a fan of black eyeliner and haven’t tried Perversion, then you need to. Like right now! It is the blackest black eyeliner you will ever find. It is much blacker than its predecessor Zero and even beats out my beloved Avon Supershock eyeliner. It is seriously pigmented, super creamy and ridiculously long lasting. Once you apply this and leave it for a minute, it is not budging. Even from the waterline. When I worked in Urban, I used to swatch this on my hand all the time to show customers. In order to get the swatch off, I couldn't use just regular cleanser and instead had to use the Meltdown makeup remover. It was the only thing that would take it off. I love this eyeliner so much!

So that’s it for today. If you've managed to get this far with me, well done! I love the Smoked palette and I think it is well worth the money. It is a great quality product with some truly beautiful shades. Even now, every time I open this palette up, I still ooh and aah like an eejit at it. Just to give you an idea of what you can achieve, I have some pictures of two looks I created with this palette. Sorry for the bad photo quality!

A purple shimmer eye (L) and navy smokey eye (R)

Bye for now,

Mars