Urban Decay Smoked Palette Review

I recently realised that I took photos and swatches for a review of my UD Smoked Palette last a p r i l  and totally forgot to do the actual review! I know it's very late, but I didn't want to let the photos go to waste, so here we are! 

The design of the case is definitely my favourite of the UD palettes. My Eyeshadows are snug and secure in a cushioned, zip up case, and it has the added bonus of being absolutely gorgeous! Smooth black satin with an embossed title. 

Kinky is a creamy white shade that is pretty much identical to my skin tone! Pretty useless for me, and any other ghosties, but on darker skin would be a lovely non-shimmery highlighter (rare!) 

Freestyle is a warm, almost peachy cream shade, works very well as a base shade. 

Mushroom was, if I'm honest, the only reason I bought this palette. It's a cool metallic taupe, verging on pewter. Initially, it doesn't apply incredibly pigmented, but it's impressive when used with a damp brush. Mushroom is an ideal crease shade for when I'm wanting a metallic shade. (Can you tell I love it? :D)

Backdoor is a lovely medium-dark brown, leaning towards a warm tone. It works very well with both Mushroom and Barlust layered over it, or used as a crease shade for a brown smokey eye. 

Blackout is an incredibly pigmented true matte black. It is perfect for a smokey eye, or as a crease shade for colourful shades. Definitely one of the best shadows in the palette.

Barlust is a delightful Baroque bronze shade, and is wonderfully pigmented. Again, works lovely and adds a certain richness when layered over the likes of Backdoor, or any warm brown or bronze shade. 

Rockstar is a cool metallic purple shade, works really well teamed with a true, matte black (Blackout, for example), especially when used with a black crease. 

Evidence is a cool metallic blue, which I have not used, and likely will never use. It has nothing to do with the eyeshadow, which is very well pigmented, and UDs typical buttery texture, I just really don't like blue eyeshadow. Oh well!

Loaded is a metallic hunter green shade, which, similar to rockstar, works really well with Blackout. 

Asphalt is the final shadow in the palette. It is a cool pewter shade, (similar to Mushroom, minus the taupe) and is a very buildable shade, though application with a damp brush will give a very pigmented effect. 

L - R Foxy, Freestyle, Mushroom, Backdoor, Blackout

L-R Barlust, Rockstar, Evidence, Loaded, Asphalt.

The eyeshadows are Urban Decay's usual top quality, buttery texture and wonderful pigmentation (with the exception of a few of the metallic shades) and although I usually stick with my Naked palettes, I'm definitely glad I own Smoked (if only for Mushroom! hah)

In addition to ten eyeshadows, the palette comes with a travel sized primer potion, a full sized 24/7 eyeliner in 'perversion', which is the most pigmented and long lasting eyeliner I have ever used, and a lookbook, full of ideas and ways of using the products included. For £35 I think this is a pretty amazing deal! 

New treats~

Hey! I thought I'd share a few things I've picked up recently, sort of as a sneak peak into what I'll be reviewing in the next few weeks! :) 

I treated myself to the Naked 3 palette when it came out (no regrets: prettiest palette ever <3), and got the Naked Basics palette as a Christmas present! I also got a Debenhams gift card for Christmas, and so I bought three things I've wanted for ever: Illamasqua's Raindrop and Jo'Mina nail polishes, and MACs Snob lipstick! Ahh I've not even taken them out of their packaging yet, I'm so excited to see them :D I'll be reviewing these (and maybe a few more things) in the coming weeks, so I hope you'll stay tuned :) 

<3

yet another haul post~

I am ridiculous, I bought plenty of makeupy treats last week, and yet today when I was about town, I just couldn't help myself! Oh dear, maybe I'll stop after this haul! (We all know I won't...)

Anyway, I got a few treats that I've been wanting for ages, Urban Decay's Smoked Palette, Gosh's infamous Holographic nail polish, and then I got L'oreal Feria's Extreme Platinum Power and Pastel Pink Panther, and a teal Miss Sporty polish!

I was on the search for the perfect teal nail polish that had a more blue than green tone and I just came across this in the most unlikely place! I've never really paid any attention to Miss Sporty, but this is such a lovely colour. Unfortunately, it doesn't say what shade it is on the bottle, and I can't remember, but I'm sure it's easy enough to find in store :)

(Miss Sporty nail polishes retail in Superdrug and Boots for £1.99)

Gosh's wonderful Holographic polish! I've wanted this forever, but I never got round to actually buying it, but I'm so happy I did! I don't think this picture gives it justice, but it is such a lovely polish, properly holographic (so cool :D). However, it is really quite streaky, even with 3 layers, so it might be an idea to layer it over a silvery polish to get a better coverage? Also, it dries to a semi-matte finish, which I was surprised at. Overall, the formula isn't the greatest, but it's forgivable considering how wonderful the actual colour is :)

(Gosh nail polishes retail in Superdrug for £4.99)

I bleach my naturally dark blonde hair, and I ususally use Jerome Russel, but I didn't feel like it gave me the lift I require (I like my hair to be white blonde as a clean slate to put pastel toned colour in!) and I noticed that L'oreal Feria's Extreme Platinum Power claims to lighten hair up to 8 levels, which, if true, would definitely bring my hair up to white, so hopefully it works! What I like about the colourant is that it comes with a purple toning conditioner, which bleach/blonde hair kits really lack. 

The Pastel Pink Panther toner is, well, a pastel pink toner! I can imagine it is just like a pink hair dye mixed down to a light pink, and I've heard good things about it, so I thought I'd check it up. Once I get round to trying these out, I'll try and show you the results! 

(L'oreal Feria colourants retail in Boots and Superdrug at £5.79)

Last, but definitely not least, is Urban Decay's Smoked Palette. I had wanted this palette for ages, for two reasons, UD's eyeshadow primer, and a beautiful eyeshadow; Mushroom. I've been admiring Mushroom for months, but it took me until today to actually buy the palette! Smoked has ten eyeshadows, five of which are exclusive to the palette, a travel sized eyeshadow primer, and a full sized 24/7 eye pencil in Perversion, pretty good for £35! 

(Urban Decay products retail in Debenhams!)

MUA haul

So! I'm a fan of MUA on facebook, and, as I'm sure everyone knows, they finally had their amazing 50% off everything offer, and I picked up a lovely selection of goodies :)

(I'm sorry the picture isn't the best quality, I took it last night when I got home) 

Anyway! I picked up the Fixing Mist, which I actually used last night, I must say I'm impressed! I'll definitely be doing a proper review of it soon

I got the undressed pallete, the eye-primer, two blushers, a powder blush in shade 4, and a cream blush in Blossom, a Kiss-Proof lipstain in Kissalicious, Sugar Lips lip balm (both of which are lovely products), eyebrow pencil in Blonde, and then three nail products; Gemini nail constelliations, Jellyfish mystical glitter and Rose Dust fairy dust polish. Finally, I got the F3 Concealer Brush, I was planning on getting pretty much the entire range of brushes, but unfortunately they sold out! 

After the 50% discount, ALL of this came to only £16, which is absolutely amazing. It was such a generous offer, and I'm so glad I was able to avail of it :) I've tried a few of these out already, and I'll definitely be reviewing quite a few, so stay tuned! and a big thank you to MUA ^_^

x

MUA Glamour Days Palette

I'm so sorry this is really late >< I've been crazy busy with college work and haven't had a chance to update my blog. I'm trying to fix that though!

Anywayy, back in Novemer, I won a competition with MUA and was sent their gorgeous Glamour Days eyeshadow palette. :)

The palette has twelve gorgeous colours which I found to be creamy and very easy to blend, all together really lovely.

As you can see they aren't mega pigmented, but you can build them up to create a stronger finish. I feel the glittery / sparkly shadows have a stronger pigment to the mattes, but as I said, they are all easy to blend and build upon to create your preferred finish.

My favourites are: 1, which is perfect for highlighting, and the bottom/last four, as they're perfect for the autumn/winter time. 

Overall, Glamour Days is a lovely palette and the quality really impressive considering that it only costs £4

<3

Urban Decay V MUA: Eyeshadow Primers

I've seen a lot of comparison between Urban Decay's Naked palettes and MUA's Undressed and Heaven and Earth palettes, and as I've heard rave reviews about MUAs palettes, I thought I'd compare my favourite Urban Decay product, their Primer Potion, with MUAs version. 

Urban Decay's Primer Potion retails at £14.50 for 11ml of product, whereas MUAs Eye Primer retails at £2.50 for 7.5 ml. 

A comparison between packaging is pretty redundant here as I have the old style potion pot, which I always thought was terribly flawed. Now UDs primer comes in a squeesy tube. I do think that MUAs packaging looks more professional and, in comparison to the old style bottle, it is a lot easier to actually get the primer out of the bottle

They also both have doe-foot applicators, and this would be my preference over the new UD style as well, as this applicator is effective in spreading out the primer over the lid.

On the left, which you can barely see, is UDs primer potion, it has barely any pigmentation at all, and only leaves a slight sheen. It also dries quickly and so it isn't the easiest to blend it over the eyelid. MUAs primer is a lot more pigmented, and is so much easier to blend and spread, as it takes quite a while to dry in. 

Here I have a comparison of eyeshadow over no primer (at the top), UDs primer potion (on the left), and MUAs eye primer (on the right). It's obvious that MUAs primer gives a much more intense pay off as opposed to UDs primer potion and bare skin. 

I tested the two primers out under eyeshadow for a day (about 6 hours of wear) and MUAs primer came out on top, it kept my eyeshadow intense and vibrant all day, without creasing or fading away, and while my UD primer potion did this too, the colour intensity wasn't the same as with MUAs primer. 

MUAs primer surprised me with how good it was, easily more effective than Urban Decays, and although you get 3.5ml less product than in UDs, but, being £12 cheaper, I don't think that matters too much.

<3

Urban Decay Naked 2 Palette

I was given this last week from my friend, a very generous gift! I am so happy to have Naked 2, I've been wanting it ever since its release. 

I have the original Naked, but I feel that the shades in 2 are a lot more suited to cooler and paler skins than the original, and so I thought it would get along with me better. 

The actual case is definitely an upgrade from the original. A cool, taupe tin with a 'lock' closure, as opposed to the velvety (dust magnet) cover with magnetic lock (the magnet was very strong, and never opened on me, but i'm sure they've opened on someone and that's a horrible thought :( ).

~I just realised the colours of the cases of the two palettes sort of represent the tones/colours of the eyeshadows in them. Which is a pretty cool idea :)

The palette holds twelve shadows, 3 mattes; Foxy, Tease and Blackout, and 9 shimmer and glitter shades; Half Baked (which is also in the original Naked), Bootycall, Chopper, Snakebite, Suspect, Pistol, Verve, YDK, and Busted.

It also comes with a free double ended shading and crease brush and a mini Lipgloss Junkie in 'Naked'. I was really peeved that they decided to include a lipgloss instead of the usual mini Primer Potion, I love getting the free primers as they are my top eyeshadow primer, and I felt this was a bit mean of UD.  However, when I opened up the packaging, I could instantly smell a wonderful minty smell, the lipgloss! I adore lip glosses with a minty smell and it has a cooling effect too, which I also love. So it redeemed itself in my eyes. 

Foxy: is a very pale matte beige that practically matches my skin colour! I guess it could be used as a highlighter.
Half Baked: a light bronze shimmer. I tried it out against the original Half Baked and it feels much creamier, gives a lot better coverage and is wonderfully blendable.  

Bootycall: I think this is one of my favourites out of the palette. A delicate icy rose with a lovely shimmery transfer. So pretty!

  

Chopper: an intense silvery copper that is almost glittery. 

Tease: the second matte of the palette, a lovely pale taupe. 

Snakebite: a rather understated, but gorgeous, dark bronze. 

Suspect: a warm shimmery beige

Pistol: dark, grey with a touch of taupe. My no.1 from the collection. :)

Verve: shimmery, silvery white. Used sparingly, it would make a lovely highlighter. It would be gorgeous all over with a black liner as well though.

YDK; absolutely stunning! So so shimmery, a coppery gold. Looks as if it has little flecks of gold leaf in it. I prefer silver over gold, so I don't know how much use I'll get out of it, but it is the most eye catching out of the palette.

Busted: A cool, dark, shimmery brown. It is very similar to Dark Horse, just a tad lighter and the shimmer is a lot more prominent. 

Blackout: I was really pleased to see a matte black in Naked 2, as I really dislike the shimmery black from Naked. It has a very sparse amount of silvery glitter, but when you wear it the glitter is barely noticeable. 

L-R
Foxy (you can just about notice it!)
Half Baked

Booty Call

Chopper

Tease, Snakebite, Suspect, Pistol

Verve, YDK, Busted, Blackout

I feel that many of the colours, particularly the lighter ones, seem to be slightly less pigmented, and need to be built up to achieve a good coverage. Though they have a lovely formula that is so easy to blend, so I guess it doesn't matter so much.

The brush that came with the set is really lovely. On one side is a small, slightly stiff crease brush and on the other, a more relaxed and longer blending brush. Both sides are really soft and lovely to use. The brush that came with Naked was a little too stiff and I never really liked using it.

I personally prefer the shades in Naked 2 to Naked. The formula is creamier and easier to blend, but some of the lighter shades aren't as pigmented as I'd hoped they would be. Despite the Lip Gloss having a lovely smell, I would still have preferred a mini Primer Potion. However, the double ended brush is really, really lovely and I know I'll get a lot of use out of it, as opposed to the brush that came with the original Naked.
Although there are a few warm shades in it, I think Naked 2 would be more suitable than Naked for cooler skin tones, as it features a lot more taupey and silvery shades.

x