Urban Decay’s Smoked Palette: Review

Every fall season Urban Decay comes out with an eyeshadow palette that has been very pleasing to its customer base. This year they took their darker shades, threw in a couple of light matte shades for measure and decided to call it the “Smoked” palette. It also has a 24/7 pencil in Peversion (coal black). Oh! And they also added in a hefty size sample of Eyeshadow Primer Potion! Is it something you want to spend $49.00 on?
There are only 10 shadows in the palette, which makes each one worth $4.90 each. Yeah, it’s nice to have the primer potion too but that is just an add on. Usually there are many more shadows in their palettes for this much money. Now, are the shadows ones that you would want to wear? There are four mattes: Kinky (very light cream), Freestyle (medium peach), Backdoor (dark brown), and Blackout (black). The shimmers are: Mushroom (brownish silver), Barlust (rich warm bronze), Rockstar (eggplant), Evidence (rich bright blue), Loaded (forest), Asphalt (dark cool gray). I think the photo above is a pretty good representation showing the colors. Five of the shades are new, so that is a pro. The pigmentation is good among the shimmery shades, as usual. The lightest matte shades have only so-so pigmentation.

Below I will show you the look I did with the Smoked palette. I took Mushroom and used it in the crease and all over the lid. I used Backdoor on the outer edge of the lid and under the eye. Barlust was also used on the lid to make it a little bit darker and smokier. I used Freestyle under the brow to blend out Mushroom. To line the upper lid I took 24/7 liquid liner in Revolver and used it on the upper lid. For mascara I used Maybelline’s Great Lash Lots of Lashes in Black
On my cheeks I used Inglot’s AMC Face Blush in 57. On my lips I used Smashbox’s Nylon Nude (peachy nude) to complement the smoky eye.

I found the shimmers to have good pigmentation, no pull and no fallout. The light mattes had very little pigmentation and chalkiness. The darker mattes had good pigmentation but some fallout and some chalkiness. If you like to have a dark, smoky eye, this palette is for you. But be warned that the lighter shades are not up to par with the rest of the usual Urban Decay shadows. Is it good value? So-so. I would say only if you really want to have the dark eyes that will be popular this fall. It is available at www.urbandecay.co, www.sephora.com, www.ulta.com and www.beauty.com. In the brick and mortar stores you will be able to find it at Sephora and Ulta.