I have previously reviewed the Naked, Wallpaper, Foreshadow, and Show Pony palettes here on my blog and today I am reviewing the Urban Decay 15th Anniversary Eyeshadow Palette. Although I love UD at first I didn't have much interest in the 15th palette because I already own enough eyeshadow to last me a lifetime. Then I went to Ulta to swatch it and fell in love! These are all new shades that UD came out with just for this palette, and honestly I am a bit of a sucker knowing that once this palette is gone it's possible these shades will never show up again. So let's get to it!
The packaging:
The palette packaging is a square sturdy plastic box that looks like metal and has UD upraised in fake purple jewels on the cover. The top is not magnetic so this is not a travel-friendly palette, but it is nice to keep on the counter and since the top lifts of easily it provides quick access to the shadows. The inside also has a high-quality mirror on the inside top which I don't use often but is nice to have. The top of the box picks up fingerprints like mad so be prepared to wipe it off to keep it looking pretty. The pan with the shadows in it lifts up to expose a tiny faux velvet-lined compartment that you could put flat things in, but I don't because you need a pen to lift the corner and I don't want to stab a shadow on accident. My shadows were glued in a bit haphazardly, with one of them so barely glued in it smudged against the top. For $55 I guess I expected the shadows to be at least glued in securely, but the shadow quality is amazing so I can forgive this :)
The shades:
Midnight Rodeo - mid tone beige/brown with silver and gold glitter, has fallout but not as bad as with Midnight Cowboy especially if you tap your brush off before applying
Midnight 15 - champagne pearl with fine silver glitter, the fallout is not bad at all and this makes a lovely highlighter shade
Vanilla - pale yellow-gold shimmer, great as a highlighter or all-over lid shade, sheers out easily to a nice pale gold wash
Flow - soft peachy pink shimmer, works well as a base shade or all-over color
Chase - metallic bright gold/bronze, can be a bit intense for daytime looks but is great for fun summery looks
Deeper - darker version of Chase, a shimmering mid-tone brown with gold
M.I.A. - dark brown with gold shimmer but tends to look a bit more matte than the other shimmers in this palette, wonderful for a liner shade or to blend in the crease
Ace - gunmetal shimmer, dark and pigmented with silver highlights
Blackout - true matte black, works great smudged into the upper lash line or to deepen up a colorful look
Half Truth - Gorgeous deep gray-plum with shimmer, makes a sexy smoky eye look and looks particularly pretty with Omen
Tainted - lilac with gold flecks, sits somewhere between a matte and a shimmer, good color payoff if layered but can look chalky
Junkshow - bright pink with fuschia shift, a lot more sheer than I'd anticipated and easy to blend into a look for a pop of color, looks great with Flow
Omen - metallic shimmery purple with blue shift, one of my favorites - it's like Asphyxia but much more pigmented
Evidence - Deep metallic blue, plays well with Deep End as a liner shade or to add depth to the outer eye
Deep End - true teal shimmer, neither blue nor green, great as a liner shade or to use for a pop of color above the crease and easy to sheer out or build up for impact
The shadows:
These shadows stay true to Urban Decay's well known creamy consistency and are extremely easy to blend. The only one I have trouble blending is Tainted but it just takes a bit longer than normal. These shadows seem a bit softer than normal UD shadows, so you definitely want to use a brush and not finger-apply. They also have a little bit more fallout than other UD shadows but it's not too bad once you get used to how much you need on your brush, which isn't much. With primer these shadows have lasted 12 hours on me - that's one of the main reasons I love UD shadows! The standouts for me are Omen, Deep End, Half Truth, and Midnight 15 which are like no other colors I own. Blackout is also great because I'd rather use eyeshadow as a liner so I can control it better and this shade is perfect for that. I was so happy to see that Omen is like a slightly darker, brighter, more pigmented version of Asphyxia, which although I love is so sheer it takes layering to get the color payoff. Deep End is a great true teal and I love how easy it is to sheer out or build up. Junkshow surprised me with applying rather sheer, but it looks so great with Flow and is actually very wearable - for a fuchsia pink!
The (possible) bad:
I actually almost returned this palette after I bought it because there are a few shades similar to ones in the Naked palette. These are: Chase (Half Baked), Ace (Gunmetal), Blackout (Creep), Midnight Rodeo (Sidecar), M.I.A. (Darkhorse), and Deeper (Smog). They are not exact dupes, but pretty close with just some color variation. Once I started to play around with the palette I realized that the more colorful shades I don't have anything similar to so that is enough to make me keep it, and the similar shades have enough variation to still feel different. Also the shades Vanilla, Flow, and Midnight 15 have already become staples to me as base and highlighter shades and I'd hate to be without them. My only other complaint with this palette is that Blackout is really the only matte shade. UD makes amazing matte shadows (Shakedown, Naked, and Buck are 3 of my favorites) and sometimes you want a matte base to tone down a daytime look. If they had included a few more matte shades then this palette, to me, would have been absolutely perfect.
Bottom line:
I highly suggest this palette if you don't already own Naked or a lot of UD palettes, and if you do own Naked then I'd suggest checking this one out before it's gone to see if you fall in love with the brighter shades like I did. If this had come out before Naked I probably wouldn't have gotten that one, but overall there is enough variation between the two that I'm very happy having both. I feel like any look I want, from bright and bold to neutral day-appropriate to vampy and smoked out, can be made between the two palettes and even just with this one. I love that there are great highlighter shades, bright colors, and deeper shades and there's not one shade that I won't use. The formula is fantastic and although they might have skimped a bit on the quality of the packaging the shadows themselves are high quality and worth every penny - in fact at $55 for 15 shades these cost less than most drug store brands! I had almost been in a bit of a color rut from using the Naked palette daily but this is a great addition to my collection and has really brought out my inner artist. UD shadows are like lovely paint for the eyes, and I've been having fun getting out of my neutral rut and really playing with some beautiful wearable colors again.
$55
