Urban Decay Build Your Own Palette & New Shadows! Swatches & Review
Urban Decay Build Your Own Palette & New Shadows! Swatches & Review
When Urban Decay revealed that they had reformulated their eye shadows and made a Build Your Own Palette available, I immediately had to make my own. I chose colors that I didn’t already own, of course! My order shipped lightning fast, too. I ordered these the day they released (March 27) and then received them on Thursday (March 29). This is impressive considering they came from California and I live in Florida!
I ordered a palette and 5 eye shadows.
Price:
$18 for the palette, which comes with a nice cruelty-free brush and the Walk of Fame eye shadow.
$18 for each individual eye shadow. Fill Weight: 1.5g e 0.05 US oz
Urban Decay is a cruelty-free brand. Some shades are vegan, but not all.
Shade Descriptions:
Haight – mermaid blue (shimmer)(vegan)
Radium – peacock blue (shimmer)
Gravity – deep violet with multi-colored micro-glitter (shimmer, sparkle)
Mushroom – warm pale grey (shimmer)(vegan)
Cobra – black with gold micro-glitter (matte, sparkle)(vegan)
Walk of Shame – a soft pinkish-peach matte (matte)
I’m actually surprised that Walk of Shame isn’t vegan, considering it’s included in every single palette. If it is, I didn’t see it on the site, but I would love to know if anyone knows otherwise.
This is Gravity, popped out of its case.
Here are the new eye shadows next to the palette and one of the old shadows, Sellout.
And of course, me being me, all of my old Urban Decay eye single eye shadows with the new ones.
These are all swatched on Meow Light Primer.
Walk of Shame – Mushroom – Cobra – Gravity – Haight – Radium – Electric – Atmosphere – Retrograde
I do like Walk of Shame as it makes a great ‘my skin but better’ type of shade on me. I think it’s one that will be flattering on many skintones.
Gravity is a gorgeous purple and you can see the multi-colored shimmer in it. Purple + rainbows makes me happy.
Haight is an amazing teal mermaid shade that you really need to see in person to capture its glory. I always liked it in swatches but held off on purchasing it because I have a lot of teal blues and I wasn’t sure I NEEDED it. Now I’m happy to have it in the new formula and I definitely feel it is a must-have shade for me.
Mushroom is an interesting grey-brown taupe. It’s really a complex neutral color and I can’t wait to see how it looks with my eye color.
Cobra is a pretty nice black gold that doesn’t go too green around the edges. It has a hint of khaki but still has gold present. I actually want to try this for a liner because it’s such an interesting shade. It might also be cool to use to contour/shade the eye on top of a wash of Walk of Shame.
Radium is an intense blue. It really fits its description of being a peacock shade. This is not for the faint of heart.
And you know me well enough to know that I just had to swatch the rest of my singles, though they’re all the old formula.
Row 1 – Walk of Shame – Mushroom – Cobra – Gravity – Haight – Radium – Electric – Atmosphere – Retrograde
Row 2 – Sellout – Space Cowboy – Midnight Cowgirl – El Dorado – Half-Baked – Freelove – Ruthless – Revolver
Row 3 – Cherry – Asphyxia – Fishnet – Freakshow – Frigid
Row 1 – Walk of Shame – Mushroom – Cobra – Gravity – Haight – Radium – Electric – Atmosphere – Retrograde
Row 2 – Sellout – Space Cowboy – Midnight Cowgirl – El Dorado – Half-Baked – Freelove – Ruthless – Revolver
Row 3 – Cherry – Asphyxia – Fishnet – Freakshow – Frigid
I did a look using several of the new formula: Walk of Shame, Gravity, Radium and Haight. I also used colors from the 15th Anniversary Palette: Omen, Junkshow and Tainted. Those colors are in the new formula as well.
I’ve even got Asphyxia on as a touch blush in this Hunger Games Inspired Look.
The texture, blendability and pigmentation is really nice on the new shadows. I do like the palette and my colors! The wear was great for me, too. I used primer, since without it my eye shadow disappears and I always use primer.
I think that for makeup enthusiasts like myself, they may be hesitant to buy more than 1 or 2 of the new palettes since the Walk of Shame shadow is included with each palette. If you could choose a shadow instead, it might have more appeal. On the other hand, I don’t think most people want to own every single color that comes out, so maybe investing in one or two would be what the average makeup user would do.
To fill a palette with 5 shadows it costs $108 (not including tax, which makes it $115.56), which seems steep in comparison to say, the 15th Anniversary palette, which was $55. Thinking about all the different UD palettes I’ve purchased… 15th Anniversary (definitely my favorite of the palettes!), Sustainable Shadow Box, Rollergirl and Show Pony, they’ve all been less expensive than the new build a palette. But there is great appeal to me in building your own.
As for the new formula, I already knew I loved it from using the 15th Anniversary set. I’m really curious to see how well the new Asphyxia and Fishnet perform compared to their old versions. I’m a fan of those old colors but they definitely were hard to get good color payoff.
I’m definitely interested in checking out SWF, Pistol, Mildew, S&M and Shattered.
What do you think of Urban Decay’s new formula? Do you like the Build Your Own Palette idea? Which of the new formula are you most interested in trying out?
All products purchased by me. All opinions are my own.
$18 a pop is insane….PLUS the palette? I’d far rather order some Face Atelier shadows at $17 a pan – a true pro brand in terms of quality, and used by many people within various parts of the entertainment industry – as well as Makeup Forever single pans & Aqua Creams. Even before the big Urban Decay in China blowout, I never liked their products. I’ve got 3 palettes of theirs that I want to get rid of. Naked, the Dangerous palette & another I can’t even remember because I have no interest in using it. I’m gonna have to post a blog sale once I’m up & running & flog off all the UD products I made the mistake of buying at bargain basement prices. They’re just taking up space.
@Sandra TK The Palette comes with the Walk of Shame shadow, which I’ve actually used a ton. So I figure if you’re a makeup lover like me, and you’re going to buy the individual shades, getting the palette with a shade you’ll use (I use it as an in between blending type shade or matte all over shade) isn’t bad.
@Phyrra I think I’ll stick to the Atelier shadows. The quality is great & because I get my empty Z Palettes at a discount, I’ve got a whack of them. So there’s no need for me to get a palette like this which limits the amount of shadows I can put into it. I love matte shadows for blending as well. My collection of eyeshadows is now well over 500, but I’m always looking for great matte shades. I definitely overbought shimmer & pearl shades in the last couple of years. I’m now discovering how much I love mattes & how much depth & intensity they add to a look. Big difference!
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I realize I’m super late commenting on this post, but I came upon it because I’m new to high end makeup, and my first foray into it happens to be urban decay. I bought the build your own palette and picked up asphyxia , not realizing it was the “old formula”. However I love it, but it is hard to get it to show up. I hope the newer formula has better payoff! I love purple eyeshadows!
I got to swatch the new version yesterday and it has MUCH BETTER color payoff!
I know this is late but you CAN pop the platforms out of the older tokens. I tried it, because I love UD but sometimes they make me mad with their obvious money-grabs. Grabbing the lid with a pair of needlenose pliers and twisting slightly usually pops the platform loose, and you can grab it. If it doesn’t, twisting the lid off entirely reveals a space where the hinge was. Stick the pliers in that space and slooooowly push them in, the platform pops out! And they fit in the DIY palette, thank goodness.
I dream of robbing an Urban Decay warehouse…
OMG you are so fabulous <3 But you hair – even more!! the eyeshadows look great too – very pigmented but i am not sure if i like the palette thing.
Thanks Shivani!
Am also a massive fan of the 15th pallete. Is there a colour thats comes in a single that is similar to deeper???
Do you mean Deep End? Haight may be close but I haven’t swatched them side by side.
awesome that you can build your own set, but that is to expensive for a palette and I personally thing that they should have just left the eyeshadows in magnetic pans so that you can use your own palette.
That would have been cool, too. I have a lot of the zpalettes.
urban Decay’s eyeshadows were already a lovely formula. Glad to hear they’ve even better now, though. But that price does hurt!
Yeah it does!
I am totally going to have to get one of these build-your-own palettes!!! What a great idea. I can’t wait to try the new formulations
That wig is killing me with it’s awesomeness!!!
Mushroom and Gravity look amazing. I am really drawn to those 2 colors especially.
Yay thanks Daena!
So sad that the whole things costs over $100 when you add it all up. I love the design of the packaging, absolutely, I just hate the idea of dropping so much money on individual eyeshadows that I would *still* need to de-pot if I wanted to put them into a Z-Palette instead 🙁
Yeah the price was steeper than I’d like for a depotted palette.
I agree and that is the main reason I won’t get this set.
Holy hell! $18 just for the shadows to put into the palette? Reminds me again of why I love Inglot. I do like my Urban Decay, but NOT at that price.
I was a little surprised at how the packaging goes together. I Definitely like the new formula.
Lovely lovely shades! You know, this packaging change makes me a bit sad and nostalgic because UD was one of the first mid-high end brands I purchased when I was 14. I bought the shade Shotgun and I still have it even though it’s crumbled now. I wore that sucker every day! It is exciting though to get a new formula and some lovely new shades. UD will always be fun.
Yeah the new formula is so smooth! I loved the UD 15th Anniversary palette more than any of their others, and now I know part of why it just seemed so awesome!
Oh I know! I actually love it so much more than the Naked palette even though that was the one I spent more time tracking down.
What’s your favorite color? 🙂
I’d actually get a palette, too, if only they weren’t so ridiculously expensive. I can get Inglot for the same price and I prefer that over UD
They’re definitely nice, too.
The BYOP idea is good… But I can’t justify spending that kind of money on each shade, especially when palettes are so much more affordable! That being said- I LOVE your shade selections- many of them would be ones I’d choose if I DID happen to grab some colors… And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the HG look you did with them!!
Yay! I’m glad you like my color choices 🙂
Dang; it’s about time they did this! Mushroom, in particular, is calling my name.
Hope you get to play with it soon 🙂
UD’s shadows all look so fantastic! It’s a shame they’re so damn expensive though. I can get 9 mini’s from Fyrinnae for the same price as one UD shadow, which makes a splurge on UD hard to justify. :-/
I know! They definitely are more expensive than my favorite indies.
I’m more excited for the handful of new singles that were previously only in palettes – I love Mushroom but wasn’t about to buy a BoS just for that shade. Now I can buy a single! I probably won’t do a build your own palette just because my shadow stash is so large that six more singles are excessive right now, but in the future I’d definitely consider it.
I love that they released a bunch of new singles, too 🙂 And I didn’t buy any of the BoS because I didn’t like the colors as well as other palettes, so I hear ya!
LOVE this look on you!
I like the idea of the “build your own palette” but maybe if they discounted it a bit? Great colors! I just bought some of the cute shadows on Sephora (with the decorated cases like Fishnet & Ransom)
Yay! What colors did you buy?