Instead of diagrams and written instructions on how to wear these products, you get a card with QR codes. Scan these barcodes with your smartphone to play video tutorials. (The fold up lid of the palette even has a little paper sleeve to hold your phone, so you can apply while you watch.) And Urban Decay has included a tiny-but-powerful keychain speaker, which you can connect to your phone for listening to the tutorials — and then take with you as a highly portable boombox.

Book of Shadows IV is $64 and limited edition. All of these shadows are extremely pigmented and a pleasure to swatch.

Blue Bus is a very blue purple frost/shimmer. Gunmetal is a charcoal frost/shimmer. Cobra is a fabulous matte super-dark-brown (nearly black) with ultra fine gold and green shimmer. Baked is an extremely frosty orange copper. Bender is a shimmery gold-green (evergreen). Gravity is a slightly chunky royal plum (blue-purple). Lost is a shimmery/frosty warm wood brown. Hijack is a gorgeous shimmery/frosty muted alpine blue-teal (if it were gum, I think it would be called wintermint).

Midnight Cowgirl is a warm pale gold/beige-gold frost. Sin is a pink shimmer/frost. Midnight Rodeo is rose-brown shimmer/frost. Midnight Cowgirl, Sin, and Midnight Rodeo all have some bigger sparkle pieces.

Crystal is muted, ice-skater pale blue-grey with tiny blue sparkles (it’s sheerer on first swipe). Bust is a lovely satin/shimmer mink-colored, slightly purpled taupe. Missionary is a shimmery/frosty slightly purpled metallic pink.

Skimp is vanilla-colored satin, a pinked-beige that I think would make a fabulous face highlight. Zephyr is a shimmery, bright warm white.

Urban Decay’s new waterproof liquid liners have the most fabulously narrow brush applicator — maybe 10 fibers make up the “needlepoint” brush. I tried to capture that narrowness with my series of swipes. If you want the finest line possible, wipe the excess liquid on the mouth of the tube before you apply brush to eye. Also very important: shake the liquid liners WELL before applying.

Anyway, on my last visit to Sephora, I was excited and intrigued by the new Super Saturated High Gloss Lip Colors. These are chubby lip… crayons with a glossy, bright, saturated, ultra-pigmented finish. They remind me of Lipstick Queen’s Chinatown Glossy Pencils (or, I suppose, Clinique’s Chubby Stick Moisturizing Lip Color Balm or Tarte’s Natural Lip Stain or NARS Velvet Gloss Lip Pencils), except these aren’t sheer. I filed them under “Lips (Other)” because I wasn’t sure what else to call them.  Lipstick?  Lipgloss?

Crush is screamingly bright, Barbie/Schiap blue-pink. Big Bang is a deeper, less-blue fuchsia with violet-pink sparkles. Adrenaline is a bright, hot violet-red-pink with red-pink sparkles. F-Bomb is bright cherry red with a very subtle shimmer. Punch Drunk is blinding orange creme.

Not only do these wonder-sticks fill a craving ignited by Sephora’s summer trend photo (LOVE the lips, HATE her hair in her face), but I almost want to get both Crush and Punch Drunk — or F-Bomb and Punch Drunk — and wear one on the top lip and the other on the bottom (so chic!).

I haven’t actually tried these on my lips, and I’m dying to know how they wear. Have you tried them? Do they bleed? Transfer to your teeth? Are they moisturizing? Do they last?

Urban Decay’s Super Saturated High Gloss Lip Colors are $19 each.

Random trivia: you might think that bright, vibrant red is the most staining color a girl can swatch. Not so: bright, vibrant pinks stain much worse.

I tried (but failed) to fit all 15 shadows on one arm, so rather than swatch the last three shadows by themselves, I decided to take the opportunity to change the swatching order, and put similar colors next to each other for comparison purposes.

Chase is a golden bronze. Comparatively, you can see Midnight Rodeo is more pink. I also think you can see Deeper’s “almost olive” a little better in this photo. Deep End is bright shimmery turquoise. Half Truth is blue-violet shimmer.

Is the 15th Anniversary palette a must-have for you?

The colors look pretty wild in the pan — fortunately, they apply more sheerly, so you can build to your desired effect. I applied these swatches with my fingers, and the product had kind of a greasy/silicone-y feel… like maybe I could keep blending forever, because they’d never completely dry down. I haven’t worn one on my cheeks yet, so if you have, I’m dying to know what the wear time is like (and whether my initial swatching impression was accurate). Sheerness and blendability can be a plus, especially if you’re fair and sometimes go overboard with cream blush (which I do).

Here are the light swatches:

Here are heavy swatches:

Quickie is bright cool bubblegum pink. Fetish is rose-wine with silver sparkles. Score is rose-pink with gold sparkles. Indecent is peach with gold sparkles. Greedy is plum. Crush is bright cool pink (deeper and more red than Quickie).

UrbanDecay.com offers one more shade that Sephora doesn’t carry, Bang (which looks like a bright orange-red). All shades except for Score and Fetish are vegan.

These chubby pencils are $20 each, and they are every bit as soft as their eyeliner counterparts. They’re also paraffin, mineral oil, and paraben-free.

I’ve found them to be waterproof and impressively crease-proof (though I did get a small amount of undereye flaking in 12 hours of wear). I believe this is the first shadow pencil ever to not-crease on me, and I’ve been using them without a base.

The pencils come in 12 shades (for now). Sin is a frosty beige-pink. Midnight Cowboy is shimmery peach-tan with silver sparkles. Narc is green with golden shimmer. Clinic is a blue-green shimmer with a few silver sparkles. Clash is bright! electric! aqua shimmer with a few silver sparkles. Morphine is a lavender duochrome that reflects more blue. Delinquent is a rich, royal purple shimmer with pink-purple sparkles. Lit is an orangey gold, or a very golden copper frost. Rehab is a nutty brown that reminds me of Underground 24/7 eyeliner. Wasteland is an olive-brown low-shimmer. Barracuda is (matte) black with silver sparkles. Mercury is a gunmetal metallic frost.

Though these are chubby pencils, it’s actually pretty easy to use them as eyeliner (reshape your tip by covering with a tissue, gently pinching between two fingers, and twisting to “resharpen”).

Urban Decay also encourages you to try layering and blending the shades — they even makes a brush specifically for the job: their 24/7 Shadow Pencil Blending Brush (it’s small, dense, bullet-shaped, and synthetic/vegan). I found that brush to be a little too firm for blending, and so far, I haven’t found the pencils as blendable as, say, powder shadows. Thus far, I’ve had the most success with a one-color wash on the lid, and a second color used as eyeliner.

The Shadow Pencils currently available for sale on Urban Decay’s website, but they should be in stores (Sephora, Macy’s) by the beginning of February.

Many thanks to Urban Decay, who provided these pencils for swatching purposes.

These colors are awesome, so buttery soft and deep-dark. A few remind me of the MAC Style Black mineralize shadows, so this palette could be good for people who couldn’t locate those.

The Black palette is $36, and comes with a mini 24/7 eyeliner in Zero and a mini Primer Potion in Eden.

Fortunately, the beautiful and talented Partymartyw was confident enough to buy this one sight-unswatched, AND she offered to let me republish her swatches and review. To see more of Partymartyw’s beautiful FOTD (face of the day) photos — and fall in love with essentially every makeup item she photographs — I highly recommend her blog.

Urban Decay has a winner with the Naked Palette! I have had a love/hate relationship with Urban Decay over the years. I love their unique colors, but sometimes their eye shadows are loaded with glitter fallout. I am happy to report that Naked is COMPLETELY free of pesky glitter.

The palette comes packaged in a plastic sleeve with a handy travel size of their Primer Potion. I use Primer Potion daily to keep my eyeshadow crease-free.

A cardboard insert tells the names of the shadows and eyeliners. The actual palette is flocked, which might attract fuzz, so I plan to keep the plastic sleeve.

The eye shadows are all full-sized, which is a great value. Inside is a double ended 24/7 eyeliner in Zero and Whiskey.

Virgin is a satin cool-toned pearl. Sin is a shimmery light champagne. Naked is a light neutral matte brown. Sidecar is a shimmery beige. Buck is a medium matte brown that is also neutral. Half Baked is an ultra frosty warm gold. Whiskey is a deep brown liner.

Smog is a rich shimmery bronze. Darkhorse is a deep blackened brown with a satin finish. Toasted is a frosty light bronze. Hustle is a deep brown with a subtle pink flash. Creep is a matte black with tiny silver shimmers. Gunmetal is a silvery deep gray. Zero is a deep black liner.




Overall Urban Decay did a great job with the range of shades and finishes in this palette. A must have for Urban Decay newbs and collectors alike! Naked retails for $44.

If you missed out on this palette on the Urban Decay website, have no fear — it is permanent. It is also on Sephora.com.

It’s pure coincidence that Katie offered to swatch and compare primers in a week that I was using the giveaway question to ask about primers — but what a great coincidence! Here are her swatches and review:

Sephora Eye Primer: I don’t particularly like the brush applicator because you can’t tell how much product you’re getting. I really dislike that it comes in such an unnatural color because it shows through the shadows and changes how they look. This primer really grabs onto the shadow when you first apply, but doesn’t hold onto it for long. Rating: C

MAC Prep + Prime Eye in Light: Comes in a pot, which allows you to control how much product you’re getting. It looks yellow on my arm, but on the eye that helps cover any bluish discoloration from veins. There are several other colors for people with darker skintones. I can actually use this as a concealer and an eye primer. Bonus: lasts forever! Mine is over a year old and still extremely creamy. Didn’t hold onto the color as well as the last two primers, but also didn’t affect the shadow texture very much. Rating: B

Urban Decay Primer Potion: I like that it’s nearly transparent and seems to blend into my skin; however I don’t like how hard it is to blend shadows when I use this primer. Dealbreaker: the cute packaging is completely dysfunctional. The doe foot applicator is pretty useless for your eyelid and doesn’t get nearly all the product out of the tube. Some choose to cut their packages open and scoop out the product, but I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. Rating: B

Too Faced Shadow Insurance: Transparent and blends into the skin very well. Comes in a nice squeeze tube that allows you to control how much product you’re getting. I find it’s easy to blend shadows over this within a minute or two of applying. Changed the texture of the shadows slightly, but kept colors vibrant. Rating: A

No Primer: Clearly, using any of these primers makes color more vibrant and longer-lasting than no primer at all.

The packaging of these worried me as soon as I saw it. Any cream product with such a large surface area is at high risk for drying out — and the case isn’t especially airtight. Perhaps creating the formula to work with the packaging has something to do with its failure to set in application? Pure speculation on my part.

Inks are $22 each, and, with the exception of Empire, all the shades are vegan. Pyrotechnics also isn’t opaque the way the other shades are — it’s almost like a glitter topcoat, but white instead of glitter.

Urban Decay Ink for Eyes: Pyrotechnics, Zero, Demolition, Binge, Empire, Loaded

There are three new Deluxe Eyeshadows — slightly larger, perhaps more intense, and generally shimmery (rather than glittery) compared to their “regular” eyeshadows. These are $18 each, have a smooth and pigmented powder formula, and each shade has a unique compact. Freakshow is a satiny black-blue purple, though it is “red” in comparison to Frigid (a bluer, more reflective purple). Ruthless is a lovely cool silk beige (and a vegan shade).

There are also three new lipsticks ($22): Naked, a bubblegum pink for the girly girls; and Oil Slick (sheer black) and Confession (burgundy) for those ready to embrace fall trend. All three shades are vegan — though as Sixxmum previously reported, Urban Decay’s lipsticks have a scent/taste that some dislike.

I am so pleased to say that my good friend Sammi (possessor of the most enviable lips in the world — Angelina herself is jealous) owns Naked and agreed to lip-swatch for us. If this doesn’t make you want to buy it, I don’t know what will:

Finally, there are two new 24-7 Glide-On Lip Pencils ($17, both vegan) — definitely a good thing, since their existing color range was a little lacking. Like the 24-7 eyeliners, Urban Decay’s lip pencils are fantastically creamy.