As the nights are getting darker (thanks magical clock change, loved that extra hour of sleep!) and the air is getting colder, it’s the perfect time for me to dig out my Urban Decay Black Palette. I distinctly remember buying this palette pretty much on release as it came out around the time I moved to Leeds, and was one of the things I ended up bonding with my BGFF over when I started my last job. You see, my BGFF – that’s best ginger friend forever – Catherine had started working at our old workplace a few weeks before me, and all new hires had to meet everyone in the company in their first week. Catherine had studied in Sheffield (wahey!) and had previously worked in Lush (one of my then favourite haunts!) and shopped in Rocky Horrors (my Sheffield place of work!) AND she was happy to chat fun stuff. I have no idea how we got onto the subject of makeup or Urban Decay, but the newly released Black Palette came up and boom… instant friend.
The Black Palette is a black cardboard kind of deal with silver glitter flecks. Inside is the usual big old mirror, and six 1g eyeshadows. Black Dog is a lovely black matte shade, and the remaining five shadows are all shimmers – Barracuda is a charcoal grey with silver glitter, Jet is a deep plum shimmer, Sabbath is a beautiful dark blue shimmer, Cobra is a gold and green toned sparkly black, and Libertine is a dark forest green shimmer. Though some of the shadows have a definite glitter edge to them they aren’t a complete pain in the arse like Urban Decay’s infamous Uzi (I love you, but I hate you, but I love you Uzi).
The set also came with a 24/7 eye pencil in Zero and a Primer Potion in Eden. The eye pencil is long gone – I’ve written before about my love for Zero (usurped now by Perversion) so a mini size Zero pencil will have ended up in my handbag(s) and lost to the ether. I’ve swatched the shadows below over the Primer Potion in both Eden (top) and Greed (bottom). Greed is a little bit more glittery, and I think it makes the colours pop a little more, but Eden does the trick just fine. Excuse the primery tide marks – I’m rather pale you see.
This is not a palette to reach for when you’re in a rush. The shadows are highly pigmented, soft and blendable (duh, Urban Decay) but there is some fallout and mistakes can be a little tricky to fix. I find that you can easily blend too much and end up losing the coloured edge of the shadows leaving you with a bit of a murky grey kind of look going on. It’s definitely a palette to take your time with. Do your eyes first, then your foundation.
I believe this palette is pretty hard to come by these days, but a quick look on eBay did turn up a couple. If you ever get chance to pick one up, I’d say it’s a nice palette to have – in spite of the few tricky aspects.
I’ve always wanted Urban Decay Makeup but still haven’t bought any though that black palette look’s like perfection! It’s so wonderful how you can find someone who shares the same interests with you and then easily bond with them. I mainly use Sugarpill, Nyx, and Mac cosmetics I keep thinking to myself I best use what I have first before buying anymore. My favorite sugarpill eyeshadow is dollipop if you haven’t checked out Sugarpill Cosmetics before I’m sure you would love them.