Urban Decay Visit & Build Your Own Palette System

Back in January, I got to take a trip to Newport Beach, CA to go to Urban Decay Headquarters for a super-secret-ultra-exclusive reason (seriously. I had no idea why I was going until I walked into their HQ, but it was Urban Decay, how could it be bad?) Upon arriving, I found out who else was invited- Temptalia, FrmHeadtoToe, Kandee Johnson, and  Refinery29. I also found out the reason for our visit- to get a sneak peek of Urban Decay’s new eyeshadow revamp, along with being able to create our own palette with the new colors, and showcase it on UD’s website!

From the UD website.. neat!

The Urban Decay HQ is really really neat, and not at all what you would picture for a “corporate headquarters”! It personifies the UD brand really well!

The wall you are greeted with when you walk in. LOVE this collage!

The Alice in Wonderland themed bathroom

From the men’s bathroom.. they made sure we saw the undies hanging from the antlers, lol!

I want this chair!

After the tour, we sat down and got to talk with Wende Zomnir, UD’s Executive Creative Director. She explained the new eyeshadow formula, packaging, and the new palettes to us. It was really neat to hear about the brand from one of the co-creators, and hearing stories about how different shades were made, and how they got their names. I’m a huge behind-the-scenes fan as far as movies go, and it’s no different for eyeshadow brands!

Overall, there are 68 shades in the new eyeshadow selection. Some are new, some are old faves, and some were exclusively found in previous palettes. The eyeshadows all have a new formula, which is smoother, and packs more pigmentation than ever before. The packaging also got an upgrade, its much sleeker, and has a nifty pop-out feature for those of you that prefer your palettes in a palette!

This brings me to another feature they added, the palette. Because the eyeshadows have a pop-out option, you can put up to six into these new palettes.

The palette come with a brush and a new eyeshadow, Walk of Shame, which is a pinkish-peach matte. It also has a full sized mirror on the lid.

Each of us got to choose 6 shadows to add to our custom palette that we got to show on the website. Here are the colors I chose..

Brights, brights, and more brights! Shocking, right? :)

(Sorry these photos aren’t the best lighting quality.. had to work with what I had at UD HQ!)

Zephyr- shimmery pearl

X- The most amazing peachy-melon eyeshadow. If you have blue eyes, buy this right now

Woodstock: Do I even need to explain why this one was chosen?

Kush: This is MUCH MUCH more grassy green than the photo. It looks olive here, it’s not!

Peace: Another shadow I don’t think I need to explain. Much more electric blue in person. amaaaazing

Psychedelic Sister: deep purple to round things out.

That photo was taken with Temptalias 10 pound RIDICULOUS DSLR. can you tell? it looks amazing even with the crap lighting, lol

A beautiful “I-didn’t-know-you-were-taking-a-picture” picture of me, curtesy of Christine

The next day, we each made a video to talk about how we felt about the new shadow system. Here’s mine!

Wow, thats a hot thumbnail face, Leesha! -__- haha

Now that the eyeshadows have been released, I found out that these are a LOT more expensive than I would have originally guessed- Each eyeshadow is $18, and the palette is $18, so if you were to fill the palette with just 5 shadows (and get the complimentary Walk of Shame shade) it would cost over $100. That’s a lot for 6 colors!  While I really do like the new shades that I picked out (I can’t speak for any other shades or formulas) that is a steep price to pay, considering brands like Inglot have 10 palettes for $40, and at MAC you can get a 15 palette, over double the shadows, for just over $15-$25 more.

Overall: Love the new formula, wish there was a discount for buying a full palette.
What you need: if you love brights, Woodstock and Peace.

Available for $18 per eyeshadow and $18 per palette from Urban Decay.