Urban Decay 15 Year Anniversary Eyeshadow Collection (incl. swatches)

The other day I had a few minutes to spare at Utrecht Central Station and decided to pop into Sephora which is located in the adjacent shopping mall. Lo and behold, I found the prettiest of pretty things: the Urban Decay 15 Year Anniversary Eyeshadow Collection palette! I had already read about this on US blogs/ vlogs, but I didn’t think this would be released over here. How wrong I was about that one. So when I saw this I just had to have it.

The palette features 15 unique colors which were released especially for UD’s 15 anniversary. You will not find these shades anywhere else but this palette! Scroll down and have a look at the prettiness.

This starts with the packaging. Sorry about the smudges on it, but doesn’t that look pretty? It’s actually pretty heavy too. Some of the case is metal so that must be why.

The purple velvet box the palette comes in doubles as a jewelry case or w/e you need to store some trinkets. I think I will just use it as an extra layer of protection for my palette.

Detailing on the side of the case. You can’t see it that well, because of the reflection of my camera.

The jeweled initials embossed on the case. I say purday!

The eyeshadows. The box comes with 15 eyeshadows (one for each year). The first column includes 5 neutral shades: midnight rodeo, midnight 15, vanilla, flow and chase (from top to bottom). The middle column features brights: tainted, junkshow, omen, evidence, deep end. And lastly you get 5 darker shades: deeper, M.I.A., ace, blackout and half truth.

All these colors are super pretty and have that infamous velvety Urban Decay structure. The only let down in the palette for me is Blackout as it isn’t very pigmented. You will see what I mean when you view the swatches below*:

Lights/ neutrals:

midnight rodeo, midnight 15, vanilla, flow and chase (from left to right)

I love neutral shades the best, as they are so wearable and I love how this palette has 3 very pretty highlight colors (the ones in the middle) and two neutral overall lid colors that could make any eyelook work. My favorites have got to be flow and chase: great pay off and very nice texture. Midnight rodeo is a bit chunky as you can see, but still very well pigmented. Midnight 15 is also pretty but a bit on the sheer side if you ask me and vanilla isn’t that special to me, but still a pretty color.

Brights:

tainted, junkshow, omen, evidence, deep end (from left to right)

One reason why I love Urban Decay is because they do the best bright eyeshadows. My faves in this row have got to be junkshow (wow, when you want that true POP of color), omen (I love that blueish hue) and deep end (can you say perfect teal/ ocean blue color?)? Tainted is much lighter and a bit more sheer, whereas Evidence does have a very deep royal blue tone to it which I like. However I find it hard to work with blue eyeshadows as I find it makes me look tacky, but I see that shade as a challenge.

Darks:

deeper, M.I.A., ace, blackout and half truth (from left to right)

Can you say wow again? I’m loving the dirty gold toned Deeper. Look at how rich that color is! This is definitely one of my favorite shadows in this palette. M.I.A. is also a very rich dark chocolate brown that will make a great smokey eye. As you can see, Black Out is the only true matte in the palette and a bit of a let down, as you don’t get the color pay off as with the other shades. However, it does smudge very nicely and as you can see at the top of the swatch, it is buildable, which, for such an unsubtle color as black, can come in handy. I was surprised by half truth which is more of a purple with a blue undertone. When I looked at this in the palette I definitely didn’t expect that.

As far as I’m concerned, the only thing missing from this palette, is a good green. Even though, these shades are all easy to combine and can take you a long way. I can recommend this palette to anyone who wants to buy some high end eye shadows, but doesn’t know where to start, because this is a very good and complete shade selection.

A downside could be the retail price. This palette retails for €48, but at Sephora you do get a standard discount of 15 %, making it just over €40. Still I can understand that some people will think that’s expensive, but keep in mind that you do get 14 very good eye shadows and one mediocre one for that price.

*All swatches are one swipe with no base in artificial lighting, except for black out.

If you’d like I can make a look of the day with this some time this or next week. Let me know in the comments below which colors you’d like to see in action!