Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette Review and Swatches

This is my first follow up post to my USA Trip hauls which I recently posted about - click here to visit.

I will be reviewing the Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette. When this first came out I immediately put it on my wish list for my trip coz it looks so pretty. I already have a couple of palettes from Urban Decay: the Original Naked Palette and the Fun Palette. And even though I already have tons of eyeshadows in many different colours I just had to get it. I actually purchased this before I even left Australia because UD had a 20% off Family & Friends sale so I took advantage of this and purchased the palette and sent it to my accommodation at my last stop in the States.

The RRP of this palette is $59 but with the 20% off it was $47.20. I thought this was a great price as it includes 20 eyeshadows and a double ended brush.

PACKAGING

Oh my gosh! I really love the packaging. It's a beautiful gorgeous marbled purple colour. The packaging is made from plastic I think but it feels sturdy. To open the palette there is a button you press and this gently opens the palette. 

The Urban Decay logo is a raised logo with diamond like stone..

There is a large mirror which is the same size as the palette so this is handy if you use this for travelling. 

EYESHADOWS

There are 20 eyeshadows in this palette and there is a variety of colours from blues, purples, pinks, greens and neutral.

The texture for most of the shadows were nice and smooth and the pigmentation for most of the colours were really good and they had good payoff. There were a couple that were less pigmented and were harder to swatch but I will mention it as I go through the swatches.

There were only 2 matte eyeshadows in the whole palette and they are Habit (nude/light beige) and Rewind (neutral brown).  The others were either metallic/frosted finish, satin finish or glittery/shimmers.

I liked most of the colours in the palette but it would've been nice if there were a couple or a few more matte shades or blending shades. 

BRUSH

The palette comes with a dual-sided synthetic brush, one to apply all over the lid and one for blending. With my original Naked Palette I really liked the eyeshadow brush that it came with because it was able to pick up and pack on the eyeshadows evenly. However with this one I did not really like the eyeshadow brush so much as I had to dip it into the colour several times. I liked the blending brush a bit  more though. It is different than other blending brush I have as it's quite narrow so it can apply colour more precisely on the crease. It does blend it nicely but I think if you want to blend it better you will need a fluffier brush.

SWATCHES

So here are the swatches. I took the photos row by row and I took photos of the swatches without and with flash. The top image is the swatches taken without flash and the bottom image is taken with flash.

Row 1: Smokeout, Lovesick, Shellshock, Coax and X-Rated

Out of the 5 eyeshadows in the first row, the last 3 (ShellShock, Coax and X-Rated) have the most pigmentation. I found Lovesick (the 2nd shade - matte black with micro-glitter) didn't have a great payoff and felt very dry. I had to swatch it several times to get the colour to turn up. Smokeout (dark chocolate brown with satin finish) was quite similar but not as bad. 

I wasn't sure about the pinks in this row but after trying it I actually quite like them. Coax was more shimmery and a slightly warmer pink than X-rated which is a satin finish.

Row 2: Prank, Madness, Strike, Stash and Poison

My favourites in this row are Madness and Strike.

I found that Poison was a little dry and you have to swatch it a few times to build up the colour. 

Row 3: Radar, Damaged, Voodoo, Betrayal and Derailed

I love the purples in this row. Betrayal is so gorgeous! It's a duo-chrome bright purple with lilac/blue shift. It's so gorgeous on its own or it works well with Voodoo (Purple with a metallic/frosty finish and glitter). I also love Radar, Damaged and Derailed, all of these colours had really great pigmentation and the texture is smooth and buttery. 

Row 4: Dope, Toxic, Habit, Ambush and Rewind

The last row contained neutral colours. This row has the 2 matte colours, Habit (a nude/light beige) and Rewind (neutral brown). Habit is great for highlighting the brow bone as it matches quite closely to my skin colour. These 2 matte colours has great pigmentation and the texture is so smooth and buttery.

Dope, Toxic and Ambush also had really great colour pigmentation. 

Overall I really like this palette and it's great value for what it costs. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a palette with many different colours or you love colourful eyeshadows. However if you are looking for a more wearable palette for work or everyday wear this might not be for you because there aren't too many neutral shades in this palette.  

Hope you enjoy this review and if you have any questions about this palette feel free to ask me in the comments. I will also try to post some looks and EOTDs using this palette.

USA Trip Cosmetics Hauls

So I apologise for being MIA for the last couple of months. I was n on vacation to America. I was away for 2.5 weeks and it was amazing! I loved every second of it. And then after I came back I got sick and then things just started catching up and getting busy so I haven't had time to update my blog.

Anyway on my trip one of the things I loved was the shopping. OMG shopping was so cheap over there. I think I spent way too much and bought way too much make makeup but at the time I thought if I didn't buy I'd regret it.

Anyway here are my hauls from my trip!.

*Just a warning, this is going to be a long post!!*

Before I left for my trip I actually already went shopping and shipped a few things to my accommodation in San Francisco which is my last stop in the trip. Urban Decay had their Family & Friends 20% off sale so I took advantage of that. 

I purchased the double set of Urban Decay Primer Potion in the original colour and Sin, the Smoked 24/7 eyeliner pencil set, Vice 2 Palette and 2 24/7 full size eyeliner pencil in Crash and Lust.

From Sephora I did a few hauls… I purchased a Benefit set which contains travel sets several Benefit Cosmetics products, the Too Faced Beauty Blogger Darlings, Tarte Amazonian Clay 12Hour blush in Exposed, Korres Greek Yoghurt Primer, Korres Mineral Setting Powder and Benefit brow pencil. And because I spent way too much at Sephora I managed to get some points which I used to get a mini size Clinique Chubby stick.

Now I also went a bit crazy in MAC cosmetics but considering everything was so much cheaper compared to Australia I didn't regret it. All the sales assistants over there were really nice and every time I go there I got a full makeover lol. 

I've been eyeing Ruby Woo lipsticks for a while. I did try it previously a few years ago but back then I was a bit afraid to wear bold red, but this time I tried it I really love it! So I bought it along with the MAC Pro Longwear lip liner in Kiss Me Quick. 

I know it's a bit weird but I actually brought my empty cases from MAC so I could do the Back2Mac over there since in Canberra I can only swap for the Top 20 lipsticks which I already own some and the rest I don't really like. I had 12 empty cases and if I went to the Pro store I was able to swap it for either a lipstick, lipgloss or an eyeshadow. I got MAC Cranberry eyeshadow and MAC lipstick in On Hold with the Back2Mac program. Along with that I also bought the MAC Lip Primer, MAC Lipstick in Lustering, and the MAC Divine Night Collection Set.

When I visited San Diego the Divine Night Collection was just launched and they had a huge launch day with all these dancers and free makeover. It was amazing! I bought one of the sets which contained MAC fluidline, MAC Paintpot, a mascara and a double ended brush in a nice travel bag.

I bought a few Sigma brushes just to add to my brush collection. I got the F20 Large powder brush, F80 flat kabuki, E45 small tapered blending brush and E20 short shader brush..

I also purchased the Z Palette pro, 2 beauty blender sponges and the beauty blender solid cleanser. 

And lastly, on my last day I went to Bloomingdales. I wanted to try out the Chanel Vitalumiere Aqua foundation which I have heard good things about. As soon as I tried it I loved it and just had to get it. It feels so natural and light on the face. And it was only $45 so it's definitely a bargain compared to the Australian price which was around $80 I think. Then I went over to Lancome and I saw they had a special promotion going on where if you bought any 1 product from Lancome you can purchase this set with a huge beauty bag for only $60 with a value of over $300. I wasn't going to buy it at first but my temptation was too strong and I ended up getting it. I thought it would be good for hits as well for the products that I won't be using. So I ended up purchasing a Lancome mascara primer for $24 and the set.

So that's it, that's all my Cosmetics haul. I didn't really buy any skin care products because I am still happy with my current routine which consists of Antipodes and Botani products.

I will try to review most of the products that I bought as I use them. I will also do a blog post later on for the Urban Decay Vice 2 palette and provide swatches.