Urban Decay The Vice palette review

I'm a huge fan of Urban Decay eyeshadows, but I'm relatively new to their products and don't possess many of them, so I felt justified when I ordered The Vice palette. There are many things that I love about the palette but there are also plenty I'd change or improve.

Let's take look then at the palette. The first thing you notice is the packaging. The palette was packed in a cardboard boxwith the UD logo on one side and the images of the eyeshadows on the reverse. The eyeshadows come in a purple case which has a rubbery feel to it. It's non-slippery and feels nice to touch but it attracts particles of eyeshadows and dust and fingerprints are impossible to remove from the surface. In the centre there is a crystal logo. Not too bad, not very pretty either. I like the idea of luxury to be communicated to me differently, this seems a bit tacky.

 

Press the button on the front side and the palette will open automatically to reveal 20 eyeshadows which, according to the manufacturer, are all brand new both colour- and formulawise. I didn't notice anything new about the formula and I'm not good enough at UD eyeshadows to be able to say whether the shades are all that unique. But I can definitely say is that this is a very diversified palette in terms of textures, finishes, performance and the quality of the products included. 

The best performing shadows are those with pearl, shimmery finish. All of them are incredibly long-lasting, pigmented and easy to blend. I love every single one of them, with Vice (true purple in my opinion), Muse (very pretty dark brown) and Penny Lane (gorgeous gold) being my favourites.
I don't think I'll be using Blitz a lot. Too yellow for my liking.
Nevermind and Echo Beach are nice blending colours but they look too similar. If one of them were matte,  the presence of both of them in the palette would be justified..

top row: desperation, muse, jagged, blitz, penny lane
bottom row: junkie, chaos, occupy, unhinged, black market

Some of the glittery eyeshadows perform surprisingly well. Junkie and Occupy apply like a dream and blend well. What's more they belong to the group of the most unique eyeshadows in the palette. Junkie looks emerald in the pan but in practice it verges on blue, which makes it the prettiest peacock shade ever.

Occupy seems similar to Armor at first glance but actually it's dark denim blue. They contain sparkle but it's not so pronounced when applied and blended.

Armor works well when applied directly onto primer. Applied over other eyeshadows it somehow loses pigmentaion and doesn't cling to my lid.

Jagged, which is a nice kaki shade, is one of the worst eyeshadows in history. Powdery, fall-outy, barely pigmented, and full of glitter which flies in all directions.

Noise is a totally useles pink with silver glitter. I've never seen anyone look good in a shade like this. Some bloggers or Youtubers do insist on wearing pinks on their lids but they all look as if they were trying to conceal signs of domestic violence with make-up. 

top row: provocateur, rapture, vice, noice, armor
bottom row: nevermind, echo beach, anonymous, freebird, laced

The palette also contains a couple of matte shades and two satins.

Anonymous is a nice highlight, Laced makes a decent blending base and Chaos is a very unique royal blue. Very saturated with colour, definitely not for the faint-hearted.

I was very excited to see a faded black satin eyeshadow (Black Market), as this shade seemed particularly unique to me.  Unfortunately, it doesn't perform as well as I hoped it would. It's a bit hard, my brush fails to pick the product. What's more it's not that easy to blend and tends to look patchy sometimes.

Desperation is a dark gray satin with brown undertones. To me this is the black horse of the palette. At first I didn't even glance at this eyeshadow but once I tried it out I fell in love with it. It's amazing. Smooth, pigmented, blendable, and its unusual shade matches almost all other shadows in the palette.

So what would I change about the palette?

The shade range seems diversified, but in practice many shades are near dupes of one another. Pink shades like noise or Freebird are totally unflattering. And finally, there are too many glitters in the palette, I'd substitute some of them with those pearl/satin/irridescent ones.

Here go a couple of looks I created using the palette.

armor (centre) + black market (crease) after 8 hours of wear

nevermind (base)+ muse (crease) + desperation (outer corner). forgot to apply mascara

rapture (centre) + vice (crease) + laced (dowblended)

My favourite look. Very elegant and festive. I called it Golden Eye.

black eyeliner by MAC (all over the lid) + penny lane all over the lid + black market in the crease

black eyeliner by MAC (all over the lid) + penny lane all over the lid + black market in the crease + penny lane along the bottom lashline

occupy all over the lid + chaos on the lash line + blue mascara by MAC

occupy all over the lid + chaos on the lash line + blue mascara by MAC

And finally: a peacock eye!

chaos in the centre + junkie around it

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.