A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

The soon-to-be-released Black Palette from US eyeshadow maestro’s Urban Decay is an altogether darker affair than the recent Naked set…

The Black Palette includes 6, 1g eyeshadows, 1 mini 24/7 eye pencil in zero and a mini eyeshadow primer potion in new ‘shade’ Eden.  We haven’t seen Eden on these shores before so I was excited to be able to take a look when I received this sample last week.

The packaging is compact.  There’s been complaints about how cumbersome some of Urban Decay’s palettes are and they’ve clearly listened to the fans.  There are no hidden drawers or slots for your car keys.  Barely an inch of wasted space… infact, the included UDPP (Urban Decay Primer Potion) sits seperately from the palette once taken out of the exterior packaging.  The Urban Decay Black Palette is thoroughly portable if you need it to be.

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You thought you’d seen all the palettes Urban Decay had to offer this Autumn/Fall/Winter?  Not yet you haven’t!

Introducing the antithesis to The Naked Palette…

Calling all rock chicks, Urban Decay have another new palette coming up and this one’s for you! The Black Palette (£23) is your antidote to spring pastels and summer neutrals.

Inspired by an era of explicit unbridled rock, Urban Decay’s The Black Palette is sure to unleash your inner Alice Cooper in no time!

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The Black Palette by Urban Decay allows even the meekest in the karaoke bar to own their inner rocker.

Conjure up your dark side with our six black-based shadows.  Create unlimited smokey-eye combinations that boost your confidence level to ‘no shame.’  Five shadows reveal veiled color shifts of blue, green, purple, gold and silver, and the sixth is pure deep black.

Whether you want deep coverage, or smudged out sheerness, these rich and velvety, unadulterated shades can party all night long and still look walk-of-shame worthy in the morning.
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Let’s take a closer look at the shades that will be included:

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BLACK DOG – A deep matte black
BARRACUDA – Black with silver shift
JET – Black with deep shimmering purple shift
SABBATH – Black with deep shimmering blue shift
COBRA – Black with shimmering gold shift
LIBERTINE – Black with deep shimmering green shift

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The Black Palette will also include a deluxe mini of Eden Eyeshadow Primer Potion (a matte finish nude eyeshadow primer) and a 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Zero.

Ohhh, I do love me a good smoky eye!

Urban Decay’s Black Palette (£23 or €33) will be available from September instore selected Boots, Debenhams & House of Fraser Stores and online at the usual Urban Decay stockists.

C’mon, tell me!

Here’s (a virtual) £60.

The catch is, you can only buy one thing with it and it’s got to be a palette.

And NO(!) it’s not allowed to be the new Urban Decay Naked palette or we’d all just say that one (mostly!)

Here’s my pick:

The LORAC Private Affair palette ($38)

Look at those beautiful cool tones!  I’m not saying that I’m wishing Autumn/Winter upon us… but if I had this palette, it would make the inevitable seasonal shift much easier to bear!

Anyone else fancy a bit of virtual Sephora Sweep – link me up!

The Smashbox Muse palette is from the 2009 Spring Collection.

10 positively creamy shades… pastels on top, stronger shades on the bottom.

The brush that it comes with is surprisingly soft and useable… the top row shades are gentle and spring-like, whilst the others comple the more dramatic pairing.

I’m delighted that I picked up this palette and right now, it’s an absolute steal over at Just Beauty Direct priced at £13.74

Do you wear pastels?

No, not literally… get your hands off!

I’ve never claimed to be a makeup artist nor hold any aspirations to cultivating a talent in this field.  I simply don’t have it in me.  Whether it’s cosmetics or clothes… I often struggle to merge individual pieces into a successful ensemble.  Or at least, one that does anything justice.

I’ve been handswatching and ‘playing’ with this beautiful Estee Lauder Blue Dahlia palette that was in my goodie bag of pieces from the upcoming Tom Pecheux Autumn collection (releasing in August).  It’s a daring choice of shades for a palette… it’s strong and needs to be worn with confidence.  I can do that, but I’d love a little bit of peer guidance to point me in the right direction.

So, the palette consists of 5 shades:

~ Matte Black
~ Shimmering Navy
~ Shimmering Teal
~ Metallic Grey/Taupe
~ Sheer White with Teal Sparkles (best for layering to add irridescence)

How would you put together a look with this palette?  Would you use all the shades at once? or just a few at a time.  I think I’m struggling with incorporating those two strong blues in one look.  Can it be done?  How would you attempt it?

Truly excited by this…

It’s gorgeous no?  I dug it out of my goody bag that I was given at the Sleek MakeUP blogger event this week.

I’m loving the new Sleek i-Divine cardboard sleeves… not so much the coloured cases, but the sleeves are a total win for me!

Visible from outer space.

It’s a bright palette… I personally wouldn’t wear these as eyeshadows… but I’d buy it anyway, ‘cos these are gonna make some cracking Summer eyeliners.  I’ve already worn both blues blended tightly along the lashline… fabulous!

Like the Bohemian palette before it, the Sleek Circus palette contains a mixture of shimmer and matte shades.  Mostly heavily pigmented (with 2 exceptions) this is an exciting selection.  It’s exciting because it’s pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone… without going too far.  It’s not the acid palette… I couldn’t wear that one.  This, I can work with… it’ll spice things up nicely!

Here’s a quick colour description of the shades…

1. Guava Pink (Matte)
2. Purple (Shimmer)
3. True ‘shrimpy’ Pink (Matte)
4. White (Matte)
5. Bright Yellow (Matte)
6. Fuschia (Slight Shimmer)
7. Black (Matte)
8. Greyed Lilac (Matte)
9. Chartreuse (Shimmer)
10. Azure Blue (Matte)
11. Midnight Blue (Shimmer)
12. Orange (Matte)

They will be getting named in due course by one of the lucky bloggers who won the opportunity at the event!

4 & 8 are crapola.  Heavily swatched, I’m just not getting any colour payoff from them dry or wet.  They’re write-offs unless you have incredible patience.  I’m not bothered about the white, but it’s a shame that the lilac is so disappointing… it’s an interesting shade.

Stand out shades for me are: 1, 2, 5, 9, 10 and 11.

Infact, I’d buy the palette for 11 alone.  It’s perfection.

The Sleek Circus Palette will be released in June, what do you guys think?  Impatient or Indifferent?

I’ll just come out with it shall I?

Sleek MakeUP got in touch, they liked my idea of naming the individual shades in their i-Divine palettes (admittedly probably not original) SO much, that they’re going to name ALL past, present and future i-Divine shadows!!  How cool is that?

Oh, but that’s not the only thing…

They wondered if I’d mind terribly if they used the names I’d already invented for the Bohemian Palette?!  Hmmmm…. do I mind? Um… NO!

So… kinda officially…

I’m not sure how it’s gonna work for future palettes, if the names will be printed on the back or if they’ll just be referenced on the website…. whatever, not really bothered – LOOK!  I named 12 eyeshadows!

I would call this my proudest moment yet, but it might cost me a marriage and motherhood… so I won’t, but well… *squee*

I also have SOME EVEN MORE exciting news to break a little later in the week, so stay tuned!

Check out my first homemade palette!

Ignore the 3 on the right, I totally cheated and shoved 3 MAC pans in there for the photo whilst my last 3 pigments were drying.

The palette is mostly made up from The She Space pigments, I find that one full size pigment fills a pan fairly nicely.  I’ve also sneaked in a BarryM Dazzle Dust and a few Elemental Beauty shadows too!

What ya reckon?  Any of you ladies press your own loose eye shadows?  Any interest in a pictorial on my pigment pressing methods?

A quick (quick? who am I kidding, took me ages!)  FOTD showing off a couple of the matte shades from the new Sleek MakeUP Bohemian Palette:

Marron on the lid and lower lashline
Wafer in the crease
Moto-X on the upper lashline and outer V

gah… hooded lids…

oh well, you can at least see Marron UNDER my eyes right?

Dude, I honestly CAN blend!  The camera has totally washed out wafer which I blended into the socket line to ease the transition between browbone and lid.

I was surprised by how much I’m enjoying playing with some mattes, they’re looking more sophisticated and I feel like they’re blending less ‘muddily’ than shimmer shades.  Am I imagining things oh matte addicts?  I’ve really not worn mattes much before, but I just seem to be creating more polished looks with these than normal (not that you could tell from my photos).

And here’s a brighter EOTD with the Bohemian Palette:

Emperor on the lid
Sanguine in the crease
Moto-X into the socket to darken

Ok, that’s enough badly executed FOTDs from me for at least a year, apologies for any nightmares you may suffer as a result of viewing this post.  Hopefully though, it will help you decide whether or not you’ll be spending your lunchbreak today in Superdrug or Boots 😉

…Or just ‘divine’ according to the packaging.  And yano what?  I think they might be right…

Sleek MakeUP have truly outdone themselves on the design front.  Reminiscent of MAC’s soon to be released (in the UK) Give me Liberty of London collection with it’s whimsical scrolls and monochromatic base design.  Someone in the Sleek MakeUP Art dept. has their fingers very much on the pulse.

When the palette arrived unnanounced from Sleek HQ, I was momentarily thrown by all this new styling!  Ordinarily enclosed in a clear plastic carton, the Sleek MakeUP Bohemian palette finds itself housed in cardboard.  I don’t know if this is a permanent shift in packaging, but it’s one I prefer.  It’s easier to open at the counter to make sure you haven’t managed to pick up the one palette that’s been smashed to smithereens by an over-zealous 9 year old.

The actual palette itself has undergone a bit of a transformation too, no longer a sleek black box I’m undecided on the new look.  It looks a bit cheap, the stark white seems to emphasise it’s overall plastic-ness.  I think if Sleek MakeUP had continued the graphics (or even just the black swirls) from the outer sleeve onto the palette itself, it would have been a knockout.

In fairness though, do we care?  Probably not…

With 12 generously sized eye shadows contained under the lid, the Sleek MakeUP palettes retain their excellent value for money credentials.  Let’s take a closer look at those eye shadows.

Sleek MakeUP Bohemian Palette is billed as being inspired by “antique trinkets, vintage finds” and um… “Sienna Miller”.  Despite this obvious drawback *removes tongue from cheek*, they’ve managed to pull off a fabulous array of strong shades that are sure to pack a punch.  Will I use all of them?  Probably not… but I don’t think I’ve ever used every shade in a Sleek MakeUP i-Divine palette and that hasn’t stopped me buying them thus far.

The Bohemian palette is comprised of 3 shimmers and 9 mattes.  Woah there!  As a shimmer girl, I have to admit to being a little disappointed to see so many mattes…. I mean, go buy the Chaos palette if you want mattes!  Still, I’m nothing if not adventurous (honest!) and do realise that I’m not the only makeup-loving chick in the world… let’s have a closer look…

Oh, but before we do… For the love of God, will someone at Sleek MakeUP please consider naming the i-Divine shadows?  No?  Fine… I hereby christen these shades with some twatty names on your behalf…

Top Row from Left to Right… (S) = Shimmer, (M) = Matte

1. Gilt – Golden Olive (S)
2. Russet – Rust (S)
3. Marron – Maroony Chestnut (M)
4. Calendula (shutup, they’re MY names) – Banana Custard (M)
5. Anaemia (come on MAC, employ me already) – Off-White (M)
6. Neutron – Black (M)

7. Wafer (It SO is, right?) – Pale Tan (M)
8. Sanguine – Raspberry meets Cranberry (S)
9. Clover – Bright Grassy Green (M)
10. Overdyed – Indigo Denim (M)
11. Emperor – Purple (M)
12. Moto-X (yeah, I’m bored of shade naming now) – Dirt Brown (M)

And the swatches…

Bar Clover and Calendula… I think I’m happy to wear the rest of the shades, which is more than I thought when I first looked at the palette.  My only other ‘not sure’ was Wafer which actually works fabulously in the crease to blend out a more vibrant shade.

The pigmentation of the mattes is (as expected) not as strong as the shimmers, but they’re easily buildable without looking chalky and the above swatches show no more than 3 swipes (2 in most cases).

I’ve given Sleek a hard time recently on Lipglossiping.com…. from Eye Dusts that spill to liquid liners that flake, I’ve been disappointed with the quality of some of the brand’s recent offerings.  So it’s just as well they’ve come along and hit this one out of the ballpark.

Sleek MakeUP i-Divine Bohemian Palette is Limited Edition and will be available from Wednesday 17th March at some Superdrug stores (not my local – boo!) and online at Sleek MakeUP priced at £4.99.

International ladies, please note that Sleek MakeUP now accept online orders and offer international postage.

I just got mine, well… Leila’s.

Remember, SHD1 for free delivery and PE5P will give you10% off (yeah, I found that one AFTER I ordered)

I’ve received clarification from Urban Decay’s PR representative in the UK.

You’ll be pleased to know…

Debenhams.com will be restocking the Alice in Wonderland on their website. They’re hoping to have this done within the next 2 days, but can’t give an exact time frame.  Advice is to simply keep checking.

The palette will then hit Oxford Street Debenhams on the 28th of February.

On the 1st March, the palette will roll out to Debenhams stores nationwide.  Check to see if your local has a UD counter because if you pop down to your local counter, you’ll also have a (no purchase necessary) chance to win a pair of tickets to see Alice in Wonderland at the cinema.

Please refer to this post for further shopping details.

I hope that eases the confusion x