I recently picked up the Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette during the Sephora VIB sale and have used it both on others and myself a few times now. Now I have quite a few neutral palettes and most MAC shadows in pro palettes that I use most times, so this certainly wasn't a necessity for me. However, I don't own the first Vice Palette so I thought this would be a great way to carry some colour along with neutrals in one -very sexy- palette. I already owned a few great single shadows and both Naked and Naked 2 palettes so I was familiar with UD pigmentation and quality. And who can resist this packaging? So pretty!
The case is a very beautiful and sturdy hard shiny plastic with jeweled UD logo embedded into the lid. There is a spring push mechanism to open the case and inside a very large mirror takes up the whole inside lid. There is a good quality synthetic dual-ended brush included with a shorter flatter brush and a long crease-type brush. But the thing that sold me on this palette is the variety of fun colours which swatched great in store and the inclusion of some great neutral and even some matte shades.
Here are the swatches.
Top row, left to right: Smokeout, Lovesick, Shellshock, Coax, X-Rated
Second row from top, left to right: Prank, Madness, Strike, Stash, Poison
Third row from top, left to right: Radar, Damaged, Voodoo, Betrayal, Derailed
Bottom row, left to right: Dope, Toxic, Habit, Ambush, Rewind
Habit and Rewind are matte with a good texture. X-Rated and Smokeout are satin finish with the rest of the shadows being quite shimmery. Stash, Lovesick, Prank, Voodoo, Coax, and Poison have glitter in them. Lovesick has small glitter particles but it is not over the top. I do wish they had kept it matte however, because I almost always prefer a matte black. All shades are very pigmented and swatch easily. I found them easy to work with for the most part and easy to blend. Surprisingly to me, none of the shadows had horrible fallout, which many of UD shadows do.
Overall I'm glad I picked up this little gem because of the versatility and some standout shades like the metallic Shellshock, a high sheen extremely pigmented silver. Or perfectly named Smokeout, a beautiful deep plummy charcoal that's perfect for smoking out a look. The blues, greens and purples are going to get used in more of my looks now thanks to stunning shades like Prank, Madness, Damaged, Stash, and Voodoo.
I'm going to have lots of fun creating looks with this palette and I will be posting a few here.
Stay tuned my beauties!
