Urban Decay 24/7 Super Stash Swatches

I can't remember the last time I used a whole eye pencil. Enter the 24/7 "Super Stash" from Urban Decay!

The creamy smooth 24/7 pencils seem to be very popular, so I was psyched to get this little kit of mini pencils a few weeks ago as part of a little Urban Decay haul from ULTA (I've already reported on the outstanding Urban Decay Show Pony Shadow box). How cool to be able to try a variety of these pencils without committing to the full sizes!

Here's a little more info from the packaging (wow, shiny, I can see the reflection of me taking the photo!!):

The pencils in this smorgasbord range from the very basic and very black ("Zero") to gold ("Eldorado") to brights like purple ("Ransom") and green ("Graffiti"). On the other hand, using tiny, stubby pencils may not be as user friendly as the full size.

Left to right (above in the package and below swatched on my pale-skinned arm): Zero, Oil Slick, Corrupt, Eldorado, Graffiti, Binge, Rockstar, Stash, and Ransom.

Pictures were taken outside in late afternoon sun with some overhead clouds.

Zero (black) draws a thin, sleek fully black line.

Oil Slick NEW (black with silvery sparkle) drew a rather weak line, prompting me to draw back over it. It has some sparkle to it.

Corrupt NEW (dark brown) also drew a weaker line, which made me draw over to get it stronger.

Eldorado NEW is a bright gold with a metallic sheen to it. It went on opaque.

"Graffiti" is emerald green.

"Binge" NEW is a deep, dark blue. Could it be blurple?

"Rockstar" is a rich, deep dark brown.

"Stash" is a dark brownish olive green with iridescence.

"Ransom" is a lovely bright purple. I got the set out of order, as I couldn't get the top off of Ransom when swatching, so it comes last in my version. And, it seems to have broken off, hence the lack of clean line, there.

Below, the lighting best shows the sparkliness of "Oil Slick" as well as the full-on iridescence of of Eldorado (the gold) and Stash (olive, brownish green), as well as somewhat iridescence of Graffiti (bright green).

While I am at it, I've added to this comparison another 24/7 eye pencil "Covet" I got as part of a limited edition duo (duo with what? I'll get to that in a subsequent post!). Corrupt is a metallic dark green which showed up rather bluish green when I was in the outdoor light, qualifying it to go with a glitter eyeliner called "Peacock." Oops, I let the peacock out of the bag so to speak!

Below are the swatches under indoor lamplight, with "Covet" on the right.

Outdoors:

These pencils glide on when doing swatches on my arm. So far, I have used the "Covet" dark green, and I give it two sets of eyelashes up, so to speak! As well as two thumbs. It drew on smoothly in a strong, thin line over glittery, chunky shadow. I look forward to trying these mini pencils next. I love different color combos with shadows.

At $36 for the Super Stash, are these gems worth the money? I would say so (use a coupon or discount!), but I know there are some perfectly good drugstore eye pencils in great colors. Hmm, sounds like a research project!

In the meantime, with ten 24/7 eye pencils to my name, I am still seeing more pencils on the Urban Decay website that I need to have. Yikes! But the next purchase for me will not be more pencils but a sharpener for all the pencils I have!!!

Urban Decay "Show Pony Shadow Box"

When I was at my ULTA store a few weeks ago on the usual nail polish run, I found myself browsing the makeup. I already own an Urban Decay matte eyeshadow as well as the Urban Decay Primer Potion (UDPP), and all the little kits and sets were looking really tempting!! I helped myself to a couple of smaller eyeshadow kits in order to give other shadows a try. The Volume 2 of Urban Decay's "Book of shadows" (containing 16 shadows) didn't seem a good idea until I had tried a few more, and since they don't have a book of shadows in all matte, the little palettes were a way to test the waters with these shimmery ones.

First up is the "Show Pony Shadow Box" of six Urban Decay eye shadows.


What really caught my eye, besides the cute splashy artwork, was the miniature UDPP. How handy to have a travel size as a back-up for my full size primer potion! The colors also looked like good basic colors, with both neutral tones and some pops of color, all in warm tones.


Isn't this the cutest?? The artwork is by Kime Buzzelli.


Voila! Open, the palette reveals a mirror and the 6 shadows, with more decoration like on the outside.


Here are my home swatches, with apologies to the great arm swatchers such as KarlaSugar.



All of these shadows are quite shimmery on the surface. Starting on the top row left to right, "Snatch" is kind of shiny and sparkly and is a peachy, beige-y, coppery color---I seem to have a hard time finding the right words to describe the color. It seems to have some gold flakes in it. Against my finger, the shadow feels smooth but with some texture.


"Mildew" is a gorgeous olive drab green. Is this loden? It shows green in the palette but not a forest or emerald but a more neutral olive-y tone. On my finger it is soft and mossy...is it a moss green?? Swatched on the skin, it does have a shiny finish to it.


"Flash" is a beautiful medium purple that feels fairly smooth in texture on the skin.

"Painkiller" is very soft and smooth and easy to get a lot onto my finger. A very intense aqua blue. And look, it is very close in color to China Glaze Adore!!


"Smog" is a nice neutral light metallic brown color. It is very similar in color to "Toasted," below. Smog seems more of a greenish brown kind of color, though, while Toasted is a pinkish-coppery tone.


All together now!


Blaze and Mildew are at the bottom.

And, the kit wouldn't be complete with an eyeliner pencil, now would it? Here we have the 24/7 eye pencil in "Zero" which is black. Handy dandy!


Let's add the liner at to our eye shadow swatches to see it with the shadows.


The pencil goes on so smoothly. No one wants to be standing in front of the mirror, bearing down on her lids with her eyeliner pencil trying to get it to draw a good line. Pencils always go on pretty smoothly on the hand, while the real test is the eyelid; I do believe that this pencil that it will work nicely on the lid. I can't wait to try it, especially since I generally stick with brown or charcoal colors (with occasional green, blue or other fun colors....actually, I never use black now that I come to think of it).

More close-ups of the swatches with the liner.

Top to bottom: Snatch, Mildew, and Flash.


Top to bottom: Painkiller, Smog, Toasted.


Smog on top; Toasted on bottom.

The logical next step is to try some eye looks with these shadows. Yay, I can't wait! I am very glad I bought this sample kit. They are six great colors, it's great to have a test eye pencil in basic black, and I love having a mini size UDPP to take on the road!!

So far, I give this kit a preliminary Euridice 5 out of 5 YAY! rating, but the real score comes after trying them out for a while.

Urban Decay Apocalyptic Nail Kit

This time of year offers all kinds of great kits and gift sets in the stores. What better way to sample a new polish brand than to get a cute little gift set to experiment with? I could not resist the "Apocalyptic Nail Kit" from Urban Decay, found at my local ULTA store and online from Urban Decay for $26.00




The set consists of seven tiny bottles with polish names clearly labeled on the back, in a zipper case with clear front and dark purple metallic body.

"Our tightly-edited collection of shades lets you experiment without the commitment of full-size bottles." Perfect! Except....that description implies that once you finish experimenting, you can then commit to a larger bottle. Which doesn't seem to be available. Just this set....but let's come back to that in a minute, once we've taken a look at the polishes themselves.


"Fbomb" is a dark creamy red. Very classic yet more of a brick red than a bright siren ruby red. I like! I found it a little runny, but that could be just a matter of getting used to a new-to-me brand.


"Big Bang" is shimmery metallic hot pink that adds some "Bang!" to your nails. It's nice, just not my personal favorite. My Wet 'n' Wild "Lust" from the Craze collection has me covered on hot pink, but again, "Big Bang" is perfectly nice. And, it's an older color that was brought back.


"Meltdown" is a beautiful dark purple. It applied really well. Love!

My poor, once mighty index nail wears "Grunge" which is a shimmery charcoal navy. Very nice! The Urban Decay website describes Grunge as "metallic peacock." I have no idea what that means in relation to the color I swatched, which was a dark greyish color, not a bright green or blue.


At the other end of the case, we have a white and two more dark colors.

"White Widow" is an opaque white. Very cool. I was wondering what color outfits to wear this with. I am thinking black? At one point I was thinking dark red, like a red velvet cake! Uh, don't worry, I won't do that.


"Gunmetal" is a shimmery graphite gray, very true to its name. It goes on very sheer and looks good at two coats.



Last but certainly not least is "Apocalypse," a blackened purple, very glossy and opaque on the first coat. Love this!!

These bottles are rather tiny, at .017 US fl oz. Here's a comparison shot with a normal China Glaze bottle to give some context.


These fashionable colors are great for winter, and the kit is, of course, great as a gift for the nail polish fan who needs something new or for just sampling, as I am doing.

Don't forget for travel! I will be at the Modern Language Association annual convention, a scholarly conference held at the end of December. The standard uniform for academics at this meeting is black, with occasional very cool unique pieces, such as an awesome skirt or pair of shoes. (I find it interesting how academics dress certain ways in certain disciplines....I have been to conferences where both men and women wear plain boring suits, for instance.)

I am thinking this nail kit will be a perfect set to take along with me for this three day conference. I don't think I will be in the mood for happy, blingy holiday glitter manicures but won't necessarily need to be work conservative with this crowd.

So how does one get more of these without getting another set?? I just saw a sneak peak on Twitter of a new nail polish color, so I hope Urban Decay will bring out regular size bottles for at least some of this set. After all, Urban Decay was founded on cool nail polishes. A co-founder, according to the Urban Decay website, wanted nail polish in colors that were not available, and the company was soon born.

As a nail newbie, I don't know the story of why Urban Decay hasn't had nail polish available recently. I do like the Urban Decay Apocalyptic Nail Kit very much, and here's hoping for more!

Look of the Day!!

Ha! I just got things off my chest with the whole August is still summer, and so is September. And this morning it was so cool outside, and again when I left work this evening. Love it! Okay, it's fall! Well, I know it will go back to boiling hot, but I think this is bearing out my belief that September is the true transition month to full-on fall.

Last Wednesday I switched my new Orange Belen Echandia handbag to my Ignes Petra in soft maize, a wonderful pale yellow, silky soft leather and a soft contrast to the pink I was wearing. Nail noob: lavender nails, using Essie's St. Lucia Lilac---so pretty! Lovely contrast to pale yellow and coordinating with the purple lining. I was in the throes of my "it's summer, not a transition month!" At the time, it felt great, and in retrospect it sounds like an Easter egg look!! The following day, the yellow bag and lilac nails went with chocolate brown.


See more pics of my Ignes Petra in my Purse Forum reveal.

My Barielle nail colors arrived on Thursday, so on Friday: Barielle Polished Princess with a matte topcoat---love!! Um, no NOTD pictures, hmm, I messed up.

Today I had to get back to my new orange love (the BE handbag, in case that's not clear, lol!). But what nails? I had spent the weekend swatching and playing with all my new nail colors, and in the end, I went with a medium gray (Essie's "Chinchilly"), a top with blue and two greys, and the orange bag with an orange wool scarf inside for my overly airconditioned office.

Well, I needed a bit more orange, I thought. But what?? My shawl....and my eyeshadow!! I decided to try out the new matte HIP Duo in Poppy (previously swatched here), but instead of the chocolate brown in the duo, I would use gray!! Ha! How coordinated is that. So, the pale orangey color plus my new "Revolver" from Urban Decay.


Well, I am not terribly happy about posting pics of my face, but hey! You can't really talk about look of the day without showing in addition to the telling. I have an eye shape that is apparently call the "hooded eye." I don't have a clearly defined eyelid. I just learned this a few months back from a Prescriptives makeup person, who told me to apply shadow in the outer crease and not to put it in the crease area at the top of the eye. I've since seen some YouTube videos addressing eye shapes (although not a lot of the YouTube "gurus" have this same eye situation that I do). I don't know if it's age happening or if I have always had this hooded eye.

I applied the orange on my lid, which will only be visible when I close my eyes or lower my lids---soo the impact of this color is minimized. I then used a crease brush to put the gray in the outer corner crease. I lined my eyes with slate gray eye pencil and used black-brown mascara (L'Oreal Telescopic).

So, here I am at the end of a long day. Looking straight ahead, hood and all. You can't really see too much, but my eyes look blue!

My eyes also have a puffy and baggy tendency, especially on Mondays! Here is a view showing more of the shadows. The shadows definitely both had staying power.


How about a nice view of my newbie nails, with the one that broke off this morning!! Eyes closed.


From the pictures, I can tell that I got a little orange above the lid in the inner corner. I like the idea, for my hooded eye shape, of keeping a bright lid color just on the lid so that it's almost a surprise or just a fleeting image. The color is still there, though, to help the blueness pop. Supposedly, anyway! Gray is really my go-to color for highlighting blue eyes, so it's nice insurance if the orange just looks like, say, skin irritation, and doesn't do its job here.