Haii,

A while back (around mid-year), Mecca Maxima started stocking the Urban Decay Vice lipstick and liner range. It features 100 colours in a range of finishes and are $28 each – a great price for top notch lipsticks. Now, for Christmas, Urban Decay have come out with lipstick palettes featuring 12 shades of the Vice range. Urban Decay released 2 – Blackmail (available from Mecca and the one I have today) and Junkie (available from Sephora US).

Packaging
The packaging is made from the same gun-metal and gold hard plastic that a single lipstick comes in. It’s super reflective – i.e incredibly hard to take a photo of. It comes with a mirror (yay – perf for touch ups on the go!) and a plastic flap cover that covers the lipstick pans. I don’t know what it’s purpose is to be honest. Is it to keep the lipsticks from drying? But theres another cover anyway?! Is it to mix shades on? Then it’d be metal right? I’m so confused.

Shades
I prefer this colour selection over the Junkie palette (pic from Pinterest) because the colours are a little bit more wearable in the Blackmail palette. However, a few shades cross over – 714, Big Bang and Firebird.

The shades in the Blackmail palette are prominently variations of pinks and reds and nude-ish tones.

I’m just going to apologise in advance for the horrible swatches. I was tired and was trying to get them done before sunset.

Sheer Shame (sheer maroon-red)
This lippie is sheer but still is very pigmented. I probably wouldn’t wear this on it’s own but have been topping matte lipsticks (or even the shade Blackmail).

Firebird (deep fuchsia cream)
I love this shade! It’s so pretty! My lips are dark and unfortunately it shows the difference in lip colour. I “purposely” overlined here so you could see what I mean. I guess it looks ombre with its done within my lip region.

Big Bang (bright pink sparkle)
I liked this a lot more than I thought. It’s a light sparkly shade that actually looks nice on my skin. Definitely a tea-party shade. (Does anyone even go to tea-parties?)

Disobedient (light pink cream)
Very 2009 Nikki Minaj. The texture of this lipstick was nice and creamy but it was just too light to be work on its own. Because it was creamy, it was a bit difficult to layer because the brush would just cut through the layer underneath. To make this work, I’d layer and then smooth with my finger or a wider brush.

EZ (bright red cream)
I really loved this colour – it was so bright and creamy! 

714 (bright red mega matte)
This was kind of like EZ but a bit muted and darker (by a littttle). It is very long lasting!

Blackmail (deep berry matte)
This colour reminded me of MAC Ariana Viva Glam and had the same problem – it’s patchy af 😦

Conspiracy (plum bronze shimmer)
This kind of reminds me of ColourPop Man Eater… Kinda.. I liked it. I wore it out and got told I looked hella cool and retro.

Amulet (pink shimmer)
I loved wearing this as an alternative to brown nude. (See 1993)

Ex-Girlfriend (sheer shimmer)
This added a bit of colour and shine to my lips. I had to pat it with my finger to make sure it wasn’t streaky.

1993 (medium brown matte)
I la-la-love this shade! I actually have this in the full size too.

Vanished (sheer light nude)
I really didn’t like this shade. Sure, it’s sheer. But it’s just too light for me.

Overall, I love the colours and although some of them didn’t work for me on their own, I can just mix them up. The only downside is probably that the formula is so soft, that the brush applied it quite streakily. To prevent this, I just used my finger and blended in the streaks.

I found that I could wear a majority of these shades. Some of them are a little out there for me (like that hella light pink) but a majority of them were wearable shades with a bit of a twist.

Brush
The palette also comes with a retractable lip brush. I quite like it! It’s soft so it only picks up a little product at a time but the curved end allows it to hug the corners of the lips and make a sharp rounded line around them. It applies the stiff colours and shimmer shades great, but the really creamy ones struggle a little.

Cost
This palette costs $57 from Mecca Maxima (in Aus). A single Urban Decay Vice lipstick costs $28, making this palette worth about 2 shades. There are 12 shades in this palette, so each shade costs $4.75. Each shade in this palette weighs 0.7g (0.02 oz). This is a super great deal compared to an individual lipstick, the single ones weigh 3.3g (0.11 oz), whilst the total weight of the product in the palette is 8.4g. So you’ll be paying the price of 2 lipstick for 2 lipsticks and a half. And I mean, how often do you finish a full lipstick anyway?

Would I repurchase?
Lipstick palettes are traditionally used by makeup artists as it is more convenient to have a number of shades all in one rather than having 100s of tubes. For me, I like to apply a lipstick then take the product with me for touch ups throughout the day. Admittedly, this is difficult when you’re using a shade from the palette. I have been carrying this palette in my handbag and it’s convenient in the sense that you can just flip it open and there’s a mirror and brush. But it also looks a bit odd when you’re touching up in public. Also it’s not something you can just keep in your pocket if you’re going somewhere without a bag.

However, it is a great way to try a whole range of colours you may not normally go for. I think the price point makes this really accessible for people because you get 12 shades for the price of 2. If you can deal with not touching up/carrying the palette around (it’s pretty light) then this may just have to be your next purchase! I’d definitely recommend swatching the shades just to get a feel for the textures of the shades. They were all so creamy, so if you’re not into that… you may not like this palette!

But yes, I would repurchase! It’s great value for money and has a bunch of shades I will definitely wear!

Has anyone else tried this palette? 🙂