Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV Swatches and Review

My Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV arrived on Thursday, so of course I had to drop everything I was doing to take pictures of it. I always get SO excited about Urban Decay palettes, but the Books of Shadows especially. And hey... I was able to order this one before it sold out, how about that! Actually, it still hasn't sold out like they usually do, but it is limited edition so it won't be around forever.

The outer box. No clear plastic sleeve this year. Isn't this pretty? It's so colorful. It's a match to the design on the front of the palette.


Except the front of the palette is more detailed. It has shiny iridescent butterflies. This is my favorite Book of Shadows cover design yet. Well, besides Alice in Wonderland, but that doesn't count!

Inside the top flap is a mirror, some little pop-up cellophane butterflies, a card with some QR codes that link to makeup application videos and a little slot for you to put your smartphone in to watch videos hands-free. I can't currently read QR codes with my phone so I haven't checked out the videos yet.


The bottom tray pulls out to reveal sixteen shadows (ten are new shades), a FULL SIZE 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion, a travel size Supercurl Curling Mascara, a travel size Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (in the new squeeze tube style), and a set of USB/audio jack cables plus a little speaker thing on a keychain.


Closeup of the shadows, with flash and without. Feel free to enlarge any of these pictures, I leave them huge on purpose. Blue Bus, Gunmetal, Cobra, Baked, Bender, Gravity, Lost, Hijack, Midnight Cowgirl, Sin, Midnight Rodeo, Crystal, Bust, Missionary, Skimp, Zephyr.



Some of the shades have a bit of glitter and iridescence in them, you can see it a bit better in these shots.

Urban Decay 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion. This is a full size. I'm really happy they included this in the palette.


Urban Decay Supercurl Curling Mascara. Travel size. Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but it's in a sweet black chrome tube.


Shadows swatched over Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, with flash and without:

Blue Box, Bender, Midnight Cowgirl, Bust.

Gunmetal. Gravity, Sin, Missionary.


Cobra, Lost, Midnight Rodeo, Skimp.


Baked, Hijack, Crystal, Zephyr.


Urban Decay 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion.

I haven't played with this much since I've only had it for a couple days, but I have swatched it and used it twice for looks, so I have a couple observations.

What I liked:

• Gorgeous rainbow butterfly packaging.
• Includes a full size 24/7 liquid liner.
• Includes the new squeeze-tube style Primer Potion in travel size.
  
• Includes a nearly-matte light shade (Skimp) for highlighting! I always complain about the highlight shades in palettes being super frosty and white, this one isn't.
  
• Decent pigmentation on most of the shades.
• Not too many repeats from other palettes.

What I didn't like:

• The drawer is difficult to remove from the palette and even more difficult to put back in. It's a very snug fit and takes a little work.
• Pigmentation on some of the shades wasn't too good- Blue Bus, Gravity and Crystal are the ones that gave me trouble, though I think Crystal may be intended to be sheer.
• Too much brown and tan!
• No bright shades and not much of a variety of finishes. Most are frosty shimmers in muted hues.

As I use this more, I'll probably have some more opinions about it, but so far I like it. I can't say this enough: I LOVE that they put a full size black liner in here. I use black liquid liner almost every day and having one in this palette is awesome. I also love the new squeeze tube style of Eyeshadow Primer Potion, I'm glad to see that they finally fixed the cute but flawed genie bottle style tube.

I wish Blue Bus was more pigmented because it looks so pretty in the pan. I keep typing Blue Box by mistake. Crystal and Zephyr seem like they'll add some duochrome effect when layered over other shadows, so I'm going to try that next. Crystal is really pretty by itself, but it's sheer.

I got mine from Sephora.