Urban Decay The Vice Palette Eyeshadow Palette Holiday 2012 Swatches and Review

I'm sure by now everyone's seen Urban Decay's newest palette.  I'm sure most of you even bought one during last week's friends and family sale.  But for anyone who hasn't seen the incredible new Vice palette by Urban Decay, here's my take on it.

This time the case for the palette isn't cardboard and there aren't any pull-out drawers.  It's a solid, rubberized purple plastic with a gem-like smoky crystal Urban Decay logo.  

With the press of a button, you can flip up the lid of the palette (and this lid actually stays open) to reveal a full mirror, 20 palette-exclusive shadows and a full-sized, double-ended eyeshadow brush.

One side of the brush is a fluffy crease/blending brush...

 

The other side is a flat lid/shading brush.

 

 Urban Decay Vice Palette Holiday 2012

(natural light and flash)

First row:  Desperation, Muse, Jagged, Blitz, Penny Lane

Second row: Junkie, Chaos, Occupy, Unhinged, Black Market

Third row:  Provocateur, Rapture, Vice, Noise, Armor

Fourth row: Nevermind, Echo Beach, Anonymous, Freebird, Laced

Swatches in natural light, no primer, left to right:

 

 Desperation, Muse, Jagged, Blitz, Penny Lane

 Junkie, Chaos, Occupy, Unhinged, Black Market

Provocateur, Rapture, Vice, Noise, Armor

Nevermind, Echo Beach, Anonymous, Freebird, Laced

Super easy 2-minute look using Blitz on the lid, Jagged in the crease, Penny Lane on the lower lashline and Anonymous on the browbone.

What I liked:

• The formula on nearly every shadow is perfect.  Creamy-feeling, pigmented, nicely blendable.
• The shadows are perfectly pigmented on their own, but can also be used wet for an extra boost of color, shine and sparkle.  The metallic shades look amazing used wet.  
• The packaging is sturdy and attractive.
• The included brush is regular Urban Decay brush quality and is very convenient for travel.
• Some super gorgeous colors in here!
• Palette included a black, a perfect neutral matte highlight, some sparkly shades, some neutrals, some brights; it's extremely versatile and has practically every color you need to create a wide range of looks.
• The way the colors are arranged is really appealing to my eye.  
• The shadow colors are all exclusive to this palette.  No duplicates!  Though some of the colors do look suspiciously similar to existing Urban Decay colors.
  

What I didn't like:

• Some of the colors aren't as pigmented as I had hoped they would be.  Chaos (the bright blue) and Noise (the bright pink with glitter), the two colors I was looking forward to the most, are the least pigmented.
• Some of the colors are a dark base with a glitter-type shimmer, so they look different on the skin than they do in the pan (Jagged, Occupy, Junkie).
• The glitter shades, even though they are the new and improved Urban Decay shadow formula, do still have glitter fallout.  It's better than the old formula used to be, but the glitter fallout is still not completely eliminated.
• The rubberized palette attracts dust and fingerprints from the very first time you use it (think NARS' rubberized palettes).
• The bristles on the crease/blending end of the brush are (for me personally) a little too floppy for crease application, but this makes it nicer for blending.  I prefer a stiffer brush for crease application.

In my humble, unhealthily makeup-obsessed opinion, this is the best palette Urban Decay has released by far.  I've bought almost every single palette Urban Decay has ever done, and none of them wow me like this one does.  None.  The only other one that comes close for me is the Alice in Wonderland palette.  I think Vice has the perfect variety of colors, ideal shadow formula, a good (and useful) brush, and nice, sturdy packaging that isn't going to get beat up and dented like the cardboard Book Of Shadows ones.  There are so many amazing colors in this palette and they all seem to complement each other.  I'm very happy with the Vice palette.   I would definitely recommend it.

The Urban Decay Holiday 2012 Vice Palette retails for $59 and is available now on urbandecay.com (where I ordered mine) and Sephora.com.