I have been desperate to lay eyes on the Gwen Stefani Urban Decay Collection – it’s been getting rave blogger and consumer reviews (it’s already launched) – so I really wanted to see it properly for myself. If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know that when it comes to celebrities, I’m pretty clueless (sorry, Michelle who, for Revlon?) so my way to look at celebrity collaborations is to take the celeb bit out and see if the products still stand on their own two feet. I do at least know who Gwen Stefani is and what she looks like.
Of the blush swatches, the second from bottom, is the most interesting because it’s a gold hit raspberry shade – I’m wearing it now and it’s really pretty. But, going round the palette (in the swatch bottom to top) it’s Cherry (baby pink), Easy (raspberry gold), Angel (warm gold), Lo-Fi (light warm bronze matte), Hush (shimmery peach champagne) and OC (matte pale peach with pink undertones). This one hasn’t launched yet – I’m waiting for a store date and then I’ll do an additional post. As someone who greatly prefers creme blush to powder, UD has got this formula right because it feels almost creamy even though it’s actually powder.
Next up is the Gwen Stefani Urban Decay Collection eye palette. Oh, my! On the face of it, it looks very much nude and neutral focussed, but Row 3 is where the rockstar happens and that’s what lifts this palette.
So, I’m swatching each row individually, starting with Row 1 left to right, below.
From bottom to top: Blonde, Bathwater, Skimp, Steady, Punk. The colours are coming out more realistically on iphone than my camera today so I’m chopping and changing according to which is the best representation. Of course, the light is horrible today! Each shade has a nuance to it – so peach, gold or pink tones and all but Punk at the end are shimmery.
Row 2, apart from the first shade and last, Baby (beautiful amost bronze gold) and Serious, is matte, so following Baby is Anaheim, Stark, Zone and Serious.
Away from the more neutral shades, Row 3 has the colour smack-downs. This row is where it starts to feel more Urban Decay and less Stefani. Shades from bottom to top are: Pop, Harajuku, Danger, 1987 and Blackout (matte).
In terms of versatility, it’s obvious that there is plenty of that with mattes, shimmers, neutrals and booms of colour. The one shade I had a problem with at intensity is Punk – it was patchy and required a lot of blending. Otherwise, the quality is all there. The palette has actually launched (HERE).
I have some other bits and bobs from the collection to show you tomorrow.
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