Two Surprising Favorites from Urban Decay (that everybody else seems to hate)
There are three things I almost never use in makeup: fun-colored highlighters, glitter, and pink/red eyeshadows. That’s why I was shocked to discover that the new Urban Decay Backtalk palette and Disco Queen Holographic Highlight Powder turned out to be surprisingly wearable even for this avid neutrals lover.
Let’s talk about the palette first.
Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette ($46) is a limited edition release exclusive to Sephora. I’ve had it for a couple of months now and it’s still available for purchase, so I am not sure how much longer it’s going to be sold. You probably already read a bunch of reviews so I won’t bore you with details, but I thought that the quality of the eyeshadows and the face products was worse than their permanent offerings. The pigmentation just wasn’t there, and 2-3 pans that were sort of decent do not make buying the palette at full price worth it. That’s just my opinion though.
however…
The hero shade, ‘Backtalk’, is the only pan I completely fell in love with. This matte mauve rosy shade is super flattering on my skin and looks like a stunning wash of color when I diffuse it all over the lid. Just that – single color, no false lashes, eyeliner, crease color, or anything else. Am I crazy? For some reason I am really digging the look and have been rocking it quite frequently this summer. This is by far the worst pan in the entire palette – it’s poorly pigmented, dusty, chalky, and hard to build up, and yet I love wearing it. This is yet another proof that it’s not enough to trust blogger reviews [like this one!], sometimes it’s best to test things yourself. Even though I hated the quality of Backtalk palette overall, I still use it several times a week and really enjoy it despite all of the negatives.
The other surprising favorite is Urban Decay Disco Queen Holographic Highlight Powder ($29), a bold lilac highlighter with cool-toned pink and light blue glitter sparkles. It is a limited edition product, but you can currently buy it on sale at Sephora at 50% off, because it’s probably going to be out of the stores soon. This highlighter was released ahead of the festival season along with a LE cream highlighter stick. It’s intended as a fun item to enhance your festival looks and for people who love glitter in their makeup. Based on that description I decided that it’s not for me, until I actually tried it.
On my face: ‘Backtalk’ all over the lid, ‘Disco Queen’ on the cheekbones.
Yes, you could tell there’s glitter on my face, but somehow it didn’t look too over the top. Even though the particles are fairly large, they didn’t emphasize my skin texture at all. I am actually quite happy with this highlighter – glitter is not something I thought I could pull off, but Urban Decay proved me wrong again. Disco Queen highlighter stays on my skin all day and doesn’t transfer to other parts of the face easily as long as I don’t touch it too much. Also notice that even though the highlighter is lilac, it doesn’t really look dark on my fair skin, which is a good thing in my opinion.
And there we go, two products that I thought I wasn’t going to like, but ended up using and loving anyway.
Have you tried either of these products? What are your thoughts on glittery makeup – would you wear it every day? Let me know in the comments below!
