Product Review -- Urban Decay Distortion Eyeshadow Palette

Urban Decay always seems to be coming out with a new eyeshadow palette.

I'm a fan, so I pick up many of them -- and I don't ever really find fault with the shadow formula. Urban Decay makes some pretty great matte, shimmer, glitter, and satin shadows, and I feel like the brand is often trying to do something new and different.

The Distortion Eyeshadow Palette definitely falls into that category.

It contains 10 regular eyeshadows and five "transformer" shades that are meant for layering over the other shadows to change their look.

The palette comes in a sturdy plastic compact with a cool duo-chrome design on the lid. Inside, there is a good size mirror, and the palette stays open by itself so it works well for doing your makeup on the go.

Urban Decay Distortion Eyeshadow Palette

The transformer shades are: Bleach, a gold shift; Shifty, a green shift; Space, a blue shift; Mind Game, a lavender shift; and Blur, a pink shift.

The traditional shades are: First Offense, a metallic burnt orange; Hot Box, a deep green satin with green micro-glitter; 5.0, a metallic medium blue; Rogue, a muted medium purple shimmer; Trash Talk, a muted medium pink shimmer with purple shift; Territorial, a deep metallic bronze; Blackout, a blackest matte black; Old Smoke, a smoky metallic medium gray; Shag, a metallic silver with iridescent micro-glitter; and Velvet, a metallic burgundy with gold micro-glitter.

Urban Decay Distortion Eyeshadow Palette

As usual, Urban Decay has done a nice job with the shadows. With the exception of the transformer shades, which are on the sheerer side by design, all of the shadows are nicely pigmented. They apply nicely and blend well too, so they're very easy to use.

The shades in the palette are kind of fun, but not particularly original. I think if you have a pretty big makeup collection, you likely already have most if not all of them.

From l. to r.: Bleach, Shifty, Space, Mind Game, Blur

From l. to r.: First Offense, Hot Box, 5.0, Rogue, Trash Talk

From l. to r.: Territorial, Blackout, Old Smoke, Shag, Velvet

Territorial with Bleach, Shifty, Space, Mind Game, and Blur layed over it (l. to r.)

The idea of layering duochrome shades over traditional shadows is also kind of fun, even if it's not an entirely new idea. I often do this on the center of my eyelid for a little added brightness, though I tend to use tinted highlighters to do it.

And I guess that's main thought about the palette -- if you want to play around with layering duochrome shadows over other shades, you don't need this palette to do it. Use a highlighter with a green, blue, pink, etc. shift and pair it with your favorite shadows -- you'll get the same effect.

Because none of the other shadows in the palette are particularly unique, I feel like it really isn't a must-have.

Of course, when I purchased the palette, it was $48, which is fairly steep. Right now, the palette is on sale for $24 on the Urban Decay website and at Sephora. For that price, I think it might be worth picking up if you're a fan of the color scheme and really like the idea of layering the shadows for different looks.

Otherwise, just dig out some of your favorite highlighters and play around with layering them over other shadows that are already in your collection.

Have you tried the Urban Decay Distortion Eyeshadow Palette? Are you a fan?