Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette Review & Swatches

I purchased the Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette ($46) when it launched last week at Sephora. It was sort of a no brainer for me as I loved the gorgeous dusky roses, berries, and coppers in this palette. The shades in the palette were inspired by Urban Decay’s Backtalk Vice Lipstick shade which is a nude-mauve that’s apparently supposed to be flattering across all skin tones.

I’m not sure if I’d call the shades in the Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette ideal and perfect for all skin tones though. As I know a few people that would say berries just don’t look good on them. Thankfully, I’m not one of those people. I actually like the way berries and roses look on my eyes so, like I said, this was a no brainer purchase.

The palette is actually an an all-in-one that contains 8 eyeshadows, two blushes, and two highlighters. I’m trying to think if Urban Decay has every did blushes and eyeshadows in one palette and I can’t think of a single one. Is this their first?! Maybe I’m having a senior moment or I’m a little fuzzy and can’t recall a time they did but nothing comes to mind.

As far as all-in-one palettes go the packaging on this is interesting if not slightly awkward and a bit thicker in size than your standard palette. They made the palette user friendly by including a double-sided mirror which actually removes from the case. In some ways, I couldn’t help but think how handy this was. But in other ways I felt like it made the packaging a lot more bulkier and difficult to store and also, heavier for travel. I also thought it was a little awkward as when you open the palette it can sometimes slide out and drop on the floor before you have a sec to grab onto it. If you had plans to remove it and toss it aside you sadly can’t as the palette won’t close correctly if it isn’t inside. I find myself wondering if I’ll ever even make use of it since I rarely use the mirrors included in eyeshadow palettes.

The palette includes 8 x 0.04 oz eyeshadows and 4 x 0.14 oz blushes/highlighters. As far as I know the shades are all new and haven’t been available prior to this. The palette is exclusive to Sephora and I was surprised to see it was made in the USA.

You might wonder at that last bit where I said I was surprised to see it was made in the USA. Well, we’ve come to expect poorly made eyeshadows from our favorite brands who have their palettes made in China. Sometimes the quality isn’t entirely up to par on these palettes. Ones made in the USA are typically an entirely other story as the quality seems to be a lot better.

The quality here is horrible. I’m actually shocked how bad this palette was. Those of you who expressed you’d be waiting to purchase this on sale have the right idea. Please don’t pay full price for this monstrosity.

As you may know I’m a fond of applying my eyeshadows with sponge tipped applicators. I’m old school I guess but I like packing on color with a sponge eyeshadow applicator and doing any blending or detailing with other brushes I own. I could NOT pack color onto my lid with these. I had to go over the swatches I did for this post about six times to get the color to show up on my arm. On my eye? It seemed to prove mission impossible. I keep packing color on but these are just so dry it seemed impossibly to get the best color pay off. After what felt like 18 layers later I was able to achieve the look you see below. The shadow formula is dry and picking up color with brushes or a sponge is very difficult. These are quite sheer. I expected the typical velvety super pigmented Urban Decay Eyeshadow what I got was a complete imposter. I had to shut the case and look at the logo to make sure this was an Urban Decay Palette. It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers up in here. This can’t be Urban Decay! But I’m sad to say it is. Truly the eyeshadow shades are beautiful but the actually formula leaves a lot to be desired. You can see below how patchy my shadow is blended out.

Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette Swatches (3 Sheets, Bare, Curve, Backtalk)

Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette Swatches (Shade, Attitude, WTF, 180)

After the eyeshadow formula disaster I kept hope alive that the face powders would be much better. Purple blush fans will adore Cheap Shot which is a beautiful mauve pink. Low Key is another gorgeous shade that I was disappointed in as it is a really pretty sparkly peach highlighter which has zero pigment and a little bit of a sheen on my cheeks. All four shades blended poorly and suffered the same dryness as the eyeshadows. I had patchy results with both blushes and very little color from the highlighters just a hint of sheen. And yet again, I still struggled picking up color with my brushes. I kept laying the color on and when I finally did get it on my cheeks it looked patchy. The formula just blended poorly for me and didn’t the pigmentation just wasn’t there.

Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette Swatches (Cheap Shot, Double Take, Low Key, Party Foul)

I have to admit I’m heartbroken. It’s been a while since I’ve been this excited about a palette. The selection of shades in this palette is stunning but I had had so many performance and formula issues. This is just chaotic and not a good representation of Urban Decay as a brand.

I highly suggest waiting for it to go on sale.

Did you get it?

How did you feel about it?

Urban Decay Backtalk Eye & Face Palette is available now at sephora.com.