Urban Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette Review & Swatches
Urban Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette ($24) is a new Macy’s exclusive eyeshadow palette that contains five all new shades to create a gorgeous sunset eye look. This release comes as no surprise and I even predicted there being more to come from Urban Decay Summer 2018 in my recent Beached Eyeshadow Palette Review. I imagine next up Sephora will be getting some sort of exclusive as well or they might hold off and launch something late Summer for the Fall 2018 season.
This is also a testimony of how far Macy’s has come. They are trying very hard to create a notch for themselves between Ulta and Sephora with competitive sales and exclusive launches. They have a ways to go but so far they are holding their own. With Macy’s doing so poorly and so many stores closing this could be their saving grace. Cause lord knows they need it.
But I digress let’s get back to the Urban Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette which at a glance looks quite visually pleasing. Colors like this are so my shades. I love warm dune shades, oranges, and browns so you can imagine this was calling my name. The one shade I was iffy about was Golden Hour which they call a burnt red with a green shift but to be it seems a greenish brown with brown and green shift. Anyone that’s a duochrome lover will likely adore this shade but I personally felt it was very out of place with the warmer oranges and browns in the palette.
Let’s take a look at the palette below.
Urba Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette arrives in a slim line rectangle compact with a nice sized mirror and five eyeshadows laid out inside with their names printed below the wells. The palette is made in the USA.
As I mentioned above the five shades are all brand new and are available in range of finishes from matte to metallic to shimmer. Shades include:
- Nudie (soft pink-nude matte)
- Vibe (warm brown with gold micro-shimmer)
- Paradox (metallic orange with gold micro-shimmer)
- Golden Hour (burnt red with green shift and green micro-shimmer)
- Influence (metallic brown with gold micro-shimmer)
I actually love so many of these shades but most of them weren’t formulated very well in my opinion. They also refused to work well together and I found it very challenging to create a look using them together. For my first look I tried the shade Influence with Paradox on my lid and on my outer V but Paradox blends very poorly. The shade just blends away into nothingness and has a chalkier consistency on my lids. I tried using Nudie as my highbrow highlighter but I could barely pick up any color with my brush. It’s a sheer shade and the texture feels silky enough but my brush simply refuses to pick any of it up and I have to swipe super hard to get any pigment transferred to the bristles of my brush.
Vibe and Influence were two shades that did have fairly good formulas. Not the best by any means but not as bad as Paradox and Nudie! Vibe was soft and silky with good pigmentation and Influence was velvety with a buttery texture that had excellent color pay off as well. Golden Hour had a chunkier texture with a sheerer color pay off and would work best as an overcoat versus an all over lid shade.
As for creating a look I found it impossible! I just couldn’t get these shades to work. I get the “golden hour” theme they have going on here but I had trouble contrasting with the colors and creating the sunset themed eye look they were going for here. Unfortunately, my look here is completely boring and uneventful. I just couldn’t get more than one shade on my lid without blending the look into a muddy mess. So I’m wearing Vibe only on my lids. Boring, uneventful, and lacking creativity but I just couldn’t get the shades to work together!
Sorry but I thought the Urba Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette wasn’t formulated well at all and felt like a very rushed release. I guess at this price can afford to give it a whirl but I’d recommend waiting! It’s bound to go on sale within a month or less.
Urba Decay Lightbeam Eyeshadow Palette is available now at macys.com.