Saturday, September 10, 2011

Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV Swatches and Review

My Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV arrived on Thursday, so of course I had to drop everything I was doing to take pictures of it. I always get SO excited about Urban Decay palettes, but the Books of Shadows especially. And hey... I was able to order this one before it sold out, how about that! Actually, it still hasn't sold out like they usually do, but it is limited edition so it won't be around forever.

The outer box. No clear plastic sleeve this year. Isn't this pretty? It's so colorful. It's a match to the design on the front of the palette.


Except the front of the palette is more detailed. It has shiny iridescent butterflies. This is my favorite Book of Shadows cover design yet. Well, besides Alice in Wonderland, but that doesn't count!

Inside the top flap is a mirror, some little pop-up cellophane butterflies, a card with some QR codes that link to makeup application videos and a little slot for you to put your smartphone in to watch videos hands-free. I can't currently read QR codes with my phone so I haven't checked out the videos yet.


The bottom tray pulls out to reveal sixteen shadows (ten are new shades), a FULL SIZE 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion, a travel size Supercurl Curling Mascara, a travel size Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion (in the new squeeze tube style), and a set of USB/audio jack cables plus a little speaker thing on a keychain.


Closeup of the shadows, with flash and without. Feel free to enlarge any of these pictures, I leave them huge on purpose. Blue Bus, Gunmetal, Cobra, Baked, Bender, Gravity, Lost, Hijack, Midnight Cowgirl, Sin, Midnight Rodeo, Crystal, Bust, Missionary, Skimp, Zephyr.



Some of the shades have a bit of glitter and iridescence in them, you can see it a bit better in these shots.

Urban Decay 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion. This is a full size. I'm really happy they included this in the palette.


Urban Decay Supercurl Curling Mascara. Travel size. Not sure if you can tell from this picture, but it's in a sweet black chrome tube.


Shadows swatched over Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion, with flash and without:

Blue Box, Bender, Midnight Cowgirl, Bust.


Gunmetal. Gravity, Sin, Missionary.


Cobra, Lost, Midnight Rodeo, Skimp.


Baked, Hijack, Crystal, Zephyr.


Urban Decay 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Liner in Perversion.


I haven't played with this much since I've only had it for a couple days, but I have swatched it and used it twice for looks, so I have a couple observations.

What I liked:
  • Gorgeous rainbow butterfly packaging.
  • Includes a full size 24/7 liquid liner.
  • Includes the new squeeze-tube style Primer Potion in travel size.
  • Includes a nearly-matte light shade (Skimp) for highlighting! I always complain about the highlight shades in palettes being super frosty and white, this one isn't.
  • Decent pigmentation on most of the shades.
  • Not too many repeats from other palettes.

What I didn't like:
  • The drawer is difficult to remove from the palette and even more difficult to put back in. It's a very snug fit and takes a little work.
  • Pigmentation on some of the shades wasn't too good- Blue Bus, Gravity and Crystal are the ones that gave me trouble, though I think Crystal may be intended to be sheer.
  • Too much brown and tan!
  • No bright shades and not much of a variety of finishes. Most are frosty shimmers in muted hues.
As I use this more, I'll probably have some more opinions about it, but so far I like it. I can't say this enough: I LOVE that they put a full size black liner in here. I use black liquid liner almost every day and having one in this palette is awesome. I also love the new squeeze tube style of Eyeshadow Primer Potion, I'm glad to see that they finally fixed the cute but flawed genie bottle style tube.

I wish Blue Bus was more pigmented because it looks so pretty in the pan. I keep typing Blue Box by mistake. Crystal and Zephyr seem like they'll add some duochrome effect when layered over other shadows, so I'm going to try that next. Crystal is really pretty by itself, but it's sheer.

I got mine from Sephora.

24 comments:

  1. I definitely don't NEED it... but I want it lol

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  2. It looks sooo gorgeous! Some great Autumn colors in there. Thanks for the swatches, hun! x

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  3. I'm one of those people that is thrilled it's so neutral!

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  4. The box is really pretty and colors are beautiful!

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  5. I would rather buy the Book of Shadows 3 honestly. It has much prettier colors. All of the past BOS are better than this one in terms of the eyeshadows. I feel like to put too much unneeded crap in here and didn't focus as much on the eyeshadow even though that's the main thing that everyone wants out of it.

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  6. last 2 rows absolutely no colors for me :(

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  7. I am currently debating between this palette, Naked and the Anniversary one. I am a dark featured girl, with medium to olive skin and I would like your opinion on which one I could get more use out of.

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  8. Thanks everyone :D

    Peredita, totally agree about the unneeded stuff, but I'm soooo happy about that full size liner. Wish the color selection was more interesting :(

    KJ, tee hee, I thought so too!

    Koukla512, I'd say the Anniversary one, but it really depends on your taste in colors. The Anniversary has more variety which means you can do more looks with it, but if you don't like purple/blue/teal eyeshadow then you may not find it as useful. I wouldn't say Naked because it's just all brown. This one is good but again, less variety in shades than the anniversary.

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  9. Nice looking palette! Thanks for swatching these. Even though I never buy palettes due to invariably only liking maybe 1/4 of the colors in them (I'm even averse to buying eyeshadow *duos*), I love seeing the colors individually. I REALLY like Cobra, Highjack, Bender, Gravity, and Gunmetal... yet Gunmetal seems to be the only one available as a shadow single.

    And I totally agree with the "too much tan/brown" sentiment. Those are comparatively boring, plus those shades just make my pink-faced self look kind of ... dirty? But not in a good way. And I mean, there are plenty of things I go to Urban Decay looking for, but "neutrals" is NOT one of them...

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  10. My boyfriend got me this and I was really excited about it when it was coming out but as soon as I got it, I wasn't so happy. I wasn't to trilled with the eye shoadows, though they were pretty, I just wasn't feeling it. So I ended up returning it. I guess for me nothing can compare to the Naked palette...lol

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  11. ...I just want the box. Haha. It's gorgeous!!

    I feel like the colors are just... severly lacking and drab. Nothing extremely different. Plus, I already have a metric ton of neutral UD shades and I only own 3 palettes. The full size eyeliner is a plus, but just not enough for me to warrent buying this palette. =\

    So, if anyone wants to pop all the stuff out of theirs and sell me their box... ;)

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  12. Saw it at Sephora today and I must agree that this is probably the my favorite design yet.

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  13. I like this a lot and need to get mine. I find these shades a lot more wearable than the 15th Anniv pallet which I finally returned as I hated the packaging that always fell out of my cupboard and had to be turned upside down to get the lid off - plus I was not finding go to shades I wanted to wear daily in it.

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  14. Got some Doctor Who on the brain, eh? ;)

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  15. all these colors are beautiful! and they are all weareable!

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  16. Love the packaging but the eye-shadow colours are nothing special

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  17. Their palettes are always beautifully put together! I feel like I'm the one who's not invited to the makeup party whenever these come out because I can't buy them since I'm allergic to bismuth oxychloride (one of the ingredients).

    Really wish that Urban Decay would remove that ingredient. Then I'd buy every single palette I could get my hands on!

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  18. Hi))) Sorry for the comment not really related to the post. But are you planning on getting Too faced palette from the holiday collection. Its just that I cannot decide which one to get, Ud BOS iv or TF sweet dreams. Would you be able to do a quick comparison (if you get TF).
    Thank you)))

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  19. @ Integgy : I thought THE SAME THING.

    Now there's an item I'd pay literally any amount of money for : a Doctor Who-themed eyeshadow palette shaped like the police call box.

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  20. I ordered this right away from Sephora. Just gorgeous! Haven't played with it yet.

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  21. I have this BOS but because I wanted to bring the shadows and not the box on a long vacation trip i ended up trying to depot and repot them into something more compact...my only issue i think they should've used round pots for the eyeshadows....and just about every color is available to buy except Blue Bus, Missionary, and Skimp....I liked using the bottom neutral colors before I went and ruined them....

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  22. I've always wanted to get volume 4 but its just so expensive. I do love Midnight Rodeo so much though. I like how its not overly glittery. Great review chick x
    Heroine In Heels

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