BUY THIS NOW: Urban Decay Vice 4

Bones, Grip, Deadbeat, Beat Down, Pandemonium

Framed, Fast-Ball, 1985, Underhand, Harlot

Discreet, Grasshopper, C-Note, Arctic, Robbery

Bitter, Flame, Low, Crowbar, Delete

Urban Decay's Christmas offering this year is the pretty epic Vice 4 palette, which is modelled on the shades you'll find in an oil slick, and contains twenty shadows in a variety of shades and finishes.  The packaging is part gorgeous, part pointless - pointless because the palette itself is in a fabric sleeve, then in a box, and the fabric sleeve isn't really that necessary; and gorgeous because the palette itself is beautiful, all jewel tones, interesting angles, and matte black background.  I spent just as long staring at the palette as I did the eyeshadows inside when it first arrived.

The shadows are UD's usual mix of gloriously blendable shades which lean towards metallic and glittery finishes over mattes.  The palette is very well laid out - matching colours along either the row or the column will inspire you, even if the sheer number of shades is a bit intimidating to start.  It also treads the line between neutrals, brights and darks very well - there's a mix of everything, and nothing is too dark, too bright, or too dull.

I'd love to see UD do a completely matte palette one day, because the mattes are gorgeous - Bitter, a true matte reddish brown, is insanely pigmented, and Framed, a pale pink-champagne colour, blends matte and satin to beautiful effect.  Both are gloriously buttery, something you don't often find in a matte texture.

Outside of the mattes, there are some real standout metallic and glitter shades, particularly on the neutral or deep'n'smoky side.  Pandemonium is a beautiful deep plum with a metallic finish, Robbery is a metallic taupe of the kind that makes me automatically weak at the knees, and Flame has the most unusual pink and gold microglitter on top of an orange base which really, really pops.

On the weaker side, Grip is a matte taupe with microglitter which is a bit wishy washy - neither flat enough for a contoured eye or to use as a base, nor sparkly enough to really stand alone.  Low, a brown matte with microglitter, is somewhat similar - UD could do with amping up these matte-with-microglitter shades to be a bit more POW.

At £43, Vice 4 is expensive - but you are getting 20 shadows, working out at just over £2 each, not even including the very nice double ended brush, bumper sized mirror, and beautiful palette.  Any makeup lover would be thrilled to get this as a gift, although given that it's out now, I imagine many makeup lovers will own it well before Christmas!  Find it now at the Urban Decay website.

Disclosure:  PR sample

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