Finally Reviewed Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV

I’ve had this for the past 3 months and I’ve just been looking at it while I’ve been using and reviewing the smaller Urban Decay eye palettes. I can’t compare this with other Book Of Shadows because this is my 1st Book Of Shadows. 1st impressions? It’s big and it’s heavy! Not a travel-friendly or portable palette, that’s for sure.

While the 15 Year Anniversary Palette contained warmer tones, this palette has cooler tones. Let’s get the things I didn’t like about Book Of Shadows IV out of the way first:-

1. It’s so bulky and I would rather have had the eyeshadows exposed as soon as the lid was open rather than having to pull out the drawer (time-consuming!).

2. The cardboard packaging doesn’t appeal to me because I can foresee wear and tear, in fact the edges of the eyeshadow tray are beginning to fray a little.

3. I’d have preferred an illustrated guide book or leaflet accompanying this palette rather than the accoutrements of portable speaker, USB cord, audio cable and ‘Get The Look” QR card.

4. The plastic butterflies inside the lid did nothing for me and I would rather have a bigger mirror than the cradle for my smartphone next to the mirror.

5. There are no applicators or brushes inside whereas there was at least a brush in the smaller palettes.

6. There are 16 x 0.8g eyeshadows (total 12.8g) in Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV compared to 15 x 1.3g (total 19.5g) in the 15 Year Anniversary Palette which makes the amount significantly less (6.7g) than the latter. True, Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV contains a travel-sized 5.4ml SuperCurl Mascara, full-sized 1.7ml 24/7 Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner in Perversion & 3.7ml Eyeshadow Primer Potion but my personal preference is for more eyeshadow quantity.

Eyeshadows in 1st row:-

1. Blue Bus – bright shimmery blue

2. Gunmetal – shimmery deep grey with silver flecks (shade also in Mariposa Palette)

3. Cobra – black with gold shimmer (a bit like MAC’s Gilt By Association but Cobra has less gold in it)

4. Baked – copper shimmer

Eyeshadows in 2nd row:-

5. Bender – shimmery forest green

6. Gravity – purple shimmer with multi-dimensional sparkle

7. Lost – dark brown shimmer

8. Hijack – shimmery deep teal

Eyeshadows in 3rd row:-

9. Midnight Cowgirl – pale yellow gold with gold sparkle

10. Sin -champagne shimmer (shade also in 24/7 Shadow Pencil Stash)

11. Midnight Rodeo – shimmery fawn with silver glitter (shade also in Midnight Emergency Kit).

12. Crystal – iridiscent pearly blue with blue shimmer

Eyeshadows in 4th row:-

13. Bust – shimmery/matte light taupe

14. Missionary – shimmery grey/pink

15. Skimp – peachy/beige shimmer

16. Zephyr – pearly ivory shimmer

Now for the good! Urban Decay eyeshadows are never boring, not even the neutral shades and to me, that is what makes a brand stand out from the rest. If they can make their brown toned eyeshadows interesting for someone as averse to natural tones as me, then they have got my full attention.

I really appreciated the lay-out of the eyeshadows in this palette because you can see the darker shades are placed on the top half while the highlight or lighter shades are on the bottom half. That makes it easy for me as I don’t need to think that much to figure out the colour combinations.

This look was with Hijack + Gunmetal + Cobra + Skimp:-

I do like Hijack & Cobra a lot, Hijack is exclusive to this palette. There is some fall-out from the more sparkly shadows such as Midnight Cowgirl and Midnight Rodeo (any shadow that has “Midnight” in its name seems to have that problem) but this can be minimised with the application of any eyeshadow base. Overall, I do like the diversity of shadows in this palette and I continue to be impressed with the quality of Urban Decay shadows.

Although the mascara is supposed to be for curling, it didn’t give my lashes that much curl. This could be due to the fact that it isn’t full-sized but it does lengthen a bit. There are 5 How-To Videos which can be loaded by holding your smartphone over the codes.

A bit of extra info regarding this palette:-

• the purple speaker travels outside the kit with a keychain clip
• the mini speaker recharges each time you plug it into your phone or computer

Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV is available exclusively at Sephora and retails at RM219.

Note : Urban Decay Book Of Shadows IV was provided by PR for review.