EOTD + Review UD Stardust Eyeshadow

In my last post I wrote about the Sephora Swag Bag promo and in that bag I received a small sample of Urban Decay's Stardust eyeshadow in Retrograde. I mentioned that I would do an EOTD/review soon.

Products used after regular prepping:

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Sin
From Urban Decay NAKED Palette: Virgin, Toasted, Sidecar and Creep
Urban Decay Stardust Eyeshadow in Retrograde
Canmake Loose Cheek Powder in 01 Baby Pink
K-Palette Real Lasting Eyeliner
Talika Lipocils (not pictured)

I primed my lids with UDPP. I'm really, really loving this product--it's great! Virgin on brow bone. I applied toasted in contour area, which is from the crease line to just under brow bone. I also blend it upward onto the brow bone to blend in and soften Virgin and Toasted. Retrograde over entire eyelid, from lashline to just above crease line. Sidecar is applied on inner corners of upper eyelid, approximately 1/3 of inner corner. Creep is applied at outer corners of upper eyelid in sideways "V" shape. K-Palette eyeliner on upper and lower lashlines. Talika Lipocils is applied to my upper eyelashes. I don't normally use mascara so I like to apply the Talika Lipocils since it's an eyelash treatment, which helps to condition my eyelashes and to help remove any stray powders on my lashes. I also used Canmake Loose Cheek Powder on my brow bone area. I often will use either a blush or bronzer on my brow bones as a final touch because I have sort of prominent brow bones. When I use a light highlighter, which is normal for makeup application, I find it accents my brow bone too much and makes my eyelids look like it's really sunken in.

This was actually my 2nd attempt at using Retrograde. I am not sure if it's true for this Stardust line but I found the eyeshadow to be very hard. The NAKED palette eyeshadows are all very soft and pigmented to the point where you can pick up too much color in one swipe, so you need to swipe gently. Not so with the Retrograde.

The first time I used it, no color was applying on. I finally tested it with my finger tip and a gentle swipe produced no color. I finally swirled my finger round and round and quite hard and finally got color in it. I chose a stiffer brush and swirled it in Retrograde and was finally able to get color on my lids. By this time, I forgot that with the NAKED palette I didn't need to load up my brush a whole lot so when I tried applying Creep, my eyelids got totally black! It was awful! I had to redo it that day. I also found that at the end of that day, I had all kinds of sparkles all over my face.

So onto the 2nd day of applying this. I remembered to swipe hard for Retrograde but not the NAKED palette colors. The description of Retrograde, according to the Sephora website, is it's a dark purple with iridescent sparkle. I liked the sound of it. Also, on the little product card that came with Retrograde, it says that Stardust is "a COSMIC explosion of prismatic sparkle against a wash of color. Powerdery bits of glitter (40% more than our sparkly shadows) miraculously feel silky. No fallout, just sexy, twinkling lids." I have to disagree. I experienced a lot of fallout. The end of the day of my first attempt showed my face all sparkly but I gave it the benefit of the doubt since I had to play around with it so much and redo my eyes. However, as you can see in my open eye picture, there are sparkles underneath my eye. There was more sparkles beneath the cutoff of the picture and lots on my cheeks.

It's only been within the last month that I've actually tried anything from Urban Decay, starting with the Eyeshadow Primer Potion and then the NAKED Palette. I was so impressed by both that I was really looking forward to trying Retrograde. It was a big disappointment for me. However, I'm wondering if there is a possibility that the product is different because it's a sampler palette. I should go to Sephora to try out their tester and see if the shadow is softer.

One last thing...I've been reading on various blogs that the NAKED Palette is a regular item but it's just so popular right now so that's why it's sold out. I asked the Sephora MUA about that and she told me that it's a limited edition item, although the items in the palette itself are regular stock items. I'm now confused--so is NAKED Palette a LE or regular stock item?

*Kat*