Urban Decay x Kristen Leanne Collection Review and Swatches

The new Urban Decay x Kristen Leanne collection is out and people are talking! I’ve seen a lot of negative responses mixed in with some very positive reviews. This seems to be a polarizing collection that people either love or hate. That being said, I’m actually in the middle on this one. I love some of the shades and others are just not colors I can pull off. For those of you who don’t know, Kristen Leanne is a cruelty free influencer/YouTuber. She’s the owner of Arctic Fox and she’s known for her big personality, flamboyant hair, piercings and tats. Let’s take a look at the Daydream Palette, Kaleidoscope Dream Palette and Beauty Beam Highlight Palette. You can check out my review and swatches of the Kristen Leanne Vice Lipsticks here.

The Urban Decay x Kristen Leanne Daydream Palette is a five pan matte eyeshadow palette with a mirror and double-ended blending brush. The packaging is super cute and Kristen mentioned that the cover art was created by taking pics of pink frosting (okay now I want to eat it!). The shades are warm neutrals, and sort of a smaller, softer version of the Naked Heat palette. These are very blendable and wearable – especially if you have yellow undertones (like moi).

• Lucy (ivory matte) is a matte ivory base or highlight shade. The name is an homage to Lucille Ball.
• Daydream (soft nude matte) is a pale peachy brown transition shade.
• 12/12 (soft peach matte) is a very warm, bright pinky peach (12/12 is Kristen’s birthday).
• Subscribe (warm nude matte) is a deep yellow-toned brown shade.
• Eight (rich warm brown matte) is a warm dark brown. Eight is Kristen’s lucky number.

I think this is a really nice travel palette. The shades blend very easily and they all go together – ahhh harmony! I was surprised that Urban Decay created non-vegan palettes for a cruelty free influencer (I think Kristen Leanne follows a vegan diet, but all of these palettes are made with carmine). That’s not an issue for me personally but it may be for some of you guys.

You can do an everyday neutral look or make it more intense by smoking it out with 12/12 and Eight. I think this will appeal to people like me who were crazy about the peach shades that were everywhere last year. And it will appeal to those who like more natural looks.

However, I don’t see Urban Decay’s hardcore fans touching this with a ten foot pole since UD tends to attract makeup lovers who want bold eye looks that lean toward the cool side. This is just too tame for them. BUT, the Kaleidoscope Dream palette may do the trick for the cool kids…

The Urban Decay x Kristen Leanne Kaleidoscope Dream eyeshadow palette is kind of an odd bird. It has a mix of very 11 very bold shades that at first I didn’t think would go together. In other words, it seems like you’d need other palettes with transition shades, unless you were specifically going for a rainbow look! After I started playing with it, I see how the shades can work together. But, I’m not that skilled with it comes to creating wild and crazy makeup looks so I still need to see some tutorials.

• Spitfire (bright pink satin with purple shift)
• Stay Gold (metallic yellow-gold)
• Tajin (orange matte)
• LCW (metallic teal blue) – named after Kristen’s favorite ’60s song “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress”
• TRM (metallic deep navy blue) – named after Kristen’s husband – The Ryan Morgan
• Leo + Brixton (holographic green pearl shift + holographic red-green pearl shift) – named after Kristen’s pets!
• Lime Time (metallic neon green)
• 13th Floor (black matte) – named after one of Kristen’s favorite Twilight Zone episodes
• Dye (violet satin)
• Corona (metallic soft bronze with gold shimmer)

I’m not crazy about the two blues or the purple – they’re too vivid for my taste and I don’t think blue eyeshadow looks great on me. However, I’m over the moon crazy about Leo + Brixton. This is a duo-pan with two holographic eyeshadows that are everything mermaid and unicorn lovers could dream of! One has a blue/green shift and the other has a pink shift. You can use them alone as highlights or put them on top of any shade to change the color. They don’t look like much in the pan, but if you swatch them, you’ll see what I mean!

The Urban Decay x Kristen Leanne Beauty Beam Highlighter Palette comes with three large pans of highlighter in warm tones: warm golden pearl, white-gold pearl and soft rose-gold pearl. The outside of the palette has a metallic lenticular look to it (fuchsia pink) and the inside has super cute pink bubbles (that Kristen said is actually a photo of milk – which again is kinda weird since I thought she was vegan). I’m not hating – just seems like an odd choice.

These are definitely shades for warmer skin tones. The middle shade (white gold pearl) is the only one I can use as an actual highlight on my fair skin. But the darkest shade makes a pretty glowy bronzer. I can even use the rose-gold to blend them together if I’m feeling extra fancy.

The formula is soft and buttery and very shimmery – not quite as buttery as Becca, but more buttery than Too Faced. There are no big glitter chunks (thank god!) but it’s shimmery enough so that those with very textured skin or deep wrinkles may want to pass (you can see from my hand swatches that it shows off the lines in my hands). Even though I have skin that isn’t perfect, I think I can work with these. I’m going to put them into heavy rotation to see how they fare.

You can find these on UrbanDecay.com now, and soon they’ll be sold at Sephora, Ulta and some Macy’s stores.