Urban Decay has launched the Kristen Leanne Collection and it's full of colorful goodness. Who is Kristen Leanne you ask? I have NO IDEA. After looking it up, I found out she's a beauty influencer. I normally scoff at these collaborations that praise photoshopped instagram "makeup". That being said, the pretty packaging and whimsical bright colors of this collection could turn even the most jaded of makeup enthusiasts in to an overly highlighted beige matte lipstick wearing fiend with skin as smooth as the facetune blur tool. Okay that might be going a little too far. Kristen's image is in line with the brand and who says celebrity's should be the only ones to do a collab? So lets take a look!
URBAN DECAY X KRISTEN LEANNE MAKEUP COLLECTION
Kristen Leanne is a cruelty-free beauty influencer known for bright colors, glitter, beautiful tattoos and her full-of-life personality. Her videos range from everyday wearable looks to over-the-top glam tutorials, utilizing her artistry and creativity every step of the way. We tapped into Kristen’s amazing makeup talent and discovered what inspires her. Then we bounced color ideas back and forth until we created her perfect makeup collection.
The limited-edition Kaleidoscope Dream Eyeshadow Palette features 11 vibrant shades, including a uniquely shifty yellow, vivid brights, and an out-of-this-world split-pan duotone. Each shade is named after something close to Kristen’s heart, like LCW (a nod to KL’s fave song, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” by the Hollies), and 13th Floor (one of her favorite Twilight Zone episodes). Every shade has a velvety texture, rich color, serious staying power and blendability.
I enjoy the small size and lightness of this palette. After that colossal Holiday Heavy Metals palette, which is awesome, UD needed to chill out on the big is better stuff. The colors in here are eclectic and interesting being duochromes, yet really don't go together at all. I think they could have coughed up a few more shades for the nearly $40 price tag.
I have outgrown colorful eyeshadow, but I still appreciate bright shadows done impeccably well. This is not it. It just feel like they could have went all out with a cohesive set of brights mixed in with some duo-chromed vivid pastels. It would have conveyed the Kristin Leanne aesthetic better (from what I can tell). This looks as if a bunch of reject eyeshadow pans laying around UD were haphazardly thrown together. It lacks in substance and creativity. Does anyone feel a Basquait Tenant color-theme rehashed here?
Corona was the only shade that I really liked in the Kaleidoscope Palette. The metallic rose gold bronze has beautiful complexity and shine. I wish it wasn't wasted on this palette! The metallics along with the orange & black matte have decent pigmentation. Total duds are the center circle holographic LEO+Braxton and Dye is a dry crumbly mess.
- Spitfire Bright pink satin with purple shift
- Stay Gold Metallic yellow-gold
- Tajin Orange matte
- LCW Metallic teal blue
- TRM Metallic deep navy blue
- LEO + Braxton Holographic green pearl shift / holographic red pearl shift
- Lime Time Metallic neon green
- 13th Floor Black matte
- Dye Violet satin
- Corona Metallic soft bronze with gold shimmer
When she’s not dropping amazing rainbow makeup tutorials, Kristen creates the dreamiest neutral eye looks. Loaded with five new shades, the limited-edition Daydream Eyeshadow Palette is her go-to for matte perfection. Plus, every shade has a velvety texture, rich color, serious staying power and blendability.
Shades included:
Daydream is a dream! The matte shades are all warm and very Spring-like. While nothing innovative or spectacular is happening with the shades in here they are easy to wear and the matte's are rich in color and pigmentation. These are all new shades but do resemble what came out in NAKED Heat. Still, having a tiny little palette like this is appreciated for traveling and it makes for some lovely warming up the crease colors. Here's the catch though, you only get .02 oz of shadow. If I had to choose anything from the collection to pick up it would be this palette. It is soft, flattering, and the shades easily diffuse out. I have been wearing Lucy, Daydream, and a swipe of Stila Liquid Eyeshadow in Kitten on my eyes. It creates a beautiful barely there look. Plus, how pretty is the floral interior?
Beauty Beam Highlighter Palette ($34)
Kristen digs highlighter almost as much as she digs Mexican food. After bonding over our shared love of tacos, we got down to work on her ultimate highlighter palette, Beauty Beam Highlight Palette. Wear these golden shades individually, or cocktail two or three for a custom glowy effect. Stay gold, Foxes.
What would an influencer collection be with out a highlight palette? I swear Urban Decay had done a bronzer highlight palette just like this with the NAKED collection? This set is made up of three shades: soft rose-gold pearl, white-gold pearl, and warm golden pearl.
I have to say I was surprised that this highlighter palette was so WEAK. I mean isn't the point of this gaudy instagram/youtube style of makeup to have your cheek highlight beaming to the Gods? These are soft shimmer powders. I am happy about it because I prefer a more natural look, but it is not what I expected. All are pretty subtle glowy highlighters, at this point though we all have something similar already.
UD x Kristen Leanne Vice Lipstick ($17)
Is there a lipstick Kristen Leanne can’t pull off?! Doubtful. Since we couldn’t create every shade she wanted, we helped her choose her must-have matte shades of Vice Lipstick. There’s Bun Bun, a nude comfort matte (and the nickname of Kristen’s bunny, Brixton), Cloud9, a magenta comfort matte, and Spellbound, a deep plum mega matte.
Urban Decay's VICE Lipstick are my favorite over any other so I love seeing new shades released. That being said I don't like nude and I don't like purple and that's what we have here. Bun Bun (comfort matte) is a dark nude. Cloud9 (comfort matte) a bright magenta, and Spellbound (mega matte) a deep dusky plum.
Bun Bun, a dark nude, was my favorite as it is the most wearable and flattering shade. Cloud9 is pretty much hideous bright purple but the formula and pigmentation are excellent. Spellbound looked like it was going to be a rich, gothy blackened grey purple but went on patchy and lackluster. Formulating this color in a Mega Matte was a mistake. Choosing these shades for a Spring Collection is perplexing to me. They are not the fresh, bright, vibrant lip colors that most people are going to want to wear in the Springtime or can even pull off for that matter.
*sample *affiliate links
