Best Packaging - Urban Decay Vice 2
When I think "best packaging" I'm really thinking "prettiest packaging" and the Urban Decay Vice 2 Palette is definitely the palette in my collection that comes to mind for this category. It has the mixed purple plastic and the gem stone UD logo in the middle which is beautiful. However It's also quite practical. I'd never need 20 shadows when I'm traveling so it doesn't need to be thin in my opinion, but it has a lovely big mirror that you could do your whole face in and a button-press closure so it won't open randomly. I also love how spaced out the shadows in this palette are, it really helps to limit pigment-transfer. Unfortunately, it was also limited edition (sorry, my bad!).
Best Colour Payoff - Urban Decay
In general, the majority of my eyeshadow collection is Urban Decay just because their formula is lovely and their products are reasonably priced for a higher-end brand. Urban Decay offer lots of eyeshadow palettes with 10-20 shades for £30-£40 and their single shadows are around £14 which is cheaper than many other brands and their shadows are consistently pigmented and easy to blend.
Most Versatile - Urban Decay Smoked
I'll admit, I don't use this palette as much as I should, but it's a real gem. Two rows with five shadows a piece, a row of neutrals, a row of smokey colours. What more could you want? You can use the lighter neutral shades to create a day look, the black and the liner to create a cat-eye or smudge-y liner look, or add in some of the colours to really mix things up. Also, this palette contains the shade Mushroom, my favourite ever eyeshadow shade!
Best for Travel - The Balm, Balm Jovi
If there is a palette better suited to travel than the Balm Jovi Palette from The Balm, I need to hear about it, because I don't think it exists. This palette contains 12 shadows, a powder blush, a powder highlight and two creamy lip-and-cheek products and is insanely compact. The palette contains a mirror in which you could do your whole face and aside from foundation, concealer, mascara and brows, it has all the bases covered. The mix of eyeshadows is perfect, theres 4 matte fairly neutral shades, and 8 wearable colour options that range from shimmers to metallics to satins. This is the only palette I took with me for my month-long trip around Europe last year and it saw me through the whole trip for eyes and cheeks (although I did cheat a little and bring along 2 lipsticks).
Biggest Regret - MAC Quad - Brule, Gleam, Shale and Sketch
This was a really had question for me, because even things in my collection that I don't use often now have had their days of being my most reached for make-up product. The only one I can say I felt even mildly disappointed with was my build-it-yourself MAC quad, and that's mainly because I could see the sales assistant was getting annoyed at my indecisiveness and didn't give myself enough time to think it through. While the shades I picked are nice, Gleam is a neutral shimmery shade with straight-up glitter in that falls down as soon as you apply it, and Shale is so sheer and hard to work with that it looks like I use it all the time despite me having used it very little in the year that I've owned it. Sketch and Brule are nice shades and are pigmented and easy to work with, but I barely reach for the quad as I'm always having to bring in shades from other palettes to complete a look as the other two just don't work for me.
Best Colour Names - The Balm, Balm Jovi (again)
This is the only palette I have that has themed names that seem thought about to me, so I had to double up a palette and award Best Colour Names to the Balm Jovi Palette. Most of the shades in the palette are named after things that are music related, and as a Music BA Hons graduate I really love the theme for this palette.
Least Used - Urban Decay Book of Shadows NYC
Where do I even begin to explain why I don't use this palette anymore? Firstly, this was the first big eyeshadow palette I ever bought, so this is the old Urban Decay eyeshadow formula, which is no where near the formula they're putting out recently. The palette contains four shades that (Like Gleam from my MAC palette) have big chunks of glitter in that fall down your face either on application or throughout the day, leaving you looking like a glitter bomb exploded on your face by the end of the day. Additionally, the packaging on this palette is so huge that I can't store it with the bulk of my makeup, and so even the shades that are nice barely get touched as I don't think to reach into the depths of my drawers looking for it.
Most Used - Soap & Glory Lid Stuff
This is the palette that goes in my daily (work) make-up bag along with a single of Urban Decay's Mushroom eyeshadow single (my aforementioned favourite) and a few coloured eyeliners and serves as my daily eyeshadow pick. It's small and compact and has all the shades I reach for on a regular basis, three mattes and one shimmery shade, it's all I need to go from the office to the bar and can deliver no matter what eye look I'm feeling. Love.
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