I’m mad it took till my 40’s to understand eye makeup. No use crying over smudged eye shadow, though. Better late than never.

I recently picked up Urban Decay’s latest, Vice 3 palette, and I think this might be the best one yet. Unlike last year’s Vice 2 (silver/white undertones), the undertones are gold which works amazingly well with brown skin. It also comes with a cool bag, and is sold at ULTA for $60.00. It’s on the high side, but for the color an pigment payoff, it’s well worth it. I’ve tried the colors with and without a primer, and it gives a great impact both ways, but I did notice there was a bit of castoff when I used it without primer and with the cheap-o brush they include. Don’t even bother with it. Get out your MAC brushes.

I see so many potential color combinations with this palette it’s ridiculous. But I’m going to narrow it down to five looks based on the groupings of the shadow colors.

This look is done with the pink/mauve /purple shades.

In the look below, I’m using SONIC for the lower and mid lid, and BONDAGE on the outer “V,” and blending, blending, blending. I lined the top lid with black liquid eyeliner and lined the lower lid with navy blue eyeliner from SMASHBOX. The pal pink gloss is from Kevin Aucoin and is called HYDRAA.

You can get a similar look with ALIEN and ALCHEMY. Basically, the lighter shade covers most of the lid and the darker is used to give a smokey-eye effect. Can really see the smoked out effect in this shot…

Check back tomorrow to see what combo I’ll do next!