Pigmentation Wars: Urban Decay Dangerous Palette (originally $36) vs. MUA Smokin Palette (about $10)

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For some reason I have been putting off writing this post for a couple of months. I had visions of the Urban Decay fangirls eating me alive. I'm over it now. Mostly. The point of the comparison here isn't to tell you which eyeshadow is better (though I have a personal preference), but to compare different formulas and point out some pros and cons of each. Savannah Scorpion wrote a post here a while back pointing out the role of the term "pigmented" in cosmetics marketing; this post will take some of those ideas a little further and consider whether and under what circumstances more highly pigmented eyeshadows are (or are not) preferable. I've noted before that for blushes too much pigmentation can actually be a bad thing. Is that the case for eyeshadows too, or are more pigmented eyeshadows always better? Are eyeshadows the kind of product where you are likely to have better results the more money you spend? Ultimately you're going to have to decide for yourself, but I hope this comparison is helpful.

I bought the MUA Smokin Palette a while back when MUA had a free international shipping sale. With the current exchange rate, the palette is about $10 (US). I posted photos and swatches of it here. Love. Love-love. That palette is clearly meant to imitate the Urban Decay Smoked Palette ($49). It has all the same elements, except that it doesn't come with a mini-primer like the UD version. I was curious about how the cheaper MUA shadows, which I think are fucking fabulous, matched up to the more expensive UD ones, not only in color, but also in formula and result. Unfortunately I don't have the Smoked Palette to compare, and I'm sure as hell not going to spend $50 on something that is nearly identical to something I already own. But I do have the UD Dangerous Palette (now discontinued), which I got on sale for about $15. It contains three of the same eyeshadows as Smoked, and two others that are somewhat similar. It makes a good comparison for the MUA shadows, then. What the Dangerous Palette does not contain are the matte shades, so I'm going to have to leave those aside for now. The MUA mattes are wonderful, though (see swatches linked above).

Okay, okay, let's look at these things:

MUA Smokin Palette

Urban Decay Dangerous Palette

The lighting in those two photos is a bit different, but I think it's easy enough to tell which shadows correspond to one another. The three that match are Loaded, Evidence, and Mushroom, which are also in the UD Smoked Palette. The Smoked Palette has Rockstar instead of Gravity, which is a more bluish purple, Asphalt instead of Ace (I think Asphalt is darker), and Barlust instead of Deeper (Barlust is a more bronzey/red-brown, while Deeper is a golden brown). These last three are matched by shades in the MUA palette.

First I swatched all of the shadows in the UD Dangerous palette next to the most similar shadows from the MUA palette. I'm going to show you about a million more photos, so I'll put them below a cut.
I used the same fairly crappy e.l.f. brush for all of the swatches, cleaning it in between. My method for swatching and applying eyeshadow to my lids is basically the same: I tap the brush lightly in the shadow, then tap it against my hand to let the excess fall off. With these shadows, I also blow away any extra shadow from the brush, because they are so soft and pigmented that otherwise they make a mess. Even after all that, there was a ton of fallout when swatching the UD shadows. Evidence was the worst. Check it out:

Swatches of Urban Decay Dangerous Palette: Gravity, Loaded, Evidence, Deeper, Mushroom, Ace

I wiped away the mess before adding the MUA swatches below (no primer used for any of these):

Comparison swatches of (top row) Urban Decay Dangerous Palette: Gravity, Loaded, Evidence, Deeper, Mushroom, Ace and (bottom row) MUA Smokin Palette

The green, blue, and taupe (Loaded, Evidence, Mushroom) are the most interesting to compare, since they are the ones that correspond to the UD Smoked palette and should therefore be the closest. Not that similar, though! If you're looking for the MUA palette to provide exact dupes for UD, you're not going to get it. However, I personally think the MUA shadows are fucking gorgeous, and they match more closely when swatched to what you see in the pan. The vibrant green of Gravity becomes a lot duller and almost just grey when swatched. The MUA blue is also brighter. The only UD shadow I prefer is Mushroom, because I like the slightly cooler taupe. But the MUA shadows are all more opaque and less messy. I did not clean up any fallout from them before taking this photo.

Of course, what things look like in swatches doesn't necessarily correspond to what they look like on your face, so I did a comparison of that too. I used the same combination from the two different palettes on each eye. I used the same three brushes for each eye, after cleaning them in between. The three colors I used were the green/Loaded, taupe/Mushroom, and charcoal/Ace (the last one as a liner). I used exactly the same technique for all of the shadows, the same as what I described for swatching: tap lightly in the shadow, tap on hand to remove excess, and then blow on the brush to remove even more. Note: I don't think I need to point out that this is not a tutorial. This is just a comparison using two different palettes. I'm not expecting anyone to mimic what I did here! (Also, don't mimic my eyebrows here. Yikes.)

MUA Smokin Palette on right eye (left side of photo); UD Dangerous Palette on left eye (right side of photo)

MUA Smokin Palette on right eye (left side of photo); UD Dangerous Palette on left eye (right side of photo)

MUA Smokin Palette

MUA Smokin Palette

Urban Decay Dangerous Palette

Urban Decay Dangerous Palette

Which one of these you would categorize as "more pigmented" depends on how you define that term, I guess. If it's "deposits more color using a smaller amount of product" then UD wins. If it's "deposits a more opaque and even layer of color" then I think MUA is the one.

Obviously by using these two different eyeshadow palettes is exactly the same way, I ended up with very different results. Even though there was a ton of fallout when swatching the UD shadows, I actually had slightly more fallout from MUA during application - but not too much for either one. The UD shadows are more pigmented on the brush, and more eyeshadow gets picked up, but this made it more difficult for me to work with them. Part of the reason I had trouble is that not only do I have very pale skin, but I also have small eyelids. There's just not that much space there for me to do any blending. The UD shadows didn't blend out as smoothly, especially in the crease, and I couldn't really blend them out much further without it reaching all the way up to my eyebrow. The additional product/pigmentation on my lid for the UD eye also meant that the different shades got pretty muddied together. It was hard to keep them separate, whereas on the MUA it is much easier to see the three separate colors.

Apparently these two brands of eyeshadow require the use of quite different techniques if you want to get similar results. Using them the same way made for a fairly nice MUA look, but a bit of a mess with the UD shadows. The problem is that it is really hard to put less powder on the brush using the UD shadows, which seems to be what I need to do to make them work for me. I only very lightly tapped brush in shadow in both cases - I have to blow/wipe off a lot more for UD, which seems like quite a waste when we're talking about such an expensive product. It is possible to make it work though. Here's a look using only UD Deeper, with a very light touch, applied above the lashline and blended up into the crease (with highlighter on the browbone and dark brown eyeliner, obviously):

Urban Decay Deeper

Urban Decay Deeper

Which of these two products you prefer is going to depend on your own personal very special feelings about eyeshadow, as well as your level of skill, and the size/shape of your features, etc. For me, the MUA shadows are clearly superior. They are much, much easier to use and give fucking beautiful results, in my opinion. If I buy a shimmery, vibrant green eyeshadow, I want it to look that way on my face. I don't want it to look grayish. But then the UD version is more "smoky" I guess. I also don't see an advantage to spending more in order to be able to use less product with each application, because in my case I'm having to blow away half of the UD shadow from my brush anyway. Messy and wasteful. My final ruling is that more pigmented is not always better, even for eyeshadows. Really bad pigmentation is bad, but really good/strong pigmentation is not going to be ideal for everyone. Moreover, you're not necessarily going to get the best results by spending more money.

Now I'm going to go hide in a cave before the UD fangirls eviscerate me.