My impressions of the Urban Decay Game of Thrones collection that literally no one asked for.
So these are the just released pictures of the collection on Instagram. Let me start with the eyeshadow palette. I have to ask with some of these choices: did anyone who designed this actually watch the show or did they just hear about it piecemeal in the office break room? Don’t get me wrong, there’s some hits here, but also quite a few misses. The dark and icy color scheme for the Wall/Far North is spot on. Love it! If these had been broken up into quads plus the extra round pan “special shade” then I might have purchased this section. Naming a shadow “Hardhome” is pretty rad though.
I like the violet shimmer for Danearys as a book reference to her eyes, but it appears they just wanted a cool shade to go with the name Stormborn. I like the shade Dothraki as a golden wheat shade. Other than those two, I’m not seeing House Targaryen really represented in the theme. In fact, it’s all pale shimmers, and I wish they had a matte or two in maybe a darker grey/purple or cool brown for the Unsullied or maybe call it Breaker of Chains. Replace that other gold (there’s a lot of golds in here) with maybe a fiery red duochrome. Com’on! Where’s the “Fire and Blood” shade?
House Lannister with it’s rusty orange-red and golds is fine. Nothing stands out as anything you probably don’t already have as pretty much every brand was selling warm neutral palettes in 2017-18. The green for greensight is cool. So is the deep burgundy red for the weirwood leaves. Other than that, the warm toffee brown matte and the brown shimmer look just slapped on, because they wanted to add some browns to be safe.
All in all, I will not be purchasing. Overall this is pretty meh and disappointing. I think the way it’s arranged makes it a little hard to figure out how to create a cohesive look if you want to mix and match. Some people do find too many shimmers compared to mattes a problem. It might have been nice to see a matte/shimmer counterpart like a matte green for “The Sight” and a shimmer for a “Wildfire.” So many missed opportunities here because when I think of Game of Thrones, I think of big, epic, bold, fantasy, fire and ice, etc. This is so... safe and expected for the theme that inspired it. The packaging also folds out into an iron throne, which will appeal to the people who want this for collector’s purposes. Personally, I’m not a fan of big, obnoxious packaging that makes it hard to store. There’s also two shadow brushes with Longclaw and Needle themed handles. In my experience, these kinds of brushes are not that well made for functional use. Again, it will appeal to people who want to display them mostly. Overall, it’s pretty, it’s fine, nothing ugly about it, but I think most people already have most of these shades, which have been available at the drugstore since forever.
Then they have the Dracarys lip and cheek stain. The color looks good, but I never use these and I don’t know anyone who does. They can be pretty drying as they usually contain alcohol to make them adhere to the skin. Won’t be buying. I read someone point out that there was one makeup product actually referenced on the show (Ellaria’s poisoned lip color) and UD totally failed to make a gloss out of that. OMG, yes! A venomy themed gloss would have been perfect here.
The four 24/7 Glide-On Pencils on the other hand look very pretty! I could definitely see myself getting the sparkly blue, purple, and white duochrome. This is exactly the kind of thing I wish the rest of the collection had more of.
Like the palette, the lipsticks are fine and expected of most collections these days. Nothing new or unique here. Everyone already has this. I don’t see many individuals wearing all four of these shades. Usually a person might realistically wear one or two, with the others forgotten in a drawer somewhere. I was sort of interested in Danaerys’s red because I actually don’t have a glossy cool-toned red, but I’ll have to see it swatched first in the store. LBR though, I am a sucker for Sansa Stark and a peachy nude. On this one, UD can shut up and take my money.
The highlighter palette was already a hard pass. Nothing special about this in the least. I have all these exact shades with my WnW highlighters, and I love those. They should have made these individual shades at the very least. For people who are very pale or dark, not every color in the trio is probably going to work. Maybe if they are extremely sheer. Nobody is going to want an orange or ashy-white streak on their face, so this palette is probably best suited for beige to medium skin tones. I can’t be totally sure not seeing it in person though.
I had kept my eye on this release because I kinda hoped it would be a lot cooler of a collection than it was. I just don’t find it very exciting or inspiring for the theme with a few exceptions. If we’re being honest, Urban Decay isn’t really the bold, edgy brand it used to be. It’s more like Suburban Decay now and often when it comes to being on trend, they are one the last ones to the party. Their powder formulations can be very hit or miss, though I’ve always heard good things about their lipsticks and eyeliners. It’s fine, it’s pretty, it’s got shades that are office appropriate and for evening. I think most people will be buying it as a collector’s item rather than its usability. I believe it will go on sale in April with the premier of the show.