Urban Decay Book of Shadows Vol. III NYC

For makeup addicts, there's probably no greater high than getting an overseas package containing gems that have been the subject of much lust on various makeup blogs.

Receiving an abundance of samples from the retailer is always a pleasant surprise :-)

And underneath all that is....

My brand spankin' new Urban Decay Book of Shadows Vol. III: Urban Decay Hearts New York! News of this palette first broke in the beauty blogosphere back in early June. In the US, 1000 units were sold exclusively at the Sephora in Times Square, New York City on 28 August. It will be available starting 7 September on UrbanDecay.com and on 1 October at other retailers. You can read about the event in New York on Krasey Beauty.

It was also thanks to a beauty blog that I learnt that the palette was available on Debenhams' website in the UK so I quickly begged my brother in the UK to help me (and a friend!) order it. He placed the order on 19 August, received it on 23 August, mailed it off and presto! The palettes popped into my mailbox on 1 September.

Fortunately, everything arrived in perfect condition. The palette costs £30 and normal airmail postage was £9.25, which works out to a total of about S$81 after conversion. Thanks to the weak pound, that is even lower than the S$88 that I paid for the Book of Shadows Vol. II Alice in Wonderland at the Sephora in Singapore back in February! It also compares very well with the retail price of US$54 (about S$72.70) in the US. Once you add in the US sales tax, the difference is very little.

To be honest, I wasn't too big a fan of the NYC pop-up landscape at first because of the various figures which didn't look very classy.

But all changed when I opened up the palette for the first time and fell in love with how the skyscrapers lit up with a soft magical glow. Being a city girl at heart, I've always found citylights to be comforting.


And finally, the pièce de résistance: the sixteen glorious eyeshadows! Compared to Alice in Wonderland, Vol. III is a much more attractive palette to me due to the many green, blue and purple shades. The only repeats between Alice and NYC are Midnight Cowboy Rides Again and Maui Wowie eyeshadows, the Primer Potion and 24/7 Glide-on Eye Pencil in Zero. It's a pity that the repeated eyeshadows are absolute glitterbombs which I dislike, but other than that, it's still a gorgeous palette.

If you would like to see swatches, I highly recommend Pink Sith. There's still no official word from Sephora Singapore on when/whether this palette will be available in the stores here.