Sometimes living in California sucks. Crazy high rent, loads and loads of traffic, steadily rising avocado prices… (just kidding… kind of). Every once in a while, though, it has SERIOUS perks. Like when you live 20 minutes away from the Urban Decay corporate headquarters and they do an early launch event for their new Naked Heat collection and you get it a month and a half before anyone else.

Matt (the fiance) and I went to their brick and mortar store on Saturday to get our hands on the new palette and lipsticks. The Facebook event advertised a start time of 11am, but Fashion Island (where the store is located) opens at 10am, so we showed up at nine just to be safe. There was quite a crowd gathered for an event that didn’t start for two more hours.

The truly dedicated gathered, anxiously awaiting the brand-spanking-new collection. We chit chatted nervously as the Urban Decay PR team took photos for its Instagram and videos for its Snapchat stories (ya girl was on the Urban Decay Snapchat! What????) I felt a little under-dressed, considering I was wearing my lounge clothes and hadn’t thought to put on any makeup, but STILL. Pretty cool.

We were offered Pellegrinos while we waited, and the staff of the store took down all our information to expedite the process when we got up to the register. They also came around with the three lipsticks and two eyeliners (which I’m told can also be used as lip liners) for us to check out. Of course, I swatched them all for you guys, because I’ve got your back.

I absolutely fell in LOVE with that bottom lipstick shade Scorched, and begrudgingly added it to my purchase list.

At LAST it was finally time to go into the store and buy the palette! It was a MADHOUSE. They gave us these cute little themed drinks (which were just tangerine ICE water and grenadine but still tasted dang delicious) and let us fend for ourselves.

The palette itself is GORGEOUS. The beautiful warm tones are incredibly pigmented and blendable, and there is a really great range of shades considering the theme of the palette.

Giveaway:

I was able to get my hands on TWO palettes and two lipsticks, which means I am going to give one of those palettes and the Heat lipstick to YOU guys! I did a video detailing the palette itself and the details of the giveaway here, but if you’d like to skip straight to the giveaway, you can click here.

All you have to do is subscribe to my Youtube channel and subscribe to the e-mail list for this blog if you haven’t already! Of course, you can always unsubscribe after the duration of the contest (D:) but Gleam does track subscriptions, so just be aware that if you choose to unsubscribe after the contest, you will not be able to enter any other giveaways hosted on their platform by me or any other creators. You can also earn 4 additional entries each day for watching two of my Youtube videos. I will ship anywhere in the US; just make sure to ask your parents’ permission to enter if you’re under 18! Good luck! I know the winner will love this palette as much as I do!