Review - Urban Decay "Smoke Out" kit.

I was recently sent a few pieces by Urban Decay for review purposes - First up, we have their "Smoke Out" kit in "Yerba". The Kit is also available in "Juju" which contains smoky browns and greys. Yerba on the other hand contains white, nude, grey and very dark green shadows. The kits retail at £22.00, and are available at Boots, Debenhams and House of Fraser...

The kit seems to be well thought out  - it contains all the basics for a smoky eye - Four shadows, a black liner (24/7 in Zero), an applicator brush, a mascara (Skyscraper Multi-benefit mascara), and the top layer flips over to reveal a mirror, and also has a pull out drawer with a little instruction leaflet...

Lets take a closer look at the contents...

The shadows - 

The bottom left shade has come out as almost black on camera - in reality its a very dark green shade, the grey shade has a green undertone as well...The swatches below show the colours better...

As you can see, the grey and dark green are well pigmented - the white and nude shades required heavier swatching to show up - this is partly due to their colour, and the corpse like paleness of my skin!
The liner and brush look like this - 

While the mascara is a mini tube of their Multi-benefit mascara...

The mascara brush is one of the newer plastic bristled ones - similar to Max Factors false lash effect, but less chunky...

As you can see, it is a very dark, black mascara, which claims to "lengthen, curl, strengthen, brighten and thicken" - Big claims!
The leaflet in the kit gives pictoral and written instructions...

I followed the diagram/instructions in the kit, and this was the result...

(apologies for the state of my brows once more!)

I mainly used the products in the box to create this - a smoky eye is a popular look, and I think this kit definitely "demystifies" it for beginners... The brush included in the kit, as expected, proved useless (the handle was too short and it was not the greates for either application nor blending) - I used MAC and Illamasqua brushes to apply and blend this (Flat shader brushes, blending brushes and a pencil brush). The instructions were reasonably easy to follow (however the picture was a little confusing at times), and there was no complex crease work - again making this good for beginners, although obviously you could customise a different shadow layout...

The mascara was better than expected too - the pictures don't really show it off, but this is lengthening and volumises realistically without clumping. I didn't find it particularly curling, but my lashes seem resistent to curl... 
The shadows themselves were easy to work with and reasonable soft on testure. They blended easily, with no fallout, and I liked the end result. The inclusion of the nude shade was really handy too, making the transition between the lid shades and the highlighter shades a chinch...
One criticism I have of this kit is the price - at £22 this seems a little highly priced to me, given that their book of shadows, which contains 16 shadows, and two 24/7 pencils retails at £27, while the six shadow palettes more regularly released are around £18. 
You do get a decent selection of products from the brand though, so this is good for people who have not tried the brand.This would also be a great gift too...
Have you tried this kit? How did you find it?
More Urban Decay reviews coming up!