Review: Naked Palette

Hello!

This has been a long time coming! I've been doing a series of looks using the Naked Palette for some time now, so I thought it was time to do the proper review.

A bit of background: this palette has been a cult makeup buy since it came out in 2010 and for very good reason. I was slow on the uptake, I only got mine early this year, but it's seen plenty of use since!

I have no idea why, but Blogger is insisting on publishing this photo upside down! It's right-way-up when I open the original file, but Blogger has flipped it and won't put it right again. Sorry!

Anyway, you can see it's used. Almost every day, actually, and you can only see smallish dints in the shadows.

L-R: Gunmetal, Creep, Hustle, Toasted, Darkhorse, Smog, Half Baked, Buck, Sidecar, Naked, Sin and Virgin

It's flipped my swatches around the other way, too, which is annoying. L-R: Gunmetal, Creep, Hustle, Toasted, Darkhorse, Smog, Half Baked, Buck, Sidecar, Naked, Sin and Virgin.

Here it goes:

• Packaging: Compact, sleek packaging, velvet-covered cardboard. It's proven sturdy enough so far, but for travel purposes I do like the Naked2's packaging better- it's a pencil case tin, essentially, and it's not going to flip open in your bag.
• Colours:
• Virgin: beige, shimmer finish; it's very light, so perfect for use as a highlight or in the tear duct for us pale girls, or it can be used as a base shadow on the mobile lid for a cat eye look I know I've used it all three ways.
• Sin: light pink, frosted finish; another great highlight shade for the pale among us.
• Naked: beige/brown, matte. A bit dark to be truly "Naked" for me, but still a great base shade.
• Sidecar: medium brown, shimmer finish, flecks of silver glitter.
• Buck: a darker, browner version of Naked, matte.
• Half Baked: golden bronze, metallic/shimmer finish.
• Smog: medium bronze shade, more on the brown side with some fine flecks of glitter through it, metallic/shimmer finish.
• Darkhorse: dark chocolate brown, very fine bronze glitter, shimmer finish.
• Toasted: medium pinky brown, shimmer finish.
• Hustle: plum shade with a brown base, shimmer finish.
• Creep: dark blue-black, silver glitter.
• Gunmetal: gunmetal (blue-gray), metallic finish.
• Pigmentation: Excellent, Urban Decay are pretty much my gold standard when it comes to pigmentation. The swatch photo (above) is taken on bare skin, no primer, with two swipes of shadow using a sponge applicator. Pretty good.
• Texture: Soft, lovely. Even the matte shades aren't chalky, which I've come to expect from matte shadows. 
• Application: Again, excellent. Very soft, smooth, very blendable. The matte shades (Naked and Buck) a little less so, but they're matte shadows, so it's to be expected.
• Longevity: Good. With UDPP, these DO.NOT.MOVE for 12 hours. They look exactly as you'd applied them, 12 hours later. No creasing, no blending into one colour. Fantastic. On their own, I'd say 6 hours without any creasing. Still pretty good.
• Cost: This cost me $50 from BeautyBay. Shipping took more than a month (must've been something up, because their shipments don't usually take that long...) and it was a tortuous wait. In this, you get 12 full-sized UD eyeshadows- each which retail for USD17- doing the maths, that's USD204 worth of product! It also comes with an eyeshadow brush and a travel sized original Primer Potion. Great value for money!

Verdict: A+

xo
Anna