The rose gold fad hit the makeup world a few years ago. From packaging to colors, many companies have marketed their products according to this trend. I too, love rose gold jewelry and packaging and I was especially delighted when I heard about Urban Decay bringing out a rose gold addition to their famous Naked Palettes.
Personally, I don’t own any of the other two Naked Palettes. The main reason being the Naked 3 Palette. I just love those golden rosy hues and until now, I honestly didn’t feel the urge to buy either the Naked 1 (which is too bronzy for my taste) or Naked 2 Palette (the colors are beautiful but nothing special). Nevertheless, both palettes I think are a fantastic deal for the amount of product you get and the colors are undoubtedly beautiful. Although I am a big fan of the so-called “naked” look concept, until now, it just didn’t strike my fancy enough to spend $54.
Naked 3 however, I had to have! So, I’ve been patient and waited months and months until it was my birthday in late April, when I finally got it as a gift. Along with my beloved Too Faced Chocolate Bar Palette (shade description and swatches here).
Pictures of Urban Decay’s Naked 3 Palette taken outside in bright daylight and indoors:
Packaging and Shade Description:
Like its predecessors Naked 1 and Naked 2, the Naked 3 Palette contains 12 shades (each with a Net Wt. of 1.3 g/0.05 Oz, Total Wt. 15.6 g/0.6 Oz for $54) that come in a spectrum of rose gold hues. They are supposed to be very unique in that Urban Decay claims that these are “NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN shades”*. In my opinion, there’s no such thing because I simply cannot imagine not finding a similar shade if not an exact dupe out there somewhere in the vast variety of eyeshadow colors. Nonetheless, they are stunningly beautiful!
With the Naked 3 Palette you also get a double-ended brush (one end for packing on the color and the other one for blending) and a set of sample sizes of four of their primers (original, Sin, Eden and new Anti-Aging). The eyeshadows come in a stunningly beautiful rose gold tin case. They have different finishes and are cruelty-free.
*www.urbandecay.com/urban-decay/eye-makeup/naked3/409.html
Pictures of Urban Decay’s Naked 3 Palette taken in different light settings (pic. 1-3: indoor lighting; pic. 4-6: outdoor lighting):
1. Strange – A light creamy pink that is neutral toned with a satiny-matte finish, no shimmer or pearl. Nice creamy consistency; easy to blend.
2. Dust – A sparkly light pink that is cool toned with a metallic finish. It contains a lot of glitter hence the fallout and “dusty” consistency. Its consistency is okay given the amount of glitter and I’ve seen worse.
3. Burnout – A light pinky-peach with a satin finish that is warm toned. Nice creamy consistency.
4. Limit – A light dusty rose with a true matte finish (more matte than Strange). Nice creamy consistency that is easy to blend and perfect for blending out colors in the crease.
5. Buzz – A medium rose hue that is warm toned with a metallic shimmery finish due to the silver micro-glitter. The consistency is okay. It’s soft and creamy and rather easy to blend, but has a lot of fallout.
6. Trick – A warm toned medium copper shimmer with some pink in it and lots of micro-glitter = a lot of fallout.
7. Nooner – A warm toned medium brown with pink undertones and a matte finish. Nice consistency; easy to blend and therefore another good crease color.
8. Liar – A warm toned medium mauvy-brown with a metallic shimmery finish. It contains some rose gold micro-glitter but it’s rather subtle. It doesn’t have a glittery or sparkly finish but rather a shimmery one. Very beautiful and unique color. Creamy consistency; easy to blend. My favorite of the palette.
9. Factory – A warm toned brown, darker than Liar with pink undertones and tiny flecks of rose gold micro-glitter. The finish is more satiny. Liar has a lot more of a shimmery finish. Very nice consistency; not too creamy so, easy to work with. Little fallout. Another favorite of this palette.
10. Mugshot – A warm toned taupe with pink and bronze undertones and a shimmery metallic finish. I can’t make out any micro-glitter with my bare eye. The metallic shimmery finish is comparable to Liar.
11. Darkside – A darker taupe with mauve undertones and a tiny amount of pink micro-glitter. It’s a cooler toned taupe and darker than Mugshot and has a satiny finish. You can hardly see the micro-glitter.
12. Blackheart – A warm toned matte black with reddish undertones and pink micro-glitter. It’s not a deep black, more like a smokey black. Once applied, it has a matte texture and the glitter is not so noticeable as in the pan.Very interesting, unique color. It looks like a sparkly, smokey burgundy. In the pan it looks warm toned due to the reddish glitter but when swatched on the skin, it appears rather cool and completely matte.
Swatches on medium skin tone with yellow undertones, no primer in different lighting (move cursor over picture or click to see description):
Colors:
The Naked 3 Palette offers a spectrum of neutral, cold and I would say – mostly warm toned – rose gold colors of different textures. It is often said that these rosy tones would look mostly flattering on lighter skin tones especially with blue or green eyes. I have to disagree with that. I think pink eyeshadow in particular can look very flattering on brown eyes, especially dark brown eyes and on medium to tan skin tones.
However, some people are complaining that it makes them look “bruised”. Apart from the fallout (which takes some points off in the rating), I find all of the 12 eyeshadows to have a nice soft texture. On the one hand, this makes it easy to blend, on the other hand such soft “creamy” textures in powder eyeshadows can easily lead to over blending, making the colors indistinguishable and appearing muddy. It’s my guess that over blending due to the very soft texture is often a reason for the so-called “bruised look”.
However, the pigmentation of the eyeshadows is good but not amazing. This is definitely an issue for people with medium to dark skin tones. As you can tell from the swatches on my medium skin tone, with the (especially glittery) lighter shades it was difficult to make them show up. I always wear them with Urban Decay’s Primer Potion on my eyes, but while they definitely don’t crease, the lighter pink shades don’t show up as intense as I’d like them to be (I am specifically referring to Dust, Burnout and Buzz). The matte one, Strange, does show up.
Skin and Application:
Pale – Medium Skin: Recommended for pale to medium skin tones with yellow undertones. For someone with a lot of pink undertones those pink hues would be difficult, unless you are able to “neutralize” your skin tone with the right foundation or concealer to make it look less reddish or pink. I love the spectrum of rose gold colors especially on medium to tan skin tones, but be prepared that the light pink colors like Dust and Burnout, which you might want to use on the lids, will not make your eyes pop as much as you’d like.
Tan – Dark Skin: For women of color with darker skin tones I would not recommend this palette. While you can still use the other half of the darker end of the spectrum (those shades have very good pigmentation, especially the ones with a metallic shimmer finish), you might not get any use out of the first half of lighter colors. I have yet to try it out on someone with darker skin, but I doubt that they would show up. Unless you don’t mind a sheer light color as a highlighter or you just use it for blending the edges of another eyeshadow, I’d say invest in colors with a strong enough pigmentation for dark skin tones.
Mature Skin: Definitely not recommended for mature skin. While I think that the colors themselves are beautiful and wearable for everyone, the finishes are mostly shiny and glittery. I don’t believe that mature skin should stick to matte eyeshadows exclusively, because a bit of sheen can actually make you look less dull and more youthful. But I don’t see a lot of mature ladies out there reaching for this palette. They will be better off with satiny finishes and more matte shades than this palette offers.
Rating and Recommendation: A-/B+
Pros:
- All in all I like this palette a lot. Mainly because of the spectrum of stunningly beautiful rose gold colors and their nice soft texture.
- With Urban Decay’s Primer Potion the colors last all day without creasing or fading. I haven’t worn them on bare skin, but I think the quality in general is very good, so that they might have good staying power even without a primer.
- The packaging is beautiful and sturdy and the brush that comes with it is of good quality too (I wish the bristles were a tad softer though).
- I also like the value of it. While $54 is a lot of money, it is still a fantastic value considering the quality, the amount of product you get (it is a lot!) and also the range of colors. There is not a single dud in this palette.
- The primer samples will also last quite some time.
Cons:
- The only downsides for me are the fallout and the partially weak pigmentation of the lighter colors, making it hard to use on darker skin tones especially.
- While I like the soft texture of the eyeshadows, I don’t like it when they are too soft, because they make it easy to over blend – and therefore more difficult to work with.
- Also I would prefer more variety in the finishes, not just in terms of matte colors. I like satiny finishes the best, for both the look and manageability. Overall, the colors in this palette are a bit too shiny and glittery for my personal taste.
Do you own any of the Urban Decay Naked Palettes? What are your thoughts on the pigmentation and the shimmery finish?
Thanks for reading!
XX,
Mirjam
skinandcolors 