Nothing quite stirs up hysteria in the beauty world like the latest palette proposition from Urban Decay. A quick tweet about their newest offering was thrown out there and before you know it my interactions were coming in thick and fast marked with various levels of crazy. So take a deep breath as the Naked Basics Palette* has rolled into town; the third in the fast growing Naked family. For the latest extension Urban Decay has shunned their usual 12-pan design, thrown out the shimmers and sparkles and presented a trimmed down edit of neutral matte textured shadows. So how did it fare for a self-proclaimed nude makeup lover like myself…
The palette is around half the size of the previous ones and is super slim, slick and coated with a NARS-like buttery outer and totals up to £20. A decent size mirror fills the inside along with six shadows (2 seen before and 4 exclusive shades) – no crappy applicators to be seen just pure unadulterated pretty pan goodness. The colours include: Venus, the one shimmer that has managed to weasel its way in, a creamy champagne, Foxy, a neutral yellow that’s already been featured in the Naked 2 palette, W.O.S, the more peachy version of Foxy and a shade available in their ‘Build Your Own’ palette line, Naked 2, a natural shadow-like tan, Faint, a mid-tone brown and Crave, a straight-up matte black. It may seem like a straightforward range but after experimenting there’s a little more that meets the eye. Venus is a great shade to layer over the others for some shimmery oomph, I ended up using a dusting of Foxy to set my concealer and Faint makes a nice brow shader. And as always Urban Decay brings it with the formulation; all ramp up the pigment and blend beautifully to create a veluxe velvet finish.
Reason to purchase this: you have the other two Naked palettes, reason to not purchase this: you have the other two Naked palettes. Get my logic here? Diehard UD fans will give-in due to a overwhelming yearning to complete the set, but if you already have the proponent Naked palettes then a Basics of sorts can be cobbled up from them, the only two shades that stick out as not having a dupe are W.O.S and Faint. Although it’s nice to see a collection of mattes together for those needing to build up their satin-finish shadow stash or who like to steer clear of sparkles – I know this is something my Mum would luuuurve to scoop up and adopt into her makeup bag. But it’s also work noting that the shades offered don’t lend themselves to darker skintones – this palette could be an ashy eyed disaster just waiting to happen.
With this final point in mind, I did a little bit of research while perusing the aisles of Boots and actually found a fair few matte-centric palettes that could be more suitable for a larger range of skintones. The Too Faced Matte Eye Collection contains a well thought out mix of nudes, greys and purples, the Stila In The Know palettes houses an array of neutrals or a budget option could be the Sleek iDivine Palette in Au Naturel, although there are a few shimmers in there too. Who knew the matte market was so booming?! All in all I found the Basics palette to combine well to create a simple no-fuss smokey eye. Being a gal who likes a bit of shimmer here and there this won’t be an everyday exclusive palette for me but I’m sure it won’t gather dust either. And you know what? I think I may just fall into that first category…
*PR Sample
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