Tuesday 15 September 2015

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette









L-R: High, Dirtysweet, Radar, Armor, Slanted, Dagger, Black Market, Smoulder, Password, Whiskey, Combust, Thirteen

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette £38 - link

The packaging of this palette is truly beautiful and I'm utterly obsessed with it and I'm also a big fan of the colour selection too. Packed full of cool tones and wearable blues and purples with a couple of warmer toned neutrals makes this a very versatile palette and perfect for Autumn. I was however quite disappointed when I actually started using the eyeshadows.

These eyeshadows don't seem to have the same texture as previous palettes from Urban Decay. I wouldn't say they were necessarily dry and powdery but they lack the creamy texture I had come to expect from a naked palette. I found that the matte shades in particular were some what harder to blend and all of the eyeshadows seem to move and fade relatively quickly if I didn't use a primer. I'm not sure if that's because I have oily eyelids or if other people with different skin types are experiencing similar things. It's also quite difficult to get the pan colour to transfer to the skin, especially with some of the shimmery shades. Using a flat brush and packing the product on my eyelid still left me with only a percentage of the shade shimmering in the pan.

The 12 shades are ordered from most shimmery all the way down to the most matte, 
starting from L-R:

High - Light peachy champagne with micro glitter and warm undertones. It has a metallic finish, good colour pay off and a wear time of around 7 hours.

Dirtysweet - Warm toned medium golden beige shimmer with a metallic finish. It has a decent pigmentation but applies thinly and wears for 7 hours.

Radar - Medium brown shimmer with gold micro glitter. It has warm, yellow undertones and is a shimmery frosted finish. Significantly less shimmery/glittery than the previous 2 shades despite having larger flecks of glitter running throughout it. The texture is hard to work with and is one of the least pigmented shades in the whole palette, giving you a wash of colour when applied. Wears for 4-5 hours.  

Armor - A cool dark greyish taupe shade with flecks of silver glitter. It is a similar finish to Radar but slightly more glittery. It also shares the same quality as the previous shade in that it's a wash of colour and takes time to build up the opacity. It had some fallout during application but relatively easy to work with otherwise. Wear time is 4-5 hours.

Slanted - A muted medium grey with strong blue undertones and a metallic finish. Very chalky and dry even in the pan and there is a lot of fallout when applying. It's a really hard shadow to work with and applies noticeably unevenly which is hard to correct when you lose some each time you touch a brush to it. Wears for around 6 hours.

Dagger - Deep charcoal shade with strong blue undertones and a light wash of cool, silver micro glitter. It has a satin finish and a decent colour pay off. It's soft and blendable but needs to be patted on for best results. It has some fallout but nothing major and wears for around 4 hours before it begins significantly fading.

Black Market - A deep black shade somewhere in between a semi matte and a satin finish with cool undertones. It feels soft and is easy to apply and blend but much like Dagger takes patting on to get a more intense look. It has a wear time of around 7 hours. 

Smoulder - Dark plum shade with subtle warm undertones and a semi matte finish. It has good pigmentation and again feels soft but is somewhat challenging to blend when not using primer. Wear time was 6-7 hours.

Password - A matte medium-deep taupe shade with cool undertones. It's soft, yet quite powdery and easy to blend but does blend out really sheer. It lasted 4/5 hours on me without primer before it basically completely faded.

Whiskey - A muted dark brown matte shade with warm, red undertones. It feels a little powdery in the pan and I had some fallout when applying it. It has good pigmentation but again takes work to build it up to get the full potential of the colour. It looked better on me the longer I had it on before it started to fade at around 6 hours.

Combust - Medium dirty pinky taupe with cool undertones and a sheer matte finish. It feels and looks chalky when applied and is perhaps my least favourite shadow in the palette. It has a lot of excess powder when trying to get the product on a brush and has a very sheer colour pay off. Lasted 4-5 hours and then faded entirely.

Thirteen - A very light beige with a semi matte finish. The pigementation is good but I had quite a lot of fallout. The texture is soft but slightly powdery and very blendable. It has a wear time of  6-7 hours.

Like I said before the colours are gorgeous but prove to be difficult to work with and in my opinion this palette is not up to the same standard as the previous palettes. Having said that, I do still really like the palette and I'm happy to have it as part of my collection. 


What's your opinion of the Naked Smoky Palette? Have you bought it or are you going to?




F I N D  &  F O L L O W  M E  O N 





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