When I first looked into the Urban Decay Naked palettes, Naked 3 was the one which appealed to me most in the pan but I was unsure if it would suit me. The woman in the shop said 'that's for blonde people really', so I was put right off it. However soon after this I heard about the Iconic 3 palette, a £4 dupe of Naked 3 (the only shade-by-shade dupe I'm aware of). With such a tiny price tag I decided to take the plunge and try rose shades I'd never normally have looked into.
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I kind of felt like Naked 2 was much of a muchness, and if you owned 1 you didn't really need it, however 3 is completely different. Whilst I don't own 3, so can't do a direct comparison, I can compare the quality of the Naked palette I do own to Makeup Revolution's effort.
First off is the packaging; it's nothing special but it's functional. It fastens securely and I've dropped it a fair few times and it's remained unharmed! The reason I like MUA and Makeup Revolution over other high-quality, super-affordable brands is that the products don't look or feel cheap. The packaging is sleek and simple and I like that you can see which colours are inside! I slightly prefer a round eyeshadow pan, but that's personal preference! For some reason they look bigger, but I checked and the MUR palettes are bigger than the MUA ones in weight as well as in size.
So onto the shades; I'm honestly really happy the £4 price-tag allowed me to experiment with these colours! I never would have paid £37 for something so out of my comfort zone, but they are just lovely. If you're not pale and blonde, seriously do not be put off these shades. If anything I feel as though the colours pop more on medium skin-tones. They're just beautiful; the first 6 shades are more light champagne and baby pink colours, whereas the the second 6 are more mauve and plum colours. I thought the colour pay-off for all but the lightest shade was fantastic, and apart from one or two of the shimmers there was very little fallout.
So here is a side-by side comparison (Image of Naked 3 via: urbandecay.com)
So here is a side-by side comparison (Image of Naked 3 via: urbandecay.com)
The shades don't have names, which is a shame, so I'm just going to label them 1-12 from left to right (so the lightest is 1 and the darkest is 2). 1 is your highlight shade; a pinkish-cream matte. 2 is a shimmery champagne and 3 is quite similar but a darker, rosier tone. 4 is a medium pink matte, 5 is a silvery-pink shimmer and 6 is a gold-toned orange shimmer. Onto the second half: 7 is a light grey matte, 8 is a pink-grey shimmer and 9 is a pinkish taupe shimmer. 10 is more grey-toned pink shimmer, 11 is a grey-mauve shimmer and finally 12 is a black-purple shimmer.
So here are the swatches! As always there is one with a flash (on the left for both) and one without (on the right for both). The first set shows shades 1-6 (starting with 1 at the top) and the second set shows shades 7-12 (starting with 7 on the top).
I've applied 4 swipes with each, so that should give you an idea of the pigmentation (I think 7-12 are more pigmented than the lighter shades). As always this is all without a primer! As you can see, even shades which seem similar in the pan don't look same-y at all when swatched. My favourites from the lighter side are shades 3, 4 and 6 and from the darker end, 8, 9 and 10.
So here is the look I created with it! I like to test dupes by seeing if I can follow YT tutorials for the original and I think that (my inferior application aside!) I managed it with Iconic 3. This is the tutorial I followed: I blended 4 into the crease, dotted 10 across my lid, put 8 on top of it, blended 7 into the crease and 11 then 12 went onto my outer corner (and I blended them into the crease a bit). I then put a bit of 3 on the very inner corner, highlighted with 1 and patted a bit of 6 in the centre of my lid. I really love the colours and I'm so happy with this look :)
It stayed really nicely. I used the e.l.f. Eyelid Primer in Sheer (£1.95) and it stayed nicely for 6 hours. After this point it started to blur a little but the look still remained and it didn't crease! Obviously it's not Urban Decay but it comes far closer than a lot of other premium brands do, as far as quality goes. It's fairly easy to just copy the colours of Naked 3, but to get the quality so high for £4 is seriously impressive.
Overall I love this palette and I'm so glad I tried something new with these colours. It's one of those one's I'd have paid 4x the amount for and I'd still think I'd got a good deal. I'd recommend this to a lot of different skin-tones; don't be scared of the pink! I think the question you have to ask yourself is, 'do you think the Urban Decay version is £33 better?', if it's a 'no' I'd say this is a great alternative, or even if you plan on buying the Urban Decay, it's a great way to test out if the shades are for you.
TL; DR
Pros
* Durable
* Beautiful selection of 12 complimentary shades
* £4!!!!!!!!!!!
* High quality
* All but one or two shades have excellent pigmentation
* All but a couple have virtually no fall-out
* A mix of shimmers and mattes
* Easy to blend
* Easy to apply
* Packaging is sturdy and functional and doesn't look £4
Cons
* Might be a little limited in how many looks you can create
* I'd have liked Shade 1 to have been more pigmented
The Verdict
Durability: ****
Finish: ****.5
Colour pay-off: ****
Colour selection: ****
Finish selection: ****
General Quality: ****.5
Versatility: ***
Value for Money: *****
Overall
****.5/5
