Review: Urban Decay Naked Basics

Urban Decay are the only brand that manage to create products that I NEED to have, without a review or a swatch to help make up my mind. It happened with the original Naked palette and it happened once again with Naked Basics.

I've mentioned my love of nudes before, and my love of matte shades. Although I own a few they are tricky to get right in terms of colour payoff and texture. Some shades, no matter how good they look in the pan, end up looking grey and chalky on my skin tone.

But, Naked Basics has got it all just right. The shadows apply smoothly, are finely milled and the pigmentation is great and, as you can hopefully see from the swatches, the colours are true to what you see it the pan. They last best when applied over a primer, but even without they last around 6 hours before creasing.

The shades complement my skin tone well, with two of the shades (Foxy and W.O.S) almost matching my skin tone perfectly (Foxy has a slightly more yellow tone). The inclusion of the shade Venus, which has a slight shimmer, and is perfect as a highlight, is a good addition to the palette, I don't think that the palette needed to be all matte to be exactly everything the beauty world was waiting for. Naked 2, a taupe colour, is good as a transition shade or in the crease if you wanted something subtle. Faint is a great medium-brown crease colour and can be built up to make it darker and more dramatic. Finally, Crave looks black in the pan but is more like a very dark brown.

I see the combination of W.O.S, Naked 2 and Faint being my go to look, which is what I am wearing in the picture below.

Packaging wise, the palette is completely the opposite of Naked 1 and 2. I was surprised at how small the palette is, it is compact and slick looking and I know I won't be opting to leave this at home when I go away. 

The palette is £20, which I think is great value for 6 full sized shadows. I did miss the inclusion of a primer potion with the palette, but overall I guess that keeps the cost down.

From left to right: Venus, Foxy, W.O.S, Naked 2, Faint and Crave

I don't own all three Naked palettes so it is hard for me to comment on if you need to add this to your collection if you do own the other two. I personally think the original palette and Basics compliment one another well and I'm glad to have both.

So, do you NEED this palette in your collection? If you do, you have the chance to win one in my blog birthday giveaway here.