Urban Decay’s Naked 3 is a follow up to the very popular Naked 1 and Naked 2 palettes. The Naked 3 Palette consists of 12 brand new rose-hued neutral shades. Along with the 12 new shadows comes a dual-ended shadow/blending brush and four primer potion samples.
I will let you know in advance that this review is quite a bit longer than my normal reviews. There are plenty of photos and swatches that you can scroll through to get an idea of the palette. There are also descriptions and opinions on various parts of the palette. Here is a breakdown of what I will be covering:
- Packaging (exterior and interior; comparison to Lorac Pro)
- “Extras” (brush + primer)
- Eye Shadows (reviewed 4 at a time; brief description)
- Quality of Shadows
- Variety of Shadows
- Final Thoughts
The Urban Decay Naked 3 is the only palette from the Naked Collection that I own. I’m not a fan of brown shades since I have brown skin and brown eyes. I prefer pinks, golds, and purples. I was fairly excited to see a rose gold themed palette from Urban Decay and I was finally able to jump on the Naked bandwagon. I had heard many great things about the Naked 1 and Naked 2 palettes so I was expecting the Naked 3 to be just as amazing.
To be perfectly honest, I was pretty disappointed with Urban Decay. The color choices are very nice but the overall palette lacked the quality I was expecting.
With that being said, let’s get into the review.
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PACKAGING
The exterior packaging, to me, is simply okay. I would have liked the packaging a lot more if the pencil box tin didn’t have the ridges in it. I actually think it looks pretty tacky since the rose gold tin has a glossy finish. I think it would have been nicer looking if the finish had a more “vintage” look to it. I do, however, love the color scheme of the tin. The gold font on a rose gold background is very pretty. As a whole, I would have preferred a cardboard-like palette (similar to Lorac’s Pro Palette). However, the packaging is great for those who travel or for those who like to keep everything in prestige condition. The tin case is very easy to clean. I don’t travel much or do my makeup on the go so I find the palette to be heavy and bulky.
The Lorac Pro Palette is about half of the size of the Naked 3.
The interior packaging is nice except for the shade Dust. It was slanted in the palette and it turns out that the shadow was barely glued into the palette and came right out. That was an instant disappointment. I didn’t like that I had to glue my brand new palette together. The inside is also made of a tan colored plastic which I thought was a bit cheap looking. Aside from these flaws, the overall palette looks very nice. The mirror is very large and clear and I like the large brush slot. I can fit any eye brush I want in there.
I give the packaging an 8 out of 10.
“EXTRAS”
The brush given with the palette is VERY nice. I love the fluffy end of the brush for applying shadow and for blending out shadows, and I love the flat end for applying shadow as a liner to the lower lash line. The downside is that the flat side of the brush is a bit fat. It’s not very useful for applying shadow to the top lash line. Overall, the brush is very nice quality and I absolutely love it.
Along with the brush came 4 primer potion samples – Original, Sin, Eden, and Anti-Aging. They come in large blister packs and I think they are very obnoxious. Each blister pack is filled about 33% with product while the rest is air. Each blister pack will last about 10-12 uses (it would be about 15-17 uses if I didn’t waste so much primer because it hardened and clogged the opening). Urban Decay’s sampler packet describes each blister pack to contain enough product for 7 days but it’s definitely more than a weeks supply per sample.
After the first use, product tends to harden overnight and clog the open “spout”. When I go to use the product again, I have to press harder than I would like to get the solid chunk of product out of the way before normal product dispenses. This process repeats each time I use the primer sample. I would have preferred that they gave a mini travel sized primer potion, mini eyeliner, mini setting spray, or mini anything else that was a small version of the original. I absolutely HATE the blister packs and I would throw them out if I didn’t already know how good the primers are. The experience of having blister packs and using these blister packs has turned me off to Urban Decay’s Primer Potions. If they had to take this route to get people to sample all of the primer potions, I would have preferred single use foil peel-offs for each primer instead.
But to be fair to Urban Decay, they gave a very generous amount of primer. They give around 40+ uses worth of primer. I actually ended up putting all of my primer samples into an empty pigment shadow jar (yep, that means I mixed them together). This saves the product from hardening over night and it prevents the product from getting wasted. It also cuts down on clutter. I tried to empty the blister packs into an empty e.l.f primer container and 2 of the blister packs was enough to fill the container up; so I strongly believe that the amount given is about the same amount given in a normal tube of eye primer.
Extras get a 5 out of 10. I loved the brush but hated the primer samples.
EYE SHADOWS
Let’s start with the first four shadows.
- Strange is a matte cream shade with a very slight pink undertone. The texture is very creamy and buttery, and it makes a beautiful highlight.
- Dust is a metallic pink with a lot of glitter (Urban Decay calls this “micro glitter” but the glitter chunks are very noticeable). This is my least favorite shadow the the entire palette. There is a ton of fallout and the shadow itself is very loosely packed in the pan. If you ever drop your palette or place it down too roughly, you can expect this shadow to crumble apart. This shade was very unnecessary. It’s poor quality and it’s very similar to Burnout. I think they should have skipped out on Dust and created a champagne highlight to complement the matte cream highlight.
- Burnout is another pink metallic shade and it is actually very similar to Dust when applied to the skin. Burnout is a great shade and is one of my favorites. It’s a little powdery but it’s workable.
- Limit is a matte shade that looks very light in the pan but comes off as a light mauve-rose color. This is a nice crease transition color.
Next up are the four shades in the middle of the palette.
- Buzz is a beautiful rosy pink shade with silver micro glitter. It is my favorite shade out of this entire palette. The only downside is that this shadow is a bit powdery.
- Trick is a beautiful rose gold shade and I think it is very unique. My only peeve about this shadow was the initial application. When I first used this shadow, I had to use layer upon layer to get the color intensity that I wanted. I then realized that I needed to lightly scrape off the top layer because it looked similar to a face powder that has gotten too much oil on it (when the hard “bubbles” that form when a face puff is used too much without washing). After scraping that layer off, the shadow became very pigmented with just one swipe. However, it also became a bit powdery as well.
- Nooner is similar to Limit but slightly deeper. This is a great transition shade for anybody. I’ve used it quite a bit and I’m very pleased with how well it blends.
- Liar is another shade that I find to be very unique. It looks like a normal brown in the pan but when applied to the skin, it has a rose gold iridescence to it.
Now for the last four shades of the palette.
- Factory is a rich brown shimmer and it is very buttery and pigmented.
- Mugshot is another rich shimmery brown shade. When looking at it in the pan, it looks very different from Factory. However, when they are placed onto the skin, they look very similar.
- Darkside is a very unique shade. It looks like a shimmery dark brown color in the pan but it has a very obvious pink undertone when worn on the skin. It is absolutely beautiful. My only issue is that it is not as pigmented as I would like it to be. I have to build the color up quite a bit before I get the dark, rich color that it appears to be in the pan.
- Blackheart is the last shade in this palette and it is a charcoal colored shadow with red micro glitter. There is surprisingly no fallout for me and the pigmentation is pretty nice. I did find the shade to be a bit strange though because this is a rose gold themed palette and then there is a dark shade with obvious red micro glitter. I would have preferred a black color with pink undertones and gold micro glitter. I mean, it’s not a bad shade at all. I just think that it’s weird for a rose gold theme palette.
QUALITY OF THE EYE SHADOWS
I understand that I should expect some fallout with powder shadows. However, there are several shades that disappointed me in terms of quality. The colors Dust, Buzz, and Trick had quite a bit of fallout. It’s surprising because these are all shimmer shades and the matte shades in the palette out-performed these shimmer shades as far as fallout is concerned. In general, shimmer shades tend to be higher quality than matte shades regardless of being high end or low end.
On the bright side, the blendability and texture of these shadows are very nice. It’s exactly what I expected of Urban Decay. I can use any amount of colors I want and they blend together seamlessly. The pigmentation of these shadows are also very nice. The only questionable color is Strange. It applies very sheer but I personally think that’s great. I’m able to use that shade every day without looking like a drag queen. I love that Strange isn’t an over the top cream shade. All of the other shadows in the palette are very pigmented. The darker shades need to be built up in order to get an intense dark color, but I actually think a lot of people will appreciate it. It will be hard to mess up a smoky eye if you choose to use any of the last four colors in your crease.
VARIETY OF EYE SHADOWS
Overall, I do like the variety of shadows. However, I do think that there are some colors that are way too similar to one another. Dust is very similar to Burnout when applied to the skin. Burnout is actually better because it doesn’t have the chunkier glitter and it doesn’t have as much fallout. Limit and Nooner are very similar as well. Nooner is just a deeper version of Limit, in my opinion. On my hand, Limit looks ashy when swatched. But over a primer, they’re both pinky mauve shades used to blend the crease out. If I had to keep one, I would keep Limit and have Nooner changed. For those who have the Lorac Pro, you have probably noticed that Nooner is almost the same as Mauve. Lastly, Factory and Mugshot are very similar when applied to the skin. They’re both deep, rich, brown shades that barely make a difference when used to create an eye makeup look.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, the Naked 3 is a very beautiful palette but it leaves much to be desired. The quality is okay but it’s not consistent with each shadow. The shadow selection also isn’t the best that it could be. I would recommend this palette for those who absolutely love rose gold shades like I do. These are colors I could wear every single day for an entire year. This is also a great palette if you travel a lot and you want to bring a palette that you can toss in your suitcase without worrying about it getting on everything (though Dust will probably crumble apart). If you’re somebody who simply likes these shades or you just want to complete your Naked Collection, I would honestly suggest skipping out on this.
The brush provided is amazing but the blister primer samples are very annoying and very cheap looking. Dust is a terrible shade in terms of quality and it is also similar to Burnout. Limit is a lighter version of Nooner, but Nooner is almost a copycat of Mauve from Lorac Pro. Factory and Mugshot aren’t very different when applied to the skin. Dust, Buzz, and Trick have a significant amount of fallout. I also think there could have been a better color choice for Blackheart for this palette but that color on its own is great quality.
Overall, I don’t think this palette is a must-have. It’s very pretty but I think you can find better.
If I could go back in time, I would have just purchased an empty palette from Coastal Scents and filled that up with shadows I would have expected to like.