Just when I thought Urban Decay would add another type of Naked Eyeshadow palette this season, it didn’t occur to me that they would completely redo and update their first Naked palette at all. For me, it kinda came as a surprise because I love the first Naked eyeshadow especially its color scheme. I was gonna skip on this one but seeing how beautiful the colors looked in-store, I decided to try it and see if it can keep up with the first ever popular Naked Palette.
The Urban Decay Naked Reloaded Eyeshadow Palette ($44) has 12 shades that are meant to be universally flattering for everyone, just like the first Naked Palette. The two outer pans on each side are slightly wider which are composed mostly of neutral mattes and soft shimmery shades. These are the shades a lot of us typically use the most as base colors on our lids. The rest of the colors are a mix of wearable mattes, earthy metallics, and micro-shimmers. There is one standout shade that looks like a salmon-matte color called Retro.
The packaging of this eyeshadow palette feels satiny to the touch but it could get stained easily because it’s pretty much made of cloth. It has a vintage look that I don’t like much because it’s not really eye-catching.
Application-wise, first of all, unlike most UD Naked Palettes, this doesn’t come with a brush, which would have been so useful right? And I do like most of the brushes that came with the Naked Palettes, so yeah. I find the mattes of this palette to be soft and pretty much easy to blend and apply, and also surprisingly very pigmented, even more so than the original Naked Palette. The metallic shades have mostly no fall-outs and are really pigmented as well. The shimmery ones as I expected, are not that pigmented but they can be worked on the lids easily, especially if you use your finger to apply it and pack the colors. There are also minimal fallouts from the shimmers as well, but they’re so fine that you probably won’t be bothered by it.
My favorite colors from this palette are Bucked (warm basic bronze matte), Burn (copper), Reputation (shimmery rose gold), Blur (creamy light neutral brown), Distilled (bronze), and Boundaries (terracotta). I was a bit worried about the Retro shade which is the most standout color of this palette that looks like a matte salmon-pink at first glance. I thought it may not look great on me, given my light-medium skin tone, but it actually turned out to have a pink terracotta-ish finish on me, which doesn’t look totally bad at all.
I did notice that after using this palette a couple of times, my skin started to react to it. I managed to catch it on time and had stopped using the palette since then, but it was enough to make my eyelids look puffy, red, and super itchy. I had to apply an antihistamine cream on my lids because it was starting to burn quite a lot. My lids normally don’t react like this to most powder eyeshadows, especially not with Urban Decay or with most UD Naked eyeshadow palettes at all, but this Naked Reloaded got to me, unfortunately. So, I won’t be using this from now on. It’s a pity because I really love the color scheme of this palette. I feel like this is such a fresh take of the original Naked eyeshadow that is so timely for this Spring and coming Summer.
Overall, at first, I thought this update to the first Naked Palette was not necessary but I must agree that the colors and pigments of this Naked Reloaded Eyeshadow will make you think otherwise. While I’m not quite sure if the color scheme of this palette is really universal since most of the shades may be too deep for lighter skintones, I do think that this is worth a try, but be wary that this may cause an allergic reaction for some.
Have you tried palette already? What do you think?
The Urban Decay Naked Reloaded Eyeshadow Palette is currently available at Sephora, Ulta,ย QVC, and Nordstrom
