So, let's address the obvious (and gorgeous) elephant in the room. The packaging. Holy cow, that's some pretty packaging. I've always prided myself on not being a packaging person. I have read so many reviews of products from people who bought it "just for the packaging."
I'm sorry, what?
That's just not something I understand. And I especially find it confusing when people mention how great and pretty the packaging is on the box that a product comes in. Again... what?
I do not buy products for the packaging. But I've noticed since I've gotten older and tried my fair share of makeup products that bad or ugly packaging will absolutely keep me from buying a product. So I guess packaging does matter to me.
But, as far as this palette goes, the packaging and the idea of it are all I'm really interested in. And for that, I won't be buying it.
* * *
This palette marks the third installment of of the Naked Basics series. And I'll just be frank here: the color selection of all the Naked Basics palettes, this one included, is incredibly disappointing. Especially with the first two, I feel the colors only work with very fair cool-toned skin. That leaves out a ton of people.
I owned the original Naked Basics palette, because I got sucked into the hype of everyone raving that it was an essential item. This was the first popular all-matte palette that I can remember, and so I jumped onto it. I hated it.
For reference, I have light to medium skin with a warm olive undertone.
Venus was too white and shimmery for me. It was too shimmery for under my brow and too white to be used as an all over lid shade.
Foxy, WOS, and Naked 2 all didn't show up on my skin. At all. They were essentially interchangeable for me. I would put each in my crease and it would look like nothing. If anything, it made my eye looks all a little ashy.
Faint was muddy on me, as I prefer a more warm-toned brown.
Crave broke for no reason whatsoever (I never dropped it, didn't travel around with it) and continually crumbled for months before I finally gave up and removed the shade from the palette.
After several unsuccessful months of trying to make this product work, I finally accepted defeat and gave it away to someone I hope was able to get use out of it.
Then Urban Decay released a second iteration.
I laughed when I saw it. What? How is that any different than the first one other than being even more cool-toned? And I get it. There are subtle differences, but that's it. They're subtle at best. On the eye, I highly doubt the colors in this palette will look any different than those of the original Naked Basics.
None of these colors would really work for me, and I have a hard time imagining how they would work for those with medium to deep skin tones. And for Urban Decay to come out with two matte palettes that really only work for very fair skin is highly disappointing.
So that brings us to the Naked Ultimate Basics palette, which was supposed to be an answer to people's complaints about the color selection in the other Naked Basics palettes.
I had the same reaction to this that I had to the Naked 2 Basics. WHAT? The first five shades on the top row and the first shade on the bottom row all look like subtle variations of the same color. That's HALF the palette! I highly doubt that any of these colors will look that different from each other when on the lid, so for me, this is more like a six- or seven-shade palette, not twelve.
And if that's not enough, this palette--again--seems to cater to fair skin. There are certainly shades in this palette that will work with deeper skin tones, but not as many as will work on fair skin tones. The exclusion within the Urban Decay Naked Basics range is really troubling.
Moving away from those issues, at first glance, there are some shades in this palette that I could see myself liking and wanting to use. Though I love a shimmery lid shade nearly every day, some of my all-time favorite palettes are those entirely made up of matte shades. The shimmers are the stars of my eye looks, but the mattes are the unsung heroes. My favorite mattes are shades of peach, orange, tan, and mauve. And this palette kind of has those.
But, the palettes I already have (Kat Von D Shade and Light, Tartelette in Bloom) fit my needs better than the Ultimate Basics. Not to mention that I already have a very similar palette that I think trumps the Ultimate Basics in shade selection, quality, and quantity: the limited edition (boo) MAC Nordstrom C'est Chic palette.
Photo: Temptalia
This is my absolute favorite matte palette. And since I already own and love this palette, I would have little use for the Naked Ultimate Basics palette other than to look at the packaging.
I think Urban Decay could have done better with their holiday offering. If they would have put as much attention toward the color selection as they did the packaging design, this could have been a lot better.
Sorry, hype train. I won't be buying.
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