When I first got the Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette* (£39.50), I was understandably ridiculously excited as it was my first Naked palette and well, just look at the shades. I have been loving warm toned eyeshadows this year ever since I got the Crown Rose Gold Palette and I was intrigued to finally try Urban decay's long-awaited effort. You might remember that I did a post with my first impressions of the Naked Heat Palette just over two months ago and I thought it would be a good idea to follow up on that and let you know how I feel about it after I've had time to properly play with it and make it work on a day-to-day basis. So here we are, how I really feel about the Urban Decay Naked Heat Palette... Is it worth the money? Is it worth they hype? Would I recommend it?
I'm going to cut in right there and say yes to all of the above, and that's why it has made it into my Beauty Hall of Fame as a High-end Hero. Initially when I reviewed this palette, I was harsh on it. After lusting after the Naked palettes for around 5 years (don't even ask me why I didn't buy one sooner) I had hyped them up a hell of a lot in my head. With that came a lot of expectations about how the shadows would perform, and I was curious to see whether they lived up to the Holy Grail status they had earned themselves. Initially I was impressed with the lighter matte shades and found the darker mattes a little trickier to work with. I would have preferred a few more shimmer shades, and I really missed the inclusion of a gold. I was originally disappointed with the colour payoff from the lightest shimmer called Lumbre, and found it didn't pop as much as I wanted it to. It is easy to judge a palette based on its finger swatches, but really that gives very little indication of performance when in reality you're product on your eyes, not your arm, and using brushes that give varying levels of intensity. I had to give the palette a fair test, and after using it for two months, I think it's really flipping great even if it does have a few flaws.
Certain aspects of the palette, I just got over. At first, I was butt-hurt about the lack of a gold, but you really can let that slide if you have a gold highlighter to hand. I often dab a bit of theBalm Mary-Lou Manizer into the centre of the lid and in the inner corner. The slight shimmer in the white also doesn't bother me as it is subtle enough to still prime the lid, and if I want to blend something out, a bit of face powder works just as well as a cream shadow. With the exception of two of the darker matte shades (En Fuego and Ashes) I am really impressed with the performance of the shadows overall, although that doesn't mean they are perfect and I would love to up the pigmentation of a few of them. Generally they work really really well day-to-day to create different eye looks without too much faff. I think if this had been any brand but Urban Decay being so hyped, I would have been less harsh on it. The brand is put on such a pedestal by the beauty community, so I judged it accordingly.
I really love the shade Low Blow, which is a light brown with almost a mustard undertone to it. It is really unique and I love the combination of it with the darker mattes, En Fuego and Ashes. Scorched is the best performing out of the three shimmery lid shades, although I still don't think there is enough variation between them. On pale skin, the different undertones aren't that noticeable (especially with Dirty Talk and Scorched), although you probably could tell the differences a lot better on darker skin. Lumbre is still my go-to lid shade, although I would like it to pop a little more as I've had to add a bit of highlight in the centre of the lid to achieve the look I want. Moving onto the darker mattes, they work well to add intensity to a subtle eye look, and on pale skin they are very build-able rather than being over-pigmented to the point that you might ruin an eye look. However when doing darker eye looks, you really notice the lack of intensity and with that in mind, I think Ashes could do with being a little more opaque to really build up the outer corners.
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| Some of my favourite shades (L>R): Sauced, Low Blow, Lumbre, He Devil, Dirty Talk, Scorched |
Is the Naked Heat worth the hype? Yes! I think it's awesome and I've got a lot of use out of it, but I think the hype and expectation of perfection that come from Naked palettes is almost detrimental to them as I've already judged this palette more harshly than I would another brand. Is it worth the money? I was gifted this palette, but after having tried it, I do think that it's something that I would be happy forking out for as I haven't really used any other palettes since the Naked Heat came into my life (even though I'm supposed to be working on the MUA Undressed Palette in my Project Pan, woops!). Does it compete with other warm toned palettes? Yes, it offers more of a terracotta colour palette to the Modern Renaissance, and the quality of the lighter mattes exceed that of any private label palette. If you love the naked palette line, I would recommend this, even if you are new to warm tones as there's enough in here that you don't have to dive straight in to a full-blown copper smokey look. If you're strapped for cash AND unsure, grab a private label palette like the Crown Rose Gold, but if you have the money the Naked Heat Palette is fab. Overall, it's a great palette for warm toned lovers and versatile enough to serve as your only palette with both daytime and night-time appropriate looks.
What do you think about the Naked Heat palette?
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