Naked2, Bought & Sold

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naked2Urban Decay Naked2, $54

Urban Decay Naked was my second-ever palette. I still have it, and I baby the hell out of it because it is delightful. Last October, I bought Naked2. As far as I could tell, my collection wasn’t rife with dupes (except for Half Baked, but I’m okay with this).

Last Friday, I sold it. I never even took swatch photos for the blog because I hadn’t grown to love it.

I picked it up that same morning to do a look, thinking, “This hasn’t been touched this in months.” After doing my makeup and examining my work with the cooler, smoky tones, I decided I was over it. An hour later, I took usage photos, sanitized it, and listed it for sale. The palette was claimed within the next few hours, and mailed out to its new (excited to own it) home the next day.

The colors are pretty, but the majority of the cool shades aren’t pretty on me. That’s ultimately the deal-breaker here; I’m not a professional makeup artist, I don’t need to keep products that don’t flatter me.

What I Didn’t Love about Naked2

The palette can’t stand-alone for me; my skin is too warm-toned, so most of the cool shades make me look ill. The only appropriate crease color, Tease, was a cool, mauvey brown. It’s nice, but not suitable on my skin as a crease color practically ever. The color be useful in looks, but isn’t good for crease work for me. Additionally, quality of the shadow is really weird and atypical of UD – the shadow is hard. Like, really hard. It does not pick up well on any brush I’ve tried, not the one that comes with it, fluffy blenders like the 217, the 242, flat shaders…anything.

  • Another. Freaking. Black. I will give Blackout points for über-opacity and good application, but I just didn’t need another.
  • Chopper is so pretty, but applies really poorly. In order to get at least a halfway decent application, you need to wet your brush…and I don’t always want a foiled look.
  • YDK is similar to Toasted and Busted is damn near identical to Hustle. There’s no need for these shades duplicated.
  • I want to love Pistol and Verve – objectively, they’re beautiful colors and I don’t have complaints about quality or application. I just don’t feel that the shadows play well with my skintone and eyes.
  • The brush (not from the relaunch), frankly, sucks. It doesn’t pick up product well, it doesn’t place it well.

What I Did Like about Naked2

That packaging, man. Not paperboard-based like Naked, which means it cleans up better and is sturdy. It snaps closed, and the mirror is larger.

  • Ain’t no such thing as too much Half Baked. I do have this in Naked, though. A lot of people will justifiably consider this a detractor.
  • Bootycall, as a highlight, works better for me than Virgin does, so I like it quite a lot.
  • Snakebite is cool – but you can achieve the same shade by mixing Smog and Darkhorse from Naked. So I don’t need it.
  • Suspect wore well; is a smidge cooler than I usually go for, but it is very opaque albeit a bit powdery.

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, I decided I’d rather it get use by someone else than sit relatively untouched in my stash. I’m considering it a win – I got rid of something that did not bring my joy. In doing so, I reclaimed space, and a fellow makeup-lover got a just-barely-used Naked2 palette for cheap.

Have you bought something after waiting for a long time, only to find it didn’t work out the way you expected? What did you do with it?

2 thoughts on “Naked2, Bought & Sold”

  1. Have you checked out the Anastasia Modern Renaissance palette? It is hands down my favorite eye palette, ever. The colors are so pigmented and last all day with or without a primer. I have the UD Alice in Wonderland palette and barely touch it :-(

    • I’ve seen it, but I haven’t given ABH much mind to date. The thing that sucks about limited edition palettes like Alice in Wonderland is that the brands frequently use lower grade shadows in them because they’re (usually) guaranteed sales.

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