Urban Decay Naked Skin Concealer

Why is finding a good concealer so difficult?!

I test out so many and have more in my collection than I now what to do with but I'm still yet to find my holy grail.

Urban Decay Naked Skin One & Done Complexion Perfector

I'd like to introduce you to my new favourite base. We haven't been together very long but oh boy has it been a whirlwind romance.

Urban Decay Afterglow Highlighter - Sin

I am so indescribably obsessed with this highlighter. It's so gorgeous I want to cover every inch of my face with it and happily walk around like a mini Sun.

Urban Decay Beached Bronzer - Bronzed

I'm not gonna lie the main reason I bought this was for the packaging. I am in love with it (seriously, put a palm tree on anything and I'll buy it). As for the product itself, I think I love it even more.

Beauty Haul #2

Over the past couple of weeks I've slowly been ticking things off my list and accumulating products for upcoming posts. A few trips to Boots and a Feel Unique order later and here we are.

Urban Decay x Gwen Stefani Blush Palette

swatches L - R; cherry, easy, angel, lo-fi, hush, oc.

Beauty Haul #1

I'm going on a little trip to Berlin in a couple of weeks and I used it as an excuse to replenish some of my old favourite beauty products and whilst doing so, I accidentally (totally on purpose) added a few other bits to my make up mountain too.

Urban Decay x Gwen Stefani Eyeshadow Palette

first pictured swatches from L-R: blonde, bathwater, skimp, steady, punk, baby, anaheim, stark, zone, serious.
second from L-R: pop, harajuku, danger, 1987, blackout.

Every time Urban Decay brings out a palette I have to have it. Even after being disappointed in the quality of their previous release, the smoky palette, I still had the ache to try this one. First of all the shades in this palette - oh my god. I love them all, even the shimmery hot pink, although I'm not sure I'd ever wear it (unless anyone wants to invite me to an 80's themed barbie party). All in all you get 15 shades with a great mix of finishes from frosted to matte to create and endless amount of looks. On the whole every shade is smooth, soft, blendable and pigmented - just the way I like em'. Anyway, here's the run down of all the shades.


Blonde - The palest swatch I have ever seen, sorry about that - I really did try! A pale ivory shade with a hint of pink iridescence and a understated frosted finish. It feels very soft in texture and is finely milled and tightly packed but applies beautifully with good pigmentation (despite the swatching fiasco).

Bathwater - Light beige with golden yellow tones. The glitter/iridescence in this shade is much more loose and therefore the pigmentation isn't as strong and applies almost as a wash. It has similar finish to the previous shade just a lot more subtle because of the lack of pigmentation. The texture is equally as soft and feels just as finely milled.

Skimp - A pale peach with warm undertones and sheeny, satin finish. This shade is still soft in texture but is a little more powdery and has a tendency for fall out on application. It applied kind of unevenly on me and sheered out a lot more than I was expecting.

Steady - A beaaaautiful copper shade with a metallic finish. The pigmentation of this shadow is amazing. It's easy to blend and lasted ages on me without losing intensity or creasing as most metallic shadows tend to do on me.

Punk - A rich dark brown matte with red/plum undertones and great pigmentation. It has a buttery texture to swatch from the pan but was stubborn when trying to blend it.

Baby - Rose gold with warm undertones and a glittery, metallic finish. Wonderful pigmentation and a gorgeous shade that blends well and feels soft in texture like most of the other shades in this palette.

Anaheim - Medium taupe with slight warm undertones and a matte finish. It has good pigmentation but isn't as strong as some of the other shades which makes it a great transition shade. Still has a soft, buttery texture but is slightly more on the powdery side. On the plus side though, I didn't have any fall out applying or blending it.

Stark - Medium beige with strong peach undertones. It's a little bit powdery but still blends well although it did sheer out a lot. This shade is very similar to my skin tone anyway so it kind of just disappears on me even if it didn't sheer out. It has a soft matte finish.

Zone - A medium brown with strong yellow undertones and a matte finish. It has strong, even pigmentation that blends fairly easily and lasts well.

Serious - A deep grey shade with a really fine shimmer. Again this shade is a little powdery but it applied well but was a little difficult to blend.

Pop - Light peach with a sparkly, glittery finish. You can feel the chunks of glitter in the texture which makes it hard to apply with the amount of fall out. It was uneven because of the consistency but looked beautiful pressed on in the centre of the eye (which is how I wore it).

Harajuku - A hot pink shade with cool, blue undertones and a sheer frosted finish. The pigmentation is good but it does sheer out and lose intensity easily while blending.

Danger - The most beautiful deep navy blue with a silvery sheen. It has great pigmentation, that blends easily and evenly. It's soft and smooth in texture and is by far my favourite shade in this palette. It's gorgeous.

1987 - Very yellow gold with slight warm undertones and a metallic finish. It's lightly powdery but still feels soft in consistency. It has great pigmentation and blends beautifully while holding it's intensity.

Blackout - A deep, true matte black with neutral undertones. It's super finely milled and has a velvety texture that blends fairly well. It does have quite a lot of fall out though during application and throughout wear.



What do you think of this palette? Have you already added it to your collection or are you going to?

Shop via Feel Unique -
L I N K 

F I N D  &  F O L L O W  M E  O N 

B L O G L O V I N | I N S T A G R A M | G O O G L E + | P I N T E R E S T

Naked Skin Beauty Balm

Urban Decay Naked Skin Beauty Balm £23.50 - link

After reading the description of this I was intrigued to see what it actually does. It has a long (long) list of claims like hydrating the skin, blurring imperfections, evens out skin tone and a lot more. I've been using it on and off for around 3 weeks and I'm not completely sold on it, especially as a stand alone base product which it's meant to be.

Out of the tube this is a orangey/peach coloured lightweight liquid but blended, fades into the skin and becomes translucent - the shade is described as universal. It doesn't have any coverage whatsoever and I can't say that I noticed any affects of the "diffused light or high tech pigments" it's described as having but it definitely does smooth the skin and minimizes the appearance of pores and fine lines. It didn't make a noticeable difference in evening out my skin tone, redness I have around my nose and any blemishes were still as visible as before application, but my make up did last longer when I had applied this at an hour or so more of wear. 

Personally I would not feel comfortable wearing this solely as my base despite it being branded a BB cream, I prefer to have some coverage if I'm going to be wearing make up. To me this is much more suited to being a primer in what it does and how I use it and I'd recommend that if you're thinking of buying this consider it more that way but of course that's completely up to you.

Have you tried this? Would you wear a translucent base product?

F I N D  &  F O L L O W  M E  O N 

B L O G L O V I N | I N S T A G R A M | G O O G L E +

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette

L-R: High, Dirtysweet, Radar, Armor, Slanted, Dagger, Black Market, Smoulder, Password, Whiskey, Combust, Thirteen

Urban Decay Naked Smoky Palette £38 - link

The packaging of this palette is truly beautiful and I'm utterly obsessed with it and I'm also a big fan of the colour selection too. Packed full of cool tones and wearable blues and purples with a couple of warmer toned neutrals makes this a very versatile palette and perfect for Autumn. I was however quite disappointed when I actually started using the eyeshadows.

These eyeshadows don't seem to have the same texture as previous palettes from Urban Decay. I wouldn't say they were necessarily dry and powdery but they lack the creamy texture I had come to expect from a naked palette. I found that the matte shades in particular were some what harder to blend and all of the eyeshadows seem to move and fade relatively quickly if I didn't use a primer. I'm not sure if that's because I have oily eyelids or if other people with different skin types are experiencing similar things. It's also quite difficult to get the pan colour to transfer to the skin, especially with some of the shimmery shades. Using a flat brush and packing the product on my eyelid still left me with only a percentage of the shade shimmering in the pan.

The 12 shades are ordered from most shimmery all the way down to the most matte, 

starting from L-R:

High - Light peachy champagne with micro glitter and warm undertones. It has a metallic finish, good colour pay off and a wear time of around 7 hours.

Dirtysweet - Warm toned medium golden beige shimmer with a metallic finish. It has a decent pigmentation but applies thinly and wears for 7 hours.

Radar - Medium brown shimmer with gold micro glitter. It has warm, yellow undertones and is a shimmery frosted finish. Significantly less shimmery/glittery than the previous 2 shades despite having larger flecks of glitter running throughout it. The texture is hard to work with and is one of the least pigmented shades in the whole palette, giving you a wash of colour when applied. Wears for 4-5 hours.  

Armor - A cool dark greyish taupe shade with flecks of silver glitter. It is a similar finish to Radar but slightly more glittery. It also shares the same quality as the previous shade in that it's a wash of colour and takes time to build up the opacity. It had some fallout during application but relatively easy to work with otherwise. Wear time is 4-5 hours.

Slanted - A muted medium grey with strong blue undertones and a metallic finish. Very chalky and dry even in the pan and there is a lot of fallout when applying. It's a really hard shadow to work with and applies noticeably unevenly which is hard to correct when you lose some each time you touch a brush to it. Wears for around 6 hours.

Dagger - Deep charcoal shade with strong blue undertones and a light wash of cool, silver micro glitter. It has a satin finish and a decent colour pay off. It's soft and blendable but needs to be patted on for best results. It has some fallout but nothing major and wears for around 4 hours before it begins significantly fading.

Black Market - A deep black shade somewhere in between a semi matte and a satin finish with cool undertones. It feels soft and is easy to apply and blend but much like Dagger takes patting on to get a more intense look. It has a wear time of around 7 hours. 

Smoulder - Dark plum shade with subtle warm undertones and a semi matte finish. It has good pigmentation and again feels soft but is somewhat challenging to blend when not using primer. Wear time was 6-7 hours.

Password - A matte medium-deep taupe shade with cool undertones. It's soft, yet quite powdery and easy to blend but does blend out really sheer. It lasted 4/5 hours on me without primer before it basically completely faded.

Whiskey - A muted dark brown matte shade with warm, red undertones. It feels a little powdery in the pan and I had some fallout when applying it. It has good pigmentation but again takes work to build it up to get the full potential of the colour. It looked better on me the longer I had it on before it started to fade at around 6 hours.

Combust - Medium dirty pinky taupe with cool undertones and a sheer matte finish. It feels and looks chalky when applied and is perhaps my least favourite shadow in the palette. It has a lot of excess powder when trying to get the product on a brush and has a very sheer colour pay off. Lasted 4-5 hours and then faded entirely.

Thirteen - A very light beige with a semi matte finish. The pigementation is good but I had quite a lot of fallout. The texture is soft but slightly powdery and very blendable. It has a wear time of  6-7 hours.

Like I said before the colours are gorgeous but prove to be difficult to work with and in my opinion this palette is not up to the same standard as the previous palettes. Having said that, I do still really like the palette and I'm happy to have it as part of my collection. 

What's your opinion of the Naked Smoky Palette? Have you bought it or are you going to?

F I N D  &  F O L L O W  M E  O N 

B L O G L O V I N | I N S T A G R A M | G O O G L E +