Saturday 1 September 2012

MUA Undressed - The Naked palette dupe?

If you're not living under a rock, I'm sure you will have heard about the Naked palette by Urban Decay. Aside from it's stunning packaging, the product itself does not fail to deliver with highly pigmented shadows in an array of gorgeous neutrals. 



I'm sold!

Oh, but wait. It comes with a hefty price tag. Not to mention that it is quite difficult to buy if you're living in Australia like myself. You can try sites such as Beauty Bay and HQ Hair (as the UD site does not ship here - as far as I know), or have a gamble and buy one from Ebay, which is what I did. 

Or...

You can opt for a dupe. An excellent dupe for Naked is the Makeup Academy (MUA) Undressed palette. MUA are a UK cosmetics brand, picking up blogger interest everywhere because of their affordable yet high quality products. The Undressed palette retails for 4 pounds (around $6-7AUD), much more affordable than $55AUD (on average) for Naked.

If you are interested in the Naked palette, read this first! MUA is definitely a valid option. 



THIS is what the MUA Undressed palette looks like. It is roughly 14cm x 7.5cm. The Naked palette is about 20cm x 7cm. I included the sizing because I find sometimes when shopping online, the products look deceptively larger in the images. 



This is what the inside looks like. Gorgeous, shimmery shades!
As you can see, they have included a double ended sponge applicator. Nothing special but I do find myself using it to pack on colour. Are you getting excited yet? Time for some swatches...


Please note that I do have an Indian skin tone! This is the first time I did swatches so it is a bit wonky. Anyway, as you can see they are gorgeous pigmented shades, but the matte shades (shade 3 and 5) - not so much.

Now for comparison swatches...




The labels are self explanatory. As you can see, there is a lot of similarity between the first 4 shades of each palette.  Seems I didn't have much luck with Shade 3/Naked (the matte shades) but they are fairly close to my skin colour. Also Shade 4 vs Sidecar are a little different. I would say Sidecar is a little more taupe like whereas MUA Shade 4 has a hint of pink to it.




Again, similar labels. Shade 5/Buck are matte shades and the difference is minimal. Shade 6 and Half Baked is where the difference is noticeable. Personally, I prefer the MUA Shade 6 - look at that gorgeous rich gold! Half Baked is also lovely, but I do enjoy the warmer shade more. Smog it a bit deeper brown than Shade 7. And I think we can conclude that Shade 8/Darkhorse are close enough.



The last 4 shades of each palette. Shade 9 is more pink/purple toned than Toasted. Other than that, the last shades are all very close.

In conclusion, the MUA Undressed palette is an excellent product for the price tag. I use it more than the Naked palette, because I prefer some of the shades. If I had to pick out a negative, I would say I experience more fall out than I do with Naked and it is a little annoying to end up with glittery rings below my eyes. But don't let that stop you!



Here is a quick look I have done with Undressed, shade 4 all over the lid, then shade 10 and 11 to deepen the outer V.

What are your thoughts? Would you buy the MUA palette?
Also, this is my first blog post - any constructive criticism/thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

2 comments:

  1. Really great first post :)

    Where do you get MUA from?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you :)
      I bought this palette from Ebay, but you can buy their products from the MUA website!

      http://www.muastore.co.uk/

      Delete

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