Urban Decay are known for their amazing highly pigmented eye shadows, especially their Naked Palette, a selection of 12 beautiful natural colours to shade your eyes. This became their best seller, so they released a Naked 2 (I see a trend coming here..) with another 12 stunning shades in. With 2012 being the stand out year for natural beauty, what better time to release their new addition to the ‘Naked’ series- their new Naked Skin Weightless Ultra Definition Liquid Foundation (pheww take a breath!)
THE LOWDOWN-
Finish- Demi-matte
Shades- 18 ranging fair to dark
Amount- 30ml/1fl oz
Price- £27/ $38
Available- From August 2012
Urban Decay claims:
’Weightless and virtually invisible, this revolutionary, oil-free and paraben-free formula creates a flawless, demi-matte finish; light-diffusing spheres make you look professionally retouched. It’s the ultimate in ultra definition.
Infused with Matrixyl 3000 (a powerful anti-wrinkle peptide), protective and brightening Litchiderm, and antioxidants Green Tea and Vitamin E, this makeup loads skin with nourishing ingredients‘
PACKAGING-
Naked Skin comes in a clear thin cylinder with a silver pump top. Personally, I like the way this foundation looks, its smart, practical, and would look nice on anyone’s dressing table. The pump is a great idea, it allows you to get just the correct amount of product and keeps the bottle cleaner and more hygienic (not to mention less messy!). Also, because the bottle is clear, you always know how much product you have used and how much you have left, which is great because you will always know when you are about to run out.
THE PRODUCT-
Urban Decay have come up with a great system to allow you to match your skin tone, using an easy number system. Each shade comes with either a Warm/Yellow undertone (for people with more olive skin) or a Cool/Pink/Neutral undertone (for people with a rosier complexion). Numbers ending in ‘.0’ are Warm/Yellow undertoned and numbers ending in ‘.5’ are Cool/Pink/Neutral undertoned. This way you can chose the colour you think you are, (I was a 3) and then match your undertone (I have more of a neutral undertone and therefore am a .5).
FIRST IMPRESSIONS-
My first impressions of the foundation is that it’s a lot more runny than I expected (I don’t know why, it does state it’s a liquid foundation) I think I thought it would be thicker in consistency. Its fragrance free, although it does have the typical foundation type smell. The texture is creamy and soft and it blends into my hand well however I do notice that it clings onto the hairs on my skin.
BEFORE
AFTER (please ignore my the stupid face I’m pulling in both these photos!)
I cleansed and moisturised my skin thoroughly before applying this foundation to make sure I had a good base. I didn’t add a primer because I wanted to see how the foundation performed ‘naturally’. I applied it using my MAC Stippling brush and then buffed it into my skin using a round buffer brush.
I can honestly say upon application I was very disappointed with the result. The foundation didn’t blend or absorb into my skin but instead sat on top clinging to any imperfections or dry skin I had (even though I moisturised beforehand). I applied a small amount however it looked cakey on my skin and didn’t blend well at all despite my efforts.
Here is a macro close-up of my skin and you can see how the foundation sits on the top and sucks out the moisture. As a rule, generally I don’t have bad skin, I have a few dry patches but overall my complexion is fairly clear so I was really shocked when this was the result.
This being said, a good point about the foundation is it did even out slight redness I had on my skin and the demi-matte finish was nice, however generally I was not impressed.
On paper this foundation looks amazing with all its vitamins and what not, however for me it did not work at all. For £27 I can think of plenty of other foundations that I would rather spend my money on- I mean the YSL Foundation is only £28!
Along with this foundation Urban Decay have advertised their new Good Karma Optical Blurring Brush that apparently can ‘blend, buff and blur your way to a luminously flawless finish’. I wondered if maybe this foundation would work for me if I used this ‘amazing’ new brush? They also said their foundation works best with their Complexion Primer Potion and again I wondered if this was why it wasn’t working on me? And then I realised. Very clever Urban Decay! They make you feel like you need these items to get the best out of the foundation when actually, you just need a better foundation. Hmmmm…..I also heard from a source that Urban Decay were modelling this foundation on Make-up Forever’s HD Foundation but I can safely say they have missed the boat and you are better off buying the MUFE version as its only a few pounds difference.
OVERALL
As you probably figured, I am not very impressed by this product. I was so excited when I heard about it and all the amazing ingredients so it’s a real shame about how it performed. However, these are just my personal views and opinions and my own personal experience, although this product didn’t work for me it might be great for you. If you are still interested in this foundation I would highly recommend going to your local Urban Decay counter and picking up a free sample to try before you buy.
Even though I’m not keen on this product, I still love Urban Decay and I will still try out all their products in the future.
Urban Decay Naked Skin Foundation is available at all Urban Decay Counters across the UK from August and online at http://www.urbandecay.com/ now.
Have you tried this foundation? How did it work for you?
Would love to know what you guys think!
Thanks for reading,
Stay creative,
