(You have to read “faked” with two syllables, as if this is a Donne poem, or the title won’t make sense.)
In the past two days, swatches and reviews of Urban Decay’s new Naked Heat palette have been making the social-media rounds. (Here’s a sneak peek from Temptalia and a review from Makeup and Beauty Blog.) Like many people, I can’t help feeling that the palette is doubly redundant: it’s not only the eighth Urban Decay Naked palette in seven years, but also the 93,458th orangey-red eyeshadow palette since mid-2016. Plus, it shares a weakness with the ABH Modern Renaissance palette: several of the medium-saturation shades look very similar to each other, which will make it difficult to achieve any look that’s higher-contrast than a smoky wash of orange. I do like that ’80s-throwback packaging, though.
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Since I already struggle to use the warmer, bolder colors in Modern Renaissance, I have no plans to buy Naked Heat. However, I can’t deny that the shades look beautiful, as do the eye looks I’ve seen so far. Today I felt inspired to use the orange eyeshadows I already owned, and I was really pleased with the final look! I’ve fallen out of practice with eyeshadow in the past few months, and this was the first look in a while that I felt proud of.
Orange is much easier for me to wear on my eyes than on my lips, because I can blend out orange shadows and tone them down with browns. Though that hasn’t stopped me from plotting to swatch Rituel de Fille’s Bloodroot lipstick at the earliest possible opportunity… (Update, 5/2/21: I eventually swatched it. It was meh.)
All but one of the shadows I used in this look came from Modern Renaissance. After applying primer, I used Burnt Orange (a sleeper favorite for me this spring) in the crease, followed by the richer, brighter Realgar in the outer part of the crease and blended out past the outer corner. I used Tempera to buff out the crease colors toward the eyebrow. For a halo-ish effect, I placed Antique Bronze on the inner and outer corners of my lid, with a metallic orange from my theBalm custom palette in the middle, and Antique Bronze again on the lower lashline.
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| L-R: Tempera, Burnt Orange, Realgar, Antique Bronze, theBalm #21 |
The rest of my face, entirely by chance, was ColourPop: Lunch Money highlighter, Shop eyeshadow as blush, and Blotted Lip in Drip.
And a library-carrel selfie:
I think this look has convinced me that I have quite enough orange eyeshadows to ride out this trend. Now back to refreshing the Guardian‘s liveblog of the UK election with increasing enthusiasm…
Auxiliary Beauty 
Hmmm, except for Love Letter & Venetian Red that new UD palette pretty much looks the same as ABH's MD palette. Long time lurker just commenting to wish you luck in your recent post-grad school endeavors & that I love your beautifully written blog. I'm a UCSF alumni so I can relate to your struggles. 😉
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I'm really excited about the Naked Heat palette–Naked 3 is one of my all-time favorites. I hope the orange and red and rosy eyeshadow trend doesn't die soon. It's been really inspiring.
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UD just seems really late to the party on this one! Surely anyone who finds this particular colour story appealing will have already bought MR or one of the many alternatives that came out last year. I'm also over the Naked thing. Naked palettes just feel very dated, and UD's insistence on slapping everything they put out with a Naked label is tiresome. Or maybe I'm just cranky.I really like your eye look! You've inspired me to work Burnt Orange into my makeup more frequently.
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Thank you! UCSF was the hospital I went to when I was growing up; you guys do great work.
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I've been surprised at how much I've liked the trend, too. Since my hair and skin are so cool-toned, I didn't think it would suit me, but orange seems to set off my eyes nicely.
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Yeah, I wonder why they didn't drop the Naked branding after Naked 3 and come up with something entirely different. I've seen speculation that Estee Lauder essentially forced UD to keep expanding the Naked line because it was so popular, but I agree, it feels dated. The phrase \”Naked palette\” conjures up a particular beauty moment c. 2011, and most of us have moved on.Burnt Orange is surprisingly versatile! I've been wanting to use it with cooler colors, too.
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I finally ended up convincing myself to skip Modern Renaissance, because I felt like I could dupe it, and yet I somehow feel drawn to this one, which seems like it would be even easier to match… thank you for reminding me that I always have to keep in mind that I've collected enough makeup over a long enough time that I probably have duplicates for just about everything. Those oranges are really nice on you, and you're making me want to try those blotted lip things…
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I love this post (especially the title)! And nothing to do with Naked but I finally picked up Zygomatic, which I've been lusting after since I first saw it on your blog. I was not disappointed.
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For what it's worth, I do get the allure of palettes: it's convenient to have everything you need in one place, instead of having to open a bunch of different containers. So I wouldn't judge you if you did get Naked Heat! But seeing that I have a *palette* much like it already, I can't justify it for myself.I've been enjoying my Blotted Lips! I'm not crazy about them, because the formula is a bit dry, but I love how they look: it's hard to find a sheer lipstick that's not glossy.
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You're now the second person who has bought Zygomatic on my recommendation! I'm so glad you like it; it's definitely one of my favorite makeup products ever. Like, top five.
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