Don't Call It a Comeback: Urban Decay Is Relaunching the Original Naked Palette
Design by Bella Geraci
Long before TikTok made it easy for a beauty product to go viral overnight, Urban Decay's Naked Palette managed to become one of the most popular makeup items of all time. Launched in 2010, the palette's popularity skyrocketed almost immediately thanks to magazines and YouTube tutorials, becoming a beloved product of professional makeup artists and amateur beauty lovers alike. In eight years, the original palette sold more than 30 million units and spawned a vast franchise that saw additions like Naked Heat, Naked Cherry, and Naked Reloaded.
Then, in 2018, seemingly out of nowhere, the brand announced it was discontinuing Naked. "It's a little painful to leave your past behind, but it's also essential to always evolve," Wende Zomnir, Urban Decay's founding partner, said in a statement at the time. "I will forever miss Naked, but we plan to turn the grief into even more greatness. Urban Decay will continue to thrive in Naked's memory and honor—just wait and see."
Urban Decay Naked Palette
$59.00, Ulta Beauty
Turns out, that grief was temporary, and Naked's memory loomed greatly over the brand. Today, Urban Decay announced it's bringing back the original Naked Eyeshadow Palette for a limited time, complete with new and improved formulas.
At a time when a new generation of beauty consumers are rediscovering Y2K fashion and beauty products like Clinique Black Honey and capri pants, it makes sense that Urban Decay wants to hedge its bets on the return of its 2010s megastar. "We see countless memes and videos of consumers still using their old Naked palettes and ongoing comments from the community to bring it back," Arnaud Kerviche, vice president of marketing for Urban Decay, tells Allure. "We're now in a moment where new generations haven't had the opportunity to know the original Naked—often imitated, never duplicated. It was time to celebrate the nostalgia with one generation, but at the same time introduce it to the next."
For my fellow millennials and Gen X'ers, the Naked Palette needs no introduction. You may even have a dilapidated, empty-pan version sitting at the bottom of your makeup bag. For those who aren't so familiar, the 12-pan eye shadow palette contained an array of neutral matte, satin, and metallic shades that went from light at one end to dark on the other. Standout hues included Sin, a pearly champagne shimmer; Half Baked, a soft glimmery gold; Toasted, a rosy taupe shimmer, and Creep, a black satin flecked with silver glitter. It was all you needed to create looks for any and every occasion, from a sculpted, no-makeup makeup effect to full-on smoky eyes you could pair with your "going out" top.
"The Naked Palette was always one of those good basics," says makeup artist Vincent Oquendo, a longtime fan of the palette. "And no matter how far I've come in my career, it remains a staple. For the everyday customer, it was one of those palettes that you didn't have to work that hard to make look good." The original Naked was also a palette that lots of people could enjoy. "It was one of the first neutral palettes that could truly be used on all skin tones," says New York-based makeup artist Grace Ahn. "The richness of the pigments along with the variety of light to dark colors was not as widely available at the time. I also remember the black eye shadow was one of the darkest black shadows of that era."
A lot has changed since 2010, however. New technology and greater attention to a product's environmental footprint meant that Naked needed a bit of an update. Namely, the powders needed to be silkier, creamier, and completely vegan (they were always cruelty-free). This update came as welcome news to me. I primarily used my Naked Palette when doing stage makeup (I used to be a dancer) and my only issue was the fallout from the shimmers and the mattes weren't as blendable as I would have liked. "The only improvement needed was evolving the formulas over the years," Ahn echoes. “In the last decade, the standard of quality of powder eye shadows has been raised really high, so a new relaunch seems exciting for [Urban Decay].”
For Kerviche and Urban Decay's product development team, it was very important to bring the palette back as close to the original as possible. Keeping the colors the same, the binder-to-pigment levels were adjusted for added creaminess and application, according to the brand. It also introduced a new type of formula, called a wet slurry, for the shade Sidecar, allowing for more dimensional glitter that applies smoother and blends more easily. The brand also updated the dual-ended brush so that it's vegan and cruelty-free and the shape also seems to have been changed. The larger brush head appears more domed and densely packed, while the smaller brush looks shorter and more square-shaped.
So, what's the verdict on the update? It looks like Urban Decay has pulled off the reformulation seamlessly—not always an easy feat when dealing with a product as beloved as Naked. The palette looks the same, down to the same velvety-brown packaging and the lineup of shades. The colors seem to be nearly spot-on when compared with images of the old one. (Sadly, I got rid of my original palette ages ago and couldn't do a side-by-side comparison in real life.)
The most noticeable difference is the payoff and the blendability, especially the shimmer and metallic shades, which I think are most improved. They don't feel as dry to the touch as they used to. The shimmers don't flake and the matte shades give full, opaque coverage in one swipe (although, I still find the mattes a tad tricky to blend if your skin is dry). The different shades and textures play together beautifully and Creep, the black hue, is still just as inky and opaque.
All of this good news does come with a catch. While the palette launches on August 4 at Ulta.com and Urbandecay.com, it's available only while supplies last. At $59, it's not the most expensive palette on the market, but it's also not the cheapest.
Urban Decay Naked Palette
$59.00, Ulta Beauty
However, as someone who lived through the first Naked Palette frenzy, I will say that it is worth the cost, especially now that the powder formulas are up to date. Nearly every person I knew who owned a Naked Palette would open it up to reveal a row of almost empty pans, scraping away at each shade with their brush until nothing was left. If you're a Naked stan, now is the time to restock. If you're new, let me be the first to say, welcome, get ready, and in the words of our Y2K Queen, Britney Spears, get Naked.
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Originally Appeared on Allure
