Review: Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette

The Urban Decay Naked 3 was arguably the most exciting release of the holiday season and I was so thrilled to find it under my Christmas tree!

This is the third installment to the incredibly successful and popular Naked palette series, all palettes holding 12 neutral shadows. This palette is the 'rose gold' version of the line. The packaging:

The packaging is gorgeous.  The tin case is similar to the Naked 2 palette except it is a pretty rose color and has some ridging on it.  The packaging is bitter sweet to me because though it is gorgeous, I really love the original Naked velvet packaging a bit better (though it did tend to dirty up rather quick).  I know my eyeshadows are safe within this tin and plastic casing, however there was something about the velvety packaging that felt luxurious and unique.  It truly is a beautiful case, though.

Ahhhhh! Now for the beautiful colors! All 12 colors in this palette are completely unique, unlike the two predecessors which had some repeat colors and colors you can find in Urban Decay's permanent shadow line.  All the colors are beautiful and unique and to shorten things up, I'm going to split the eyeshadow reviews by finishes and highlight colors I particularly like:
Satins/Mattes: Strange, Limit, and Nooner; I love all these colors. So buttery and satin-y to the touch and not lacking pigmentation! Also the purply tone to these colors really make the eyeshadow combinations you can make using this palette so unique!
Glittery/Chunky Metallics: Dust, Buzz, Trick, Blackheart; These colors are VERY glittery with serious CHUNKS of glitter. As a warning, you MUST use a primer for these colors to stick to your skin and show up and even with a primer there will be some serious fall out.  The colors Dust and Buzz are pretty awesome because these are the most non-neutral colors of the palette being pink and light purple.  The Blackheart color is super unique. It is a dark purpley-black with red and purple glitters in it. Gorgeous!
Sheen/Glitters: Burnout, Liar, Factory, Mugshot, Darkside; These colors are standard Urban Decay eyeshadows. Great pigmentation, great application and blendability, and awesome wear time.  Burnout is quite a pretty peachy color which is an awesome overlooked neutral. The other 4 colors are all of the taupe variety but fortunately do have distinguishable characteristics to them which is nice.  You can tell the colors apart.
I thought it would be nice to compare this palette with the previous two naked palettes:

As you can see, the Naked original palette (left) is a gold and brown toned palette. The Naked 2 (middle) is taupe centered.  The Naked 3 is rose gold. Putting all these palettes side by side, I think the Naked 3 really stands apart as far as the overall coloring of the palettes.  In fact, Naked 1 and 2 look quite similar side by side.  I like that the Naked 3 is definitely a neutrals palette but still has some color to it.  My only disappointment is that the colors on the end of the palette before the darkest color are rather similar to each other and there are similar colors in the previous palettes. You'll be able to see in swatches, however, that the colors are distinguishable from each other.

Here are the swatchy swatches! I think the colors swatch very realistically to what you see in the pan.  All of the colors are buttery soft and easy to apply and, as you can see, pigmentation is not an issue.  Also as I mentioned before, the 4 taupe-ish colors really are distinguishable from one another. This is an issue I keep repeating because I was disappointed with the Naked 2 palette as some of the dark taupe colors in that palette all ended up reflecting the same metallic taupe color despite looking different in the pan. These colors, however, do not have that issue. Thanks Urban Decay! Nailed it!

As far as I'm concerned, Urban Decay has knocked it out of the park once again.  This palette is great and truly distinguishes itself from the previous palettes with its rose gold theme and brighter colors.  I think that if you have one or even both of the previous Naked palettes, Naked 3 would still be a solid addition to your collection with out much overlap.

The Naked3 palette can be found in stores at Ulta and Sephora and online at urbandecay.com.  It retails for $52 and includes samples of Urban Decay's primer potion.

Have you gotten your hands on Urban Decay Naked 3 yet?
xxSJ