Sunday, June 12, 2011

Urban Decay Naked Vs NYX Nude on Nude - showdown time

Everyone knows I recently got my mitts on a couple of the elusive Urban Decay NAKED palettes, and despite wanting to do a review post just on the NAKED palette, which I'm sure has been done millions of times over, I thought it might be a tad more fun to do a showdown between my NAKED palette and the NYX Nude on Nude shadow box

WARNING THIS POST CONTAINS LOTS AND LOTS OF PHOTOS :D

The price differences - The NAKED palette retails in the US at US$48 so it's on the exxy side. The NYX nude on nude RRP is US $25 so there's a pretty big pricing difference between the two

As you can see the NYX box is slightly smaller and seeing as it contains 20 shades as opposed to NAKED's 12 shades it makes the NYX box more compact, NYX also contains 10 lippie shade.  the 2 palettes are also very different in the casing, NYX is in a hard plastic box while NAKED is in a felt style covered cardboard box palette, with the Urban Decay eyeshadow brush


Lets take a closer look at the NAKED palette
the palette
colours 1-6
 Left to right, Virgin, sin, naked, sidecar, buck, half baked

colours 6 - 12
left to right half baked, smog, darkhorse, toasted, hustle, creep and gunmetal.

The Quality of the shadows in the naked palette is superb, they pick up onto the brush easily and transfer to the eyes smoothly, with the colours staying true to what you see, they do have a slight tendency to be a bit on the powdery side almost as if they are too soft.

Now lets take a closer look at the NYX nude on nude box.
First thing you see is that there is 20 shades in the box, there's also 10 lippies, but seeing as I'm not comparing those I wont bother with them but you can see the swatches for them here.
row 1
row 2
Plenty of pretty colours to choose from, the Nyx shadows aren't as soft as the NAKED ones, but considering their price range, that's to be expected, they are however great texture and colours for the price. The other thing is NYX doesn't individually identify the shades with names making it almost impossible to replace something you love.

So now we go head to head with each individual colour to see if there's any dupes and how close they are. Bear with me I hope it all makes as much sense to you as it did to me when doing it.

The first colour up is NAKED's Virgin, next up is NYX this is the first colour on row 1.  it's too light and creamy in colour to be a dupe, 3rd colour is NYX row colour no 2.  this is a tad closer but still too creamy for an exact dupe.
*No. 4 is NAKED's Sin, next to that in position no5 is NYX from row 2 position no 7. they are close Sin is a touch more pinkish to my eye, no other colours stood out form nyx to be close in shade
*No. 6 is NAKED's naked, and the only 2 possibilities that stood out were not even close, colour no.7 is NYX row 1 colour no3 and colour no7 is NYX row 1 colour no 6.

Does that all make sense?  I hope so cause I'm going to keep going!

Up first here we have NAKED's sidecar, follow in spot 2 by NYX row 2 colour no. 2 these 2 look to be from the same colour family, but NYX is far lighter than sidecar.
*in spot no3. we have NAKED's buck, followed by NYX row 1 no.8 again its just not quite right to be a dupe, but nothing else was close.
*Spot no.5 has NAKED's half baked, follow in spot no.6 by row 1 colour no.4 in NYX, and in no.7 spot is row 2 colour no3, these 2 are far too dark and much more orange than half baked.
*Spot no.8 contains NAKED's smog, and lastly is nyx from row 1 no.8 this was the only one close in shade, Smog is clearly more bronze though.

Is it getting confusing yet? LOL

Spot no.1 in this picture is home to NAKED's darkhorse next to that is NYX row 1 no.5 this is close in colour but not as dark a bit too reddish and third is row 1 no.6   which is clearly too shimmery and has grey undertones.
*Up next in position 4 is NAKED's toasted, next to that is NYX row 2 no.8 similar in depth of colour but NYX is far too orange.
*Colour no.5 is NAKED's Hustle and next to that we have NYX row no.2 colour no. 9, again these 2 are similar but hustle has more purple undertones.  Nothing else was any closer.

Drawing to a close we have the last 2 NAKED colours.
In first spot we have NAKED's creep, next to that is row 1 no.9 from NYX,  these 2 are close with the NYX colour having slightly more blueish undertones.
*Colour no.3  here is the last from the NAKED palette, it's Gunmetal.  Next to that is row 2 colour no.4 in NYX these 2 are close, very, very close Gunmetal is more shimmery though and lastly row 2 no.10 in NYX this is way too light for a dupe.

Now I've seen a couple of blogs that seem to show some of the colours being exact dupes, but to my eye this is not the case.  There's gorgeous colours in both palettes but the NYX one really doesn't contain any exact dupes, there are a couple of close matches but the reality is If you have fallen in love with swatches from the NAKED palette you won't find cheaper dupes by purchasing Nude on Nude.  That's not to say the NYX palette doesn't have great nude shades because it does and it's an excellent budget palette that has a lot going for it. I'd think that the 88 natural from coastalscents may have better duping options. 

Hopefully the comaprisions made sense to you, I promise it made sense to me while trying to work out the best way to show the possible dupes.

Do you have a favourite Nude palette that you cant get enough of?

8 comments:

Suzanne said...

I've got the Naked palette coming, and I wondered if it would render the Nyx one obsolete. I think this convinced me I can happily have both! :3 thanks for such a great post, that must have taken ages!

D.Sadie (D.G.S.Beauty) said...

Thanks for the review! That NYX palette looks great and I love how it has more colors to choose from.

-Dinah
dgsbeauty.com

*Check out my giveaway:
http://www.dgsbeauty.com/2011/06/dgsbeautys-100-followers-giveaway.html

RitualEyes said...

Thanks ladies, it did take quite some time to do, and well you cant really have too many neutrals can you? they are after all the basics from which most looks start at, even if it's just for contouring the crease. :D

Dee said...

Great post, Michelle - you've put a lot of work into that. I was curious about how the NYX palette would compare, as it's obviously meant to be a dupe.

Stacey said...

Very informative and helpful Mich, now I want both palettes =D

Su said...

Gasp! I just love those shades! Thanks so much for the comparison.
As much as I want the Naked palette, I definitely see the NYX palette in my future :D

RitualEyes said...

:D I think they are different enough to feel comfortable about my need to have both too!

I also feel the nyx is a better travelling palette as the packaging is more solid plus it has the lippies, so you don't need to throw those in as well. The carboard casing of the NAKED palette would be more prone to wear and tear when putting it in a suitcase or overnight bag.

Blackmagic said...

I love half baked & Smog in the naked palette though and NYX don't come close to those colours.