Urban Decay Naked Honey

The eyeshadow palette that has me buzzing

I knew the Urban Decay Naked Honey Palette had my name on it when I first saw it. I adore warm, golden eyeshadows. This stunning monochrome palette is packed with golds; ambers, and chocolate tones. I feel like you can’t go wrong with a Naked palette, so without further ado this is why I am loving Naked Honey.

Naked Honey was an instant yes for me, I haven’t brought a naked palette in a while but this colour story were all shades I just love to wear. I have owned the original Naked palette, Naked 3 (Link to Selfridges) and Naked Petite Heat, (Link to Urban Decay UK) so there are quite a few Naked palettes I have passed on over the years. It’s an ever expanding range with the earliest edition being discounted in 2018. I feel like every beauty lover has knowledge of these palettes but just in case here’s the run down:

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The Naked Palettes

The Naked palettes are, and always have been constantly good quality for a mid-range price. The colour stories are largely monochromatic, with a focus on neutral/wearable tones within a colour family. It’s a great palette option for people who know what they like and what works for them. The formats are usually the same, 12 bars of colours and a double edged brush. There are also a few smaller palettes, like the Petite Heat (Link to Ulta) for instance that tend to be solely matte.

Any Naked lover, myself included, knows that Urban Decay has really got its Naked palettes down to a science. It’s really about waiting for that palette that calls to you. I was very tempted by Naked Heat and Naked Cherry (Links to Macys) when they were released but never could quite pull the trigger. Then I saw the previews of Naked Honey and I knew it was the one for me. Bright, warm and giving me 70’s vibes, I had to make it mine.

Let’s take a closer look shall we:

Urban Decay Naked Honey Eyeshadow Palette | £42

So we know it’s a gold focused palette and has 12 shades. What did surprise me about Naked Honey was that it has more mattes then the previous versions of the naked palette I have owned. A great surprise as for me it really helps to balance the palette and allow for more versatility with depth options in the crease.

There are four finishes, satin, matte, shimmer and metallic. One complaint I have had of the previous Naked palettes is, there tends to be more metallic shades that anything else. However, I feel like they have really addressed this with Naked Honey and got it just right. Overall I feel the right shades have the right finishes for how I like to wear my eyeshadow. Hive, Drip, Queen and Sting are great for adding depth and shadow. Flyby, Golden and Honey for spot lighting. And everything else, for anything else.

The shades:

• Flyby – ivory satin
• Sweet – neutral beige matte
• Swarm – soft mustard matte
• Amber – metallic copper shimmer
• Keeper – mustard brown matte
• Golden – rich gold shimmer
• Honey – intense gold metallic
• Queen – golden brown shimmer
• Hive – warm brown matte
• Drip – warm reddish-brown matte
• HBIC – rosy bronze shimmer
• Sting – deep warm brown matte

Oh Honey, Honey

I mean would you just look at this packaging, doesn’t it look like a disco dream of golden swirls. My eyes are just mesmerised by the beauty of it. There is a good weight to Naked palettes, and as with most of them the plastic packaging has a magnetic closure and a full sized mirror inside. It’s a comforting and familiar scene of 12 bar shaped eyeshadows nestled above a double edges brush. Now I will admit I never use the brushes. They work very well, I just find them a pain to store so tend to just use my own. As brushes in palettes go, the quality is the best I’ve tried.

Each shadow is 0.95g and they are all a vegan formula.

The Mattes

Shade Range

There are 6 mattes in the palette: Sweet, Swarm, Keeper, Hive, Drip and Sting.

I think the mattes are perfectly balanced within this palette. Sting being the deepest, and Sweet being the lightest. The shade range is sandwiched in the middle of the spectrum, so they aren’t extreme depths of light and dark but they do allow for easier pairing and blending as a result. There is a progression of depth to these mattes that makes the palette very easily to follow. For instance, Keeper is like the big sister to Swarm. So if I start with Swarm, following with Keeper gives me the perfect soft blended and effortless look I’m after.

Texture

Overall, the texture is great and I find them very effortless to blend. Just as expected really Urban Decay is known for its eyeshadow formulas. There is however, minor kick up with the mattes when you dip your brush into them, which translates as minor fall out on the eyes. A quick swipe under the eyes with a clean brush fixes this easily, or doing your eye make-up first. What I care more about is how they apply to my eye and how long I have to work with them to get a smooth lay down of colour. Well the answer for both is; quickly, easy and consistently.

Pigmentation

I find Hive, Drip and Sting to all be buttery and super pigmented. Sweet and Swarm are still very pigmented but ever so slightly more chalky/dusty in texture. This is likely due to their lighter tone.

The pigmentation is fantastic overall, there is no dud matte, like I said the deeper mattes do perform ever so slightly better, but the lighter mattes are still fantastic quality.

The Satin /Shimmers and Metallic

Shade Range

Team two are the shadows with a bit of glitter/sparkle or pearl effect. These are Flyby, Amber, Golden, Honey, Queen and HBIC. These shadows are more diverse in undertone then the mattes, which all are shades of brown. Apart from Flyby, they are much closer together in depth then the mattes are. That’s no bad things as the different undertones gives me variety within this colour story. I tend to pick my lid shade and build the rest of the look around it.

There are some shimmers/metallics that work more easily together, for instance HBIC and Amber both being in the copper family makes for an easy paring. I have been enjoying Queen as an outer v shade which works well for deepening all looks and reminds me a bit of Dark Horse from the original naked palette. Flyby of course is the obvious choice for a brow bone/highlight shade.

Texture

You can feel and see the texture difference between these formulas, Flyby as the only satin in this palette applies and feels just like a matte. Honey being the only metallic in this palette doesn’t have quite the same intensity, and as a result pay off as the shimmers. It feels smoother and in my opinion works better as a spot light or wash of colour shade. The shimmers; Amber, Golden, Queen and HBIC give that intense foiled effect and have a buttery, creamy texture that clings to the eyes to make it so.

Pigmentation

Honey being a very yellow gold is the name sake of this palette, is softer in pigmentation and colour then Golden which as said before has a more intense pay off. Amber is a little stiffer then HBIC which is so silky smooth, but really I’m grasping for things to differentiate the quality here because they are all good and I am by no means disappointed in the pigmentation of any of the shadows in this palette.

Sticky Sweet

I love this palette for work days and evening looks. For lighter every day looks I like to use Sweet as my transition shade, Swarm in the crease and Keeper or Drip on the outer V with Golden on the lid to bring light to my eyes. For darker smokier looks, I like to use Swarm as my transition, Drip in the crease and Sting on the outer v with HBIC on my lids. This aren’t the only looks I do, but the ones I have found myself repeating most often since having this palette.

I find the wear time to stay on for 8 hours at which point I usually remove my makeup but as I know and trust with the Urban Decay formula, it doesn’t budge. I always use Mac paint pot in Soft Ochre (Link to Mac UK) as my base and even on my hooded lids these shadows aren’t leaving me till I say it’s time.

Buzzing

If you are looking for variety I don’t think Naked palettes are the best option, but if on the other hand you love colours that go effortlessly together, in a specific colour family, Naked palettes are just that.

Formula wise Drip and Golden have the best overall performance but it’s a close race throughout. My favourite shades are HBIC and Keeper. I will never tire of this warm amber combination. And finally because I had to Google it, HBIC stands for; Head Bitch in Charge, and she brings it, as this copper shade may not be as buttery soft as Golden but there is something about it that calls to me every time. It’s safe to say it got its name for a reason.

All in all… a must for honey and gold lovers alike.

Have you made the Naked Honey palette yours?

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