Urban Decay Naked 3 vs LA Girl Nudes Eyeshadow Palette {Splurge vs Budget}

I have been so excited about doing this post…. In January and now in February, I just felt I wanted to do posts like I did in the ‘old days‘. Palette reviews, comparisons, swatches… I don’t know why, but it just feels like it’s been a long time since I did a post like this. These are also 2 pretty iconic palettes in this ‘Budget versus Splurge’ sort of review…..the Urban Decay Naked 3 I have lusted over for years….and the LA Girl Nudes, that I felt was my consolation prize when I could not afford the Naked 3. Recently though, I got my hands on the Naked 3 and finally could determine if I’ve been missing out or not…….

Stay tuned until the end of this post, because my friend Yolanda from Slay Uniqueness and I collaborated, and she’s also doing a Splurge vs Budget palette review today!

Let’s hop into the review!

What are the Palettes about?

Naked 3

Behold, the Naked 3 Palette – complete with 12 never-before-seen rose-hued neutral eyeshadow shades. Choose from light, shimmering pinks, to deep glittering black shades. Or get creative and combine for the ultimate neutral smoky eye. 

LA Girl Nudes

A must-have eyeshadow palette filled with a dozen majorly pigmented shades! L.A. Girl’s Nudes Beauty Brick Eyeshadow Palette gives you the best of all colors to allow you to create stunning looks!

Packaging

Naked 3

The packaging is stunning….rose gold metal packaging, with Naked 3 embossed in gold on the cover. Considering this palette came out quite a while ago, I think the packaging is great…in that it doesn’t seem outdated yet in 2019. It was packaging forward, if that makes sense. I love that it has a really secure closure system and I think this is a good palette for travelling.

Nude

This palette is standard, cardboard packaging. For R99 I think one cannot expect metal and fanciness. It’s nice and slim and compact, less bulky than the Naked 3. I have had this palette for so long and the packaging has never gotten damaged or out of shape, so I think they did well with the packaging for such an affordable pricepoint.

Where and how much?

The Urban Decay Naked 3 retails for R860 and the LA Girl Nude palette retails for R99,95. LA Girl is only available at Dischem, whereas Urban Decay has their own website and stores and is also available online at Foschini.

Swatches

From the bottom, we start with Nudes, Naked 3, Nudes, Naked 3 and so forth. From bottom up, I swatched: Strange, Limit, Nooner and Burnout. The LA girl shades do not have names, but I tried to match similar shades.

You can see the Naked 3 swatches are more seamless…they swatch so well! I was shocked. Arm swatches though, mean very little….it’s always about how it performs on the eye with a brush.

The Formula and my Experience

On Saturday I did a look with the two palettes. I used the LA Girl palette on the right side did my face, and the Urban Decay palette on the left side. I felt the the Urban decay matte shades blended amazingly, whereas I did have to build the shades a bit on the LA Girl side.

I had to use some MAC Fix+ with the shimmers in both palettes. The LA girl shimmer was a bit chunkier, bit looked amazing in person and in photos. I felt the Urban Decay palette’s shimmers appear very muted on the lid. I expected more shimmer, especially with the Fix+, but I felt overall the Naked 3 eye looked more seamless.

Addison voted for the Naked 3 eye, hubby said it was very very close, but he chose the LA girl eye. Both had no idea which palette was on which eye. It was super close though and I felt I created identical looks.

Wear time….I wore the eye look for about 6-8hrs and gals….the looks were pretty identical at the end of it. The shimmer was starting to fade on both lids, but the whole look was totally still intact.

Which would I recommend?

There’s no question that the matte shades of the Naked 3 are soft, buttery and blend like a dream. They are superior in every sense. It took a bit more work with LA Girl, as the mattes are drier, but I felt the look was as beautiful. The LA girl palette though, the shimmers gave me more payoff than the Urban Decay palette.  I honestly can’t tell you which I prefer…. If you’re a makeup collector, you want to own the cult Urban Decay favourite…but if you’re on a budget, you will be getting the most amazing quality from the Nudes palette at such a low price point. It’s actually insane!

Do you own any of these palettes? 

My friend, Yolanda, over at Slay Uniqueness is also doing a Budget vs Splurge sort of post today, featuring an Anastasia Beverly Hills palette, so be sure to head over and check that out!

PS I could not photograph the LA Girl nudes palette open, because this was a casualty of war….if you recall I did a post on Adam’s destruction with my makeup and skincare? This palette featured in that post. 

PSS Head over to my Facebook page for details on my latest giveaway….a MORPHE palette!!