I'm excited to share some quick swatches of Urban Decay's recently released Naked 3 palette ($52) with you! The beauty blogosphere is obsessing over this eyeshadow palette at the moment- and there's good reason.

Now, I don't own either the original Naked palette or Naked 2, so I can't do comparisons.  Actually, these are my very first Urban Decay shadows, so you can hear thoughts from someone who hasn't been exposed to UD eyeshadow in person. I do wear a lot of neutral shadow though- mostly Lorac, Inglot, & some Stila.

First, a look at the packaging:



A really nice cardboard outer box with embossed gold lettering...the back:


I thought the interior print of the box was cute!


Ah, the palette itself:



It comes in a really attractive, sturdy metal tin with the same raised lettering as on the outside box. The palette is pretty weighty, feels solid and very nice.

Inside, a large mirror like everyone is accustomed to with the previous Naked palettes:



Naked 3 comes with a dual-ended brush which I think is pretty high quality.  The bristles are very soft and serve their intended purposes: one end has a narrow, flat shader for patting on color, and the other end has a small, slightly flattened blending brush which is good at getting inside the crease.



Urban Decay also included four deluxe samples of different versions of their famous primer potion:


Unfolded:



The above shows the reverse after you pull out one of the sides.  The actual size of each sample is not labelled anywhere on the packaging, but on the back of the outer palette box, it says "Each sample pod holds about a week's worth of primer!" Just hazarding a guess by feeling, but there's probably a bit more than that in each pod.  A little primer goes a long way- at least for me.

Ahem- onto the eyeshadow!


The most exciting aspect of this palette for many (I think?), but definitely for me personally, is that all of the shadows have a strong pink undertone! For people with cool-toned skin, and especially in the fair-light category, this range of hues is perfect.

I can only think of one other palette with pink undertones: Lorac's Unzipped, which I also own and love.  I couldn't find any comparison swatches of the two yet, so I may have to do that at some point.  (Either way, I'm sure they'll show up online soon- I'm not the only one who's noticed the similarity.)






Swatches!
All shades are shown left-to-right, in the same order as in the palette, over naked skin with no primer:







Strange is a very light, soft, cream-pink matte finish.  You can barely see it on my skin because it pretty much is the color of my arm skin, but the shadow is actually pretty pigmented.  The texture is one of the softest and most buttery in the palette, and I appreciate UD including a matte shade for highlighting, since I strongly prefer that look.

Dust is a super shimmery, light rose pink.  I wouldn't call this glittery, but it is packed with shimmer- pretty, but needs special care to avoid fallout.  Even swatching this I had shimmer going everywhere. When I blend this one out, it becomes very sheer very quickly.  It'll do better over a sticky base like a paint pot or Nyx's Jumbo Eye Pencil in Milk, which will help it both adhere better/ control fallout, as well as make it appear more opaque.  The texture is super soft and silky, though.

Burnout is like Dust's more pigmented, less shimmery sister. It's metallic without being super shimmery, and I experienced almost no fallout with it. The color, as you can see, is a little deeper: it almost has a pinkish-bronzeyness to it. Like this one a lot!

Limit is the next lightest matte shade in Naked 3. It appears as a soft, dusty rose in the pan, but swatches quite a bit darker- more of dusty mauve.  I love this shade, and it strongly reminds me of 'Unconditional' from  Lorac Unzipped (one of my favorite eyeshadows ever), although the two are not quite the same.  Limit is very soft and blends out easily. 








Buzz is a deeper, darker, mauver version of Burnout, and is also a metallic finish.  It looks almost indentical in the pan and swatched. It's very soft, very pigmented but can blend out pretty sheerly, as well, so seems like a versatile mid-toned shade.

Trick is the "gold" metallic of the pallete- except, since this is Naked 3, it's much more of a rose gold! The color tone is almost an orangey-gold instead of a yellow-based gold.  If this were a nail polish, I'd call the finish a foil...The texture is extremely similar to Buzz, except a little more pigmented, which is nice! This will contrast nicely with blue eyes. 

Nooner is the last matte shadow in the palette: a mid-toned shade perfect for all over the lid or in the outer corner if you're going very subtle. Versatile! The color is kind of a mauve with strong purple undertones.  Compared to Limit, it's not quite as pigmented, and went on a little patchier at first, although it does finally blend out nicely. 

Liar is a metallic bronze shade with similar feel and pigmentation to Trick. This is one of my favorites! I don't know, the color is just super lovely, and the texture/ consistency is pretty perfect in my opinion.









Factory is a brown-leaning bronze metallic finish. It's slightly less metallic than Liar, and in comparison much less pink-toned, although were you to compare it to any normal bronze shadow, I bet it would still look fairly pink. Texture on this one is nice too! It can be blended out sheerly or patted on for a very pigmented look.

Mugshot is also a bronze metallic, but is much more warm-toned than Factory (and a little darker), and a little more light-catching as well. It's super soft and buttery- excellent texture. This is the most pigmented shade in the palette- you hardly need to touch the shadow and you get great 'payoff."

Darkside is one of the most interesting shades here! I'd call it a taupe, but there are definite plummy undertones.  Also, I don't know if you can see, but it's got sort of a subtle duochrome effect where the light hits it most strongly. The downside of this one is that it's probably the sheerest in Naked 3, so you have to build it up a little.

Blackheart is described as a "deepest matte black with red micro-glitter." I'd say that's fairly accurate, except it's probably not the deepest black ever- more of a very deep charcoal.  I'm not complaining, though! Very deep black is too overpowering on a lot of skin tones, so I think this shade fits in well here. The red micro-glitter shows up very well when applied. My swatches don't really do it justice.  The texture is decent: pigmented, but slightly on the chalky side compared to the feel of other shadows in this palette.
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Overall, I do really love this palette, and am looking forward to getting to know it better and traveling with it over Holiday vacation. Only time will tell if it will supplant my love for Lorac Unzipped or some of my neutral Inglot eyeshadows. All the same, it's nice to have such a variety of pink-toned shades/ finishes all in one place.

I've done a couple eye looks with it, but they were rushed, and nothing I'd want to show, although maybe I'll do one in the future. I can already tell, though, that the matte shades here will become great stand-bys.  Dust is really the only shade that I'm a little frustrated by due to its sheerness and capacity to create a wasteland of shimmer on my face.  I'm going to try it over a sticky base, though, and have a feeling it'll perform better then.