Urban Decay Naked Palette Vs Primark Bronze Palette Full Review and Comparison with Swatches

As I've just purchased the new Urban Decay Naked Heat palette and am eagerly awaiting it's arrival, I got thinking about how much money I actually spend on high-end makeup palettes and how much I actually use them. The latest addition to my collection has set me back a whopping £39.50, but how much will I actually use it? The colours are gorgeous, completely different to a lot of the ones I already own (minus one or two in separate palettes) and I genuinely think I'll end up using it as an everyday palette, but thinking back at how much I've spent on the other four Naked palettes from Urban Decay, I can't help but think I could have saved money and just not bothered for how much I use them. 

Now, I'm not usually one for 'dupe' products but when I started thinking about whether or not I should have splashed the cash on any of my UD palettes I couldn't help but notice how similar some of the shades were in my Bronze Shadow and Shade palette from Primark. For £4 it's obviously a hell of a lot cheaper and less of a kick in the purse than the £38 I originally paid for my Urban Decay Naked palette and for that reason I thought I'd do a little comparison post for you all! 

Obviously the first noticeable difference in the palettes is that the Primark Bronze palette only has ten shades compared to the Naked Palettes' twelve, you're instantly two shades down, but for a £34 price difference, I don't quite think this is much of an issue, especially when you have your core shades in there. The pans in the Primark Bronze palette are also noticeably a lot bigger than those in the UD palette and for the money you're paying, it makes you start to wonder really why you're actually forking out that much dolla. Or at least, it did with me. 

For my swatches above I haven't picked all of the shades, but have picked out the shadows that I think are the most similar. Obviously, you're not going to have shadows that are like-for-like but you have to admit, they are pretty close in colour? The first two shades that I've swatched are the more muted matte shades: the shade on the left is Half Baked from the Urban Decay Naked Palette and the shade on the right is Sunseeker from the Primark Bronze palette. Aside from Sunseeker being just  that little bit darker, they're two pretty similar shades and are perfect for a crease transition shadow. Instantly though just through swatching these two, there was a huge difference in the pigmentation. Now, I haven't actually used the Naked Palette in quite a while, but when switching Half Baked I really had to dig my finger in to get even a half decent swatch. The swatch you see in the photo is probably two or three layers of product whereas the Primark Bronze palette swatch was incredibly pigmented and was achieved in the first swipe. I do remember being a little disappointed with the lighter matte shades in a couple of the Urban Decay palettes, but to be outshone so much by a £4 palette from Primark, that's just a little embarrassing on their part, don't you think?

The other shades I swatched (in the order running down my arm from top to bottom) were: Naked and Day Trip, Toasted and West Coast, Gun Metal and Midnight and finally Sidecar and White Sand. I have to say I was really impressed by the pigmentation in every single one of the Primark shades and as you can see, a lot of them compared really nicely to the Urban Decay ones; in fact in some cases, I preferred the finish and overall shade of the Primark ones.

When it comes to the formula and pigmentation of the palettes I have to honestly say that I was more impressed by the Primark palette. I think this is mainly because of the price difference between the two, but even when I was testing this palette out before I realised the similarities I was extremely impressed with the shadows. As much as I love Urban Decay shadows, I can find them a little powdery and especially with the shimmery shades, they can have a bit of fall out and for the money you pay for them, I kind of hate that they do that. I love the feel of the Primark shadows though and for £4 they are a hell of a lot better than I ever thought they would be. They have a gorgeous formula which is almost creamy in consistency and they just feel so buttery and smooth when applied. Even the shimmery shades are really buttery and apply really well to the eyelids. There's a little fall out, but nowhere near as much as I would expect from a palette in this price range and overall I've been thoroughly impressed.

When it comes down to it Urban Decay are known for their Naked palettes and eyeshadows in general and I honestly can't see myself getting rid of mine any time soon as I am a massive fan of the collection, but obviously asides from the Naked Heat palette that I've just bought, I do think I'll be taking a pass on any future palettes that they release (unless of course the colours are ones I can't ignore like this time around). For the price it's clear to see that there are alternatives out there that compare in quality or even surpass it and I think that this Primark Bronze eyeshadow Palette is proof of that. At £4 for a 10 eyeshadow palette that in my opinion, is up there in quality and substance compared to the Urban Decay Naked palette, I would hands down recommend trying out this Primark dupe over picking up one of it's higher priced partners. Even if you wanted to get a feel for the colours before picking up the more expensive UD version to make sure they were right for you, I'd definitely suggest picking it up and seeing how you get on with it before splashing the cash on the higher-end palette. At the end of the day the Naked palette is almost 10x the price of the Primark one and although you expect that from the brands, no-one really needs to be spending that much money when there are alternatives out there. Of course, I am a massive hypocrite as I have spent that much on 5 of their palettes now, but if I can save anyone else some money if you're up in the air about buying a palette of that price, then that's my job done for the day!

I really hope you liked this comparison piece and I would absolutely love to know if you would like more of these kinds of posts on my blog? I'm really trying to mix up the kind of content I give you guys and hope to produce more of what you want to see so please do let me know any suggestions!

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BekyLou, Beauty, Fashion, Fitness and Lifestyle Blog based in the South West and London.

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