Urban Decay Naked Cyber Palette

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Here it is – the latest from Urban Decay and a further palette to add to the Naked collection; Naked Cyber. I actually hesitated on this palette for a good two weeks before I bought it and I’ll be honest, I only bought it as I have all the others and it’s part of a collection. As with all the previous Naked palettes, it’s inspired by a theme and this time it’s a futuristic voyage into cyberspace with a collection of satin, matte, shimmer, glitter and duo chrome shades to take your look to the next dimension. We are also seeing the new vegan formulas that were present in the Urban Decay Wild West palette, so I do hope that we are seeing this continue as a standard formulation going forward. I have a lot of thoughts on this palette so buckle up for this intergalactic ride into Cyber space.

Naked Cyber: The Packaging

I actually think this is my favourite packaging from all the Urban Decay Naked palettes, with the Ultraviolet coming a close second. I really do like how much thought and effort goes into the cases and they are so much better than the original Naked palette, or the tins like Naked 2 and Naked 3. As with all recent past cases, they are sturdy plastic, with an internal mirror and the Urban Decay dual ended brush that I have honestly never ever used in my entire life. The outer design looks like a soldered circuit board on pastel iridescent hues that catch the light. It’s really fun and fits in so well with the cyber theme.

The Shadows

Inside the palette are twelve shades that are very light in colour, with a peachy pink theme before you reach the pops of cyber colours and weirdly a rust orange red shade that does look completely out of place. The palette is based around the duo chromes however there are just two duo chrome shades.

AI – Warm toned light beige with light shimmer and a satin finish

Meta Data – light peach with warm undertones, metallic finish

Virtual – light peach orange, matte finish

Electrode – warm toned light orange with sparkle finish

Cyberspace – warm toned duo chrome in rose peach shade with iridescent shift

Gadget – warm toned, medium peach, matte finish

Call It – warm toned medium pink with frost finish

Not a Bot – warm toned, light pink with sparkle finish

Static -cool toned silver with a sparkly metallic finish

Y3K – duochrome, darker pink red with blue green shift

Override – medium dark red with warm undertones and a sparkly finish

Byte – dark orange red with matte finish

The Thoughts

I haven’t seen a huge amount of reviews on Naked Cyber yet – possibly as it’s a new palette but also because there are a lot of mixed thoughts around it. First impressions for me is that it was a very light palette and I wasn’t sure if it would even show up on my skin tone. It’s also not very overwhelming when you open it especially when you are looking at it alongside some of the latest palette launches from other brands. I know that Urban Decay Naked palettes do tend to run on the lighter side, hence being Naked as such but this is really pale which doesn’t bode well for people with darker skin tones. If it’s barely showing up on me then someone who does have a deeper skin tone has been pushed out.

The first few shades in the palette are merely transitional shades for me. Even with the deeper shades from the first seven or eight shades in the palette barely made an impact on my skin. The one shade which is actually incredible is Byte but I don’t feel that it belongs in this palette. It’s such a random addition to the colour story, but is actually the best shade in there.

For a palette pushed for it’s Duo Chrome shades, I would have expected to see more than two shades. I also can’t understand why the palette is so pale leading when duo chromes work so brilliantly over black or really dark shades. I feel that they have missed a trick here.

Formulation wise, they aren’t much different than what we know from Urban Decay however I did find that some were a little more flakier and some of the shimmer shades were quite dry and almost scratchy when using your fingers. I found that some shimmer and metallic shades didn’t like a brush and you need to use your finger or use them wet for a much better application.

It definitely pays to use a primer such as my Ride or Die Urban Decay Primer Potion and use a synthetic brush when applying the shimmer/metallic and duo chrome shades.

Overall, I do like the palette. I like the peachy pink matte shades which will be worn a lot. I also think that the latter end of the palettes shade are spot on. Byte is wonderful and that will be the shade that will hit pan first of all.

When it comes to palettes like Naked Cyber, you really do need to play around with the colours to find what suits. Can I make numerous combos with what’s in the palette? Probably not. Can I make really fun and sparkly looks by using them as topper shades? Absolutely. To me, it’s not a standalone palette. I need deeper shades to be able to make it work to it’s full potential but I think it’s a very lovely addition to my collection and I can’t wait to use it more.

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