This is it, folks: THE definitive smoky eye palette. I don’t say these words lightly; Tom Ford and I have been making beautiful smoky eyes together for too long for a sexy new thing to turn my head – trust me, the new Urban Decay Smoky Palette* is the stuff long term make-up relationships are made of.
For those of you who’ve missed the Naked phenomenon (how this is possible I know not – these long trays of 12 shadows redefined the palette and were all beauty people on the internet were talking about for months), here’s a quick overview: Naked 1 was a nice, classic palette that offered a lot of nudeness and a few defining shades, Naked 2 was broadly similar with some punchier dark shades, while Naked 3 was a more rosy take on nudity.
The fourth Naked palette: not quite as naked as its predecessors. Instead, it offers up a bevy of smoky eye options, from classic black to deep, rich purple and gunmetal grey, though it does stick to the Naked brief in that there are no jazzy or brighter shades with which to smoke up an eye and, like its fellow Naked buddies, it is all classic and wearable.
My first outing with it was a little overwhelming – as a smoky eye addict, I sort of wanted to try them all and ended up making a bit of a mess of myself. My advice based on that incident would be this: choose an eye, be it ‘golden smoky’ or ‘metallic grey smoky’ or ‘classic black smoky’ and stick to it. Don’t let the other colours turn your head. Provided you do that and follow the magic smoky eye rules (use a soft brush, blend until you feel you can’t blend anymore and remember the bit closest to your eyeball should be darkest, with intensity of colour graduating outwards), I can’t see how you could not fall a little bit in love with it.
* Urban Decay Naked Smoky is out tomorrow here for £38.
SWATCHES AND PHOTOS OF NAKED SMOKY ON //
A Naked Smoky Eye using Radar and Whiskey.
A Naked Smoky Eye using Daggar, Black Market and Password (and the mascara is Lancome’s new Volume a Porter which is BRILLIANT – whole post on it to follow).
l to r: High, Dirtysweet, Radar, Armor, Slanted and Dagger.
l to r: Black Market, Smolder, Password, Whiskey, Combust and Thirteen.