Product Description
What it is: Urban Decay Naked Skin Weightless Ultra Definition Liquid Makeup is an oil-free, fragrance-free, and paraben-free foundation that is supposed to give your skin a real life retouched look while offering ultra lightweight, comfortable wear. It also has lots of beneficial ingredients (Matrixyl 3000-Anti-wrinkle and lifting peptides, Litchiderm, Green Tea, Vitamin E, Sodium Hyaluronate) to act as preventative anti-aging and to keep skin hydrated.
Price/Quantity: $39 for 30mL / 1oz
Availability: Urban Decay, Sephora, Ulta, Macy’s
Selection: 18 Shades, including both warm and cool undertones.
Finish/Coverage: Demi-matte finish, light to medium coverage.
Packaging: Plastic container with a pump and a gunmetal reflective lid. The pump offers good control over how much product I want to dispense. There is something that sounds like a bead inside the container that helps to mix the foundation when you shake it.
Smell/Fragrance: It has a little bit of a paint like smell which is fairly faint but those that are sensitive may not like this. I don’t find it super offensive. I’ve definitely smelled stronger smelling foundations than this one.
Ingredients (from Urban Decay’s Website): Aqua (Water/Eau), Cyclopentasiloxane, Butylene Glycol, Silica, Cyclohexasiloxane, Dimethicone, PEG/PPG-18/18 Dimethicone, Sodium Chloride, Camellia Oleifera Leaf Extract, Litchi Chinensis Pericarp Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate, Tribehenin, Palmitoyl Oligopeptide, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7, Sodium Hyaluronate, Glycerin, Dimethicone/PEG-10/15 Crosspolymer, Dimethicone/Polyglycerin-3 Crosspolymer, Isopropyl Titanium Triisostearate, Polysorbate 20, Disodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Propylene Glycol, Carbomer, Cetyl PEG/PPG-10/1 Dimethicone, Hexyl Laurate, Polyglyceryl-4 Isostearate, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenoxyethanol. All shades may contain: CI 77891 (Titanium Dioxide), CI 77491/77492/77499 (Iron Oxides).
Performance
Application: This foundation applied and blended easily overall. It can be applied using fingers only, with a foundation brush, or with a Beauty Blender. It can grab onto dry skin or settle into very large pores but with the help of a blending brush I can make it look much more tolerable. On areas with dry flakey skin a damp Beauty Blender sponge worked the best for not emphasizing the dry patches as much. A foundation (Sigma Kabuki) made the flakes more obvious. Using a Sigma Kabuki, however, did give me better results as far as concealing large pores and giving a tiny bit more coverage. When using fingers only, the pore blurring effect wasn’t as easy to achieve. This method also requires more careful blending to avoid a streaky appearance. It feels super lightweight, almost like you aren’t wearing makeup at all.
Shade: I used the shade 1.0. I originally received a sample for the shade 2.0 which was almost perfect for my skin over the summer. But I purchased this early last fall and I figured it would be better to go a bit lighter. I kind of wish I went with the shade 2.0 but I can certainly work with the shade I have.
Coverage: The coverage isn’t enough for me to skip concealer even when attempting to build it up. It is buildable but if you are going to do that, just be careful to apply thin layers to keep the finish looking as natural as possible.
Finish: The overall effect isn’t quite like Urban Decay claims (being retouched). The texture it creates is beautiful, though. It leaves the skin with a velvety soft matte appearance but doesn’t make the skin look dry. It creates a nice soft canvas for powder blush. If you have oily skin you probably should set this with a powder. If you have dry to normal skin then you could probably get away without setting it.
Texture/Consistency: It has a softening effect on skin texture. Pores don’t become completely invisible but the texture looks far smoother and pores appear smaller. Fine lines appear softer. It dries down well so that powder products can be applied directly over the foundation without the need to apply setting powder first. Because I have combination skin, I use setting powder on the oiliest parts of my face to help it last longer. It doesn’t set too quickly so I have enough time to blend it in thoroughly without creating a streaky appearance. It is thinner than your average foundation and is slightly runny but not watery. It spreads easily over the skin.
Longevity: After 4-5 hours it stops controlling oil and needs a little bit of a touch-up. It doesn’t look awful by this time but it definitely doesn’t look freshly applied either.
Worth Buying?
This is a foundation that would best suit people that already have pretty good skin and like that little bit of extra perfection that a lighter coverage foundation can bring. You could say this foundation creates a “your skin but better” effect. It’s not going to hide things like breakouts, dark spots, or redness but it will blur pores, even skin tone, and give you a slightly healthier, more awake look. As long as you don’t have a lot of dry patches, it blends in well enough that you can’t see it on the skin unless you are looking in a 10X makeup mirror. The drawback is that this foundation isn’t going to be great for those with skin that’s excessively dry or oily.
