MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette - Heaven and Earth, Undressed

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth, Undressed

I bought these two palettes last month when MUA’s Facebook page hit 40,000 likes and they offered 40% off everything in their webstore to celebrate. Shortly after making my purchase I found out from others that MUA had already promised that when they reached 50,000 likes they would offer 50% off everything in their webstore. At first I regretted jumping the gun but now I’m glad I didn’t wait.

MUA achieved 50,000 likes over the weekend and, as you can imagine, there was a mad frenzy as soon as the 50% off sale commenced. Lots of items sold out quickly, the site crashed, came back on but then was taken offline for repairs. Now people are complaining on the Facebook page that they were charged for items that they were later told were out of stock. What a mess! I’m happy I was able to avoid it even if it meant I had to pay a little extra.

I’ve really gotten into eyeshadow palettes lately and I was mainly interested in buying MUA’s Undressed and Heaven and Earth palettes because I’d heard they were affordable dupes for Urban Decay’s Naked and Naked 2 palettes, respectively. Strangely, I’ve never been interested in buying the Urban Decay Naked palettes. But dupes of them? Absolutely! It doesn’t make any sense.

MUA’s Undressed has been called a dupe of of Urban Decay’s Naked palette and includes a combination of shimmer and matte shades.

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Undressed

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Undressed

And MUA’s Heaven and Earth is supposedly a dupe of Urban Decay’s Naked 2 palette. All of the shades are shimmery, some more than others.

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth (top), Undressed (bottom)

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth, Undressed

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth, Undressed

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Undressed

Undressed – 1, 2, 3

Undressed – 4, 5, 6

Undressed – 7, 8, 9

Undressed – 10, 11, 12

MUA Makeup Academy 12 Shade Palette – Heaven and Earth

Heaven and Earth – 1, 2, 3

Heaven and Earth – 4, 5, 6

Heaven and Earth – 7, 8, 9

Heaven and Earth – 10, 11, 12

I’m not sure what’s up with my palettes. Did I get a bad batch? I’ve seen tons of reviews for Heaven and Earth and Undressed and whenever other people swatch them the colors are so opaque and smooth, almost like satin or liquid metal; however, I found that some of the shades, specifically the mattes, were sheerer than expected and had to be layered in order for them to be visible. I mean, in general, the pigmentation and texture are still very good but not what I had been led to believe based on all of the raves. Compared to, say, the Wet n Wild ColorIcon 8-pan palettes the textures of the MUA shadows are smooth, just not as creamy smooth as Wet n Wild’s; the colors are pigmented, just not as intensely pigmented as Wet n Wild’s. The one color that really stood out to me was Undressed shade 2; it applied like butter and was opaque in one swipe.

Regardless, I’d still recommend both palettes because they contain such a versatile selection of neutrals and are of above-average quality. They’re good, just not as good, in my opinion, as some of the Wet n Wild shadows I’ve tried.

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