Not too long after I posted about Quo Back to Basics palette, I went out and bought it, couldn’t resist. Thought you guys want to know how close it is to Urban Decay Naked palette, so let’s get to it.
Here they are, Naked on the top and Back to Basics on the bottom. First glance, they are very close except for Toasted (fourth shade in from the right) looking a little lighter than the shade from Quo. Pics were taken at night, so some shades might look a little different under flash. Read on for swatches.
The first four shades from the left side of the palettes, swatched with a damp eyeshadow brush, no primer. I did not experience any chalky texture or fallout from either palette.
First row, from L-R: Urban Decay Virgin, Sin, Naked and Sidecar.
Second row are the shades at the exact same position in the palette, in the exact same order.
I don’t know about you but I can’t tell them apart. Even though I know that Quo makes good eyeshadows but I am still shocked to see how smooth these applied and how similar they are to their Naked counterparts.
I wish Quo named the eyeshadows like UD did, to make it easier for me to identify a particular shade, but that’s not that important.
Moving on to the our shades in the middle.
First row: Urban Decay Buck, Half Baked, Smog and Darkhorse.
Second row: ones from Back to Basics.
As you can tell, Buck is a little darker than its Quo friend when swatched (not very different in the pans), its pigmentation is also a tiny bit better. The Quo colour did take an extra swipe of the brush to get the same colour payoff as Buck.
The rest? Again, can’t tell the difference with naked eyes (pun intended). OMG! I got so giddy while swatching, I couldn’t stop smiling. I love Quo!
Four shades on the right sides of the palettes.
First row: Urban Decay Toasted, Hustle, Creep and Gunmetal.
Second row: Quo.
As suspected, Toasted swatched as a darker bronze while the Quo shade showed up as a lighter bronze. The other three follow most of the pairs compared above: dupes head on! In fact, I think the Quo shade that is paired with Gunmetal might actually more pigmented.
Logistic:
– Urban Decay Naked palette is CAD60 on Sephora (12 x 0.05oz/ 1.3g), comes to $3.85 per gram. It comes with a mirrored case, a 24/7 liner or a brush) and a mini size of Primer Potion (which does add to the value of the palette). All house in a clear plastic case.
– Quo Back to Basics is CAD25 at Shoppers (12 x 1g), works out to be $2.08 per gram. also comes with a mirror and an eyeshadow brush. No primer, which isn’t a big deal to me, but note if you do need a primer to come with your palette. No plastic case but it has a clear plastic film placed on top of the eyeshadows, taped down on three sides. This will help avoid testing/ contamination, which is always a plus. It is, however, a LE product, as part of the holiday collection.
So, unless you are smitten with Toasted or the Primer Potion, or already own Naked, I would say Back to Basics is the way to go. I know that Quo runs promotions sometimes on the LE collections but I can’t say how long this particular palette would stay in stock (now that I tell you how awesome it is), so grab it when you can.
Source: http://sparkledbeauty.blogspot.com/2012/10/quo-back-to-basics-palette.html
