Chi Chi Nudes vs Urban Decay Naked Palettes - Review & Swatches

I was putting together a little welcome home goodie bag for my sister. I set myself a limit of $50 and I spent awhile finding the perfect makeup items to go in it. I knew I wanted some kind of eyeshadow palette featuring neutral shades but my beloved Urban Decay Naked palette would have completely blown the budget. Enter, the Chi Chi Nudes palette for the price of $22.95.

Let's state the obvious here - the quality of the packaging is nowhere near as good as Urban Decay. However for the price that you're paying, can you really expect more? It still feels sturdy when held in hand and is sleek and non obtrusive in design.  The pans that the shadows are set in are also good candidates for depotting and slipping them into a Z Palette.

The main difference I found between the shade formulations is that Chi Chi did not include the visible chunks of glitter. The biggest culprit was in the UD shade Bootycall. However when swatched it wasn't as noticeable. 

These swatches are all DRY with no primer. Urban Decay on bottom and Chi Chi on top. As you can see Sin and Virgin are not as vibrant as the Chi Chi alternative. The rest of the shades are very good dupes of the other.

These swatches are all WET with no primer. Urban Decay on bottom and Chi Chi on top. Both of these palettes perform magnificently when applied wet. I did find the Chi Chi matte colours (third and fifth from the left) did not like being applied wet and were disappointing. I would put this down to the quality of the shadows not being as up to par on the Urban Decay equivalent. 

If you have been lusting after the Urban Decay Naked palette but not the price tag you should definitely pick up the Chi Chi Nudes. It is a bargain for what it is and you shouldn't have to pay full price as Myer, Target and Gloss cosmetics regularly have 25% off (not usually at the same time I've found). The swatches speak for themselves in terms of how similar and saturated the colours are and the quality is fairly good throughout the whole palette. Soft and blendable is how I would describe these shadows. I wouldn't mind swapping my Urban Decay palette for my sisters Chi Chi if it wasn't for the packaging - I do think UD wins out on that. I presume though that Chi Chi would have to raise their prices to also rise to the standard of packaging.

Check out what Chi Chi has to say about this palette here.