Urban Decay Naked Skin Beauty Balm

When beauty balms or BB creams were first available I tried one or two but mainly they were very similar to tinted moisturisers in the way that they looked and apart from a few days in the summer I felt I needed more coverage.

Over time though they have evolved and recently I’ve discovered that some have higher levels of coverage and I’ve started to use them more regularly instead of full coverage foundation. After all, I don’t necessarily need coverage rather some of the other properties like mattifying and light reflection.

Most recently I’ve come across this Naked Skin Beauty Balm from Urban Decay. I have to say I was expecting great things because everything I’ve tried from Urban Decay has been impressive so far. The Urban Decay Naked Skin Beauty Balm is a bit of a multi tasker with claims that it:

• Perfects – with optical blurring pigments to even out skin tone and minimize pores, lines, wrinkles and redness.
• Protects – with SPF 20 to shield skin from sun damage and Pepha-Protect to help inhibit DNA damage.
• Treats – with Vitasource and Glyage to firm skin, improve elasticity and provide anti-aging benefits.
• Primes – a blendable formula that creates a smooth finish so makeup goes on smoothly and stays put.
• Hydrates – instantly hydrates skin as well as improving hydration over time.
• Is suitable for all skin types.

Now that’s an awful lot of claims and I’m not really sure that I understand all the scientific stuff. Still I ignored most of that and did the usual thing by slapping it on my face to see how it looked and felt.

I tried it in the shade Naked Medium, I can’t find any other shades available currently and although the shade is ok and not too dark it’s more about the tone I think as it’s a little warmer than I would normally go for.  It goes on easily and makes my skin feel velvety to the touch. It doesn’t provide quite the coverage I’d like, it’s perhaps a little sheer for covering the odd blemish. I do like that it’s SPF 20 as that’s something I like to have in a base even during winter. I’d like to try it in a lighter shade but then I’d probably still prefer to use it as a primer rather than on it’s own.

Verdict overall? it’s a bit of a mixed one really – wrong shade and wrong coverage level for me but all the ingredients are right otherwise. It costs £23.50 here.