I’ll never forget the day that I bought my Naked palette: it was my 18th birthday and I was shopping in SoHo with friends when suddenly, we all fell victim to the siren call that is Sephora. I swept up a Naked 2 palette and carried it to the cash register, justifying the splurge as my 18th birthday present to myself. Although I knew the Naked palette was one of the best on the market, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a good idea to spend this much money on makeup. However, as the palette became a staple of my everyday routine, I realized that it absolutely was.
The infinite color combinations that each Naked palette offers can easily take a Collegiette from class to a night out in Manhattan, but I knew that I was really getting my money’s worth when I realized that I could use my Naked palette for more than just eyeshadow. There are thousands of tutorials on the Internet to show you the best Naked combinations for your eyes, but this isn’t one of them.
It’s time to go beyond the Naked eye – here are just a few ways to hack your Naked palette to work with your face, brows and collarbone.
1. Strobing with Bootycall
To be honest, I felt weird about using an eyeshadow as a high-intensity highlighter until I saw a makeup artist at a runway show instruct his team to do the exact same thing. Strictly based on the Naked 2 Palette, the three metallic colors (Bootycall, Verve and Half Baked) are ideal for strobing depending on your skin tone and desired result. If you’re in love with the Anastasia Beverly Hills Glow Kit but your bank account isn’t so smitten, this is the perfect alternative. I use Bootycall, a metallic pink that’s so light it looks white, as a natural-looking highlight for my pale skin and I would recommend it to anyone trying to create a more luxe dewy look.
Use your Naked brush to dab a small amount on the front of your cheekbones and along the upper cheekbones near your eyes and blend to your desired luminosity. Always blend and brush upwards! This should go without saying, but make sure that your brush is clean so that darker colors don’t find their way into your highlighter.
Here’s how a more natural, blended look will turn out – eye-catching and on-trend, but still subtle enough for class or a day at your internship.
2. Strobing with Half-Baked
This hue (also available on the original palette) can take your gold-dusted goddess look from subtle to party depending on your blending technique. Gold highlighter is truly flattering for all skin tones and absolutely striking.
The application is about the same as Bootycall, however you will have to be more diligent about blending or applying powder afterward, even if you’re going for a dramatic look. This is simply to avoid looking too shiny, given that the metallic concentration in Half Baked is a lot stronger than Bootycall. This goes for Verve (essentially the silver answer to Half Baked) as well.
3. Eyeliner
Because the Naked palette offers shadows that are not only very natural looking but also high-pigment, it is ideal for lining your eyes. If you’re like me and can’t go out in public without a cat-eye, this is a great trick that gives you a more earthy version of winged eyeliner in a fraction of the time. For this tutorial I used Busted because brown liner works best for a natural (but still very defined!) smudged look. I wouldn’t suggest Blackout for this look because as eyeliner it can hover closer to “emo phase” than “au naturel goddess,” but experimenting with the palette’s metallic colors is also very fun.
Begin with an angled eyeliner brush on your lower eyelid and sweep it into the corner of your eye. This will be the beginning of your subtle wing.
Your bottom lid and the beginning of your wing should look like this. Starting at the bottom lid bases the shape of the wing around your eye’s natural shape so that the look is more customized to your face.
Using the wing that you created on your bottom lid as a template, line your top lid and extend the liner to the ends. You should have a look that is smoky yet natural.
4. Nose Contour – Tease
I first started using Tease as my nose contour when I realized that all of the shades in my actual contour kit were too bronzer-like to look natural on my nose. I realized that I wanted something deep but not too dark – something like Tease. Since Tease is one of two matte colors on the palette, it’s perfect for slimming down your nose. On the original Naked palette, Buck is a very similar color and will work too.
Use the flat end of your Naked brush to draw a line down each side of your nose, extending those lines upwards to your eyebrows. You’re going to look ridiculous for a minute. Get to know your own nose shape and figure out what works – I find that I like to taper the two lines together as I get closer to the end of my nose. Some beauty gurus suggest drawing a horizontal line just before the tip of your nose, but this isn’t flattering for all noses (mine included).
Now you need to blend like you’ve never blended before – you don’t want obvious lines on your nose or random spots that look like dirt. Using the pointed tip of your blending sponge, blend down the side of your nose.
The result will be a slimmer, defined nose that isn’t quite Kardashian-level contour.
5. Eyebrow Powder – Tease
You’ll find that Tease is a very versatile shade – on days when I don’t want to make time for brow wax and powder, I like to just brush my brows and fill them in with Tease. Tease happens to work well for me because my hair is blonde, but it might be a bigger risk to use darker shades like Busted or Blackout because they’re metallic and you may not want sparkly eyebrows. If you have the original palette, Buck is a good substitute.
First, brush to your desired shape. This is just powder for your brows, so unlike brow pomade or wax it won’t hold the shape quite as well.
Once again using the flat end of your Naked brush, apply Tease to your entire brow, being careful to not go outside the lines. Clean up any excess powder with a makeup wipe or cotton swab.
6. Collarbone Dust – Half Baked
Although any of the metallic colors are ideal for this look, Half Baked stands out the most. Whether you’re going on a big date or attending a black tie event, you can make your collarbone (the classiest bone, obvi) stand out with a dusting of highlighter.
Stick out your shoulders a bit so that you can see your collarbone more clearly. Draw the fluffy end of your brush along your collarbone to emphasize it from the rest of your neck and chest. Blend as needed.
When finished, the sparkly sheen should draw more attention to your collarbone, especially if you are being photographed.
7. Concealing Powder – Foxy
This is my most recent discovery on the list and it’s been a game-changer for me in light of a midterm-related breakout. As I’ve repeated several times throughout this article, all of the shadows in the Naked palette are very high-pigment which makes them fantastic for certain uses and terrible for others.
Foxy, another matte shade, works like concealer in powder form. For darker skin, Tease should work too. Since this shade is more concentrated than standard face powder, it will do a better job of covering up a pimple and canceling out redness. While I like to use traditional concealer underneath Foxy, I like that I have more control over the application since it’s a powder. Make sure that your brush is clean, especially if you just used it for strobing or highlighting – the last thing you need is residual metallic eyeshadow drawing attention to a problem area.
There used to be a gigantic, bright red blemish between my eyebrows, but now it is gone and NASA won’t stop calling me because they don’t understand how something with its own orbit could just go missing in a matter of seconds.
8. Highlight – Lips, Nose, and Chin
Similar to strobing on the cheeks, you can also use metallic colors like Half Baked, Bootycall and Verve to highlight the tip of your nose, your cupid’s bow and your chin.
The chin and cupid’s bow have the easiest application and probably won’t require blending. For the cupid’s bow, simply dab the fluffy end of your brush at the top of your lip and about halfway into the crease above. For the chin, you’ll want to cover a decent amount of skin with a small brush, so be careful not to over-apply or leave it looking spotty. For that reason, keep the area confined to the middle and tip of the chin.
A little tap at the tip of the nose will add a vibrant glow to your face and shouldn’t need blending, but please be advised that if you extend that glow to the bridge of your nose, you will need to blend very carefully to avoid looking like a cyborg.
Et Voila! You can completely make yourself over using nothing but your trusty Naked palette. Who knew, right?