Urban Decay review

Urban Decay launched in 1996 with nail polishes named Roach and Bruise, positioned explicitly against the pink-and-red counters of the time. It was a genuine counterculture play, it worked, and L'Oréal bought the company in 2012.

Nearly thirty years on, the brand's commercial reality is that two products do most of the work.

All Nighter

All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray is the product to buy. Unlike most setting sprays, which are essentially scented water with a film-former in homeopathic quantities, All Nighter uses a polymer system at a concentration that actually does something: makeup applied underneath it moves less, transfers less and survives heat and humidity noticeably better.

The trade-off is a slightly tight feeling on dry skin and a formula that includes alcohol high in the list, which is what makes it dry down as fast as it does. At around $35 for 118 ml it is expensive, and there is no equivalent at a lower price that performs as well.

The eyeshadow

This is the brand's underrated strength. Urban Decay's shadow pressing is dense, finely milled, blends without turning muddy and produces very little fallout even in the shimmers — which are the hardest shadows to press well. The formula has been consistent for over a decade.

Eyeshadow Primer Potion is the other enduring product: a tacky, quick-setting base that stops shadow creasing on oily lids. It invented the category in 2005 and still does it better than most.

The Naked problem

The original Naked palette, released in 2010, was a genuine cultural object — twelve neutral shades that made a specific look achievable for people who had never bought eyeshadow. It was discontinued in 2018 and the brand has been chasing it ever since with Naked2, Naked3, Naked Heat, Naked Cyber, Naked Wild West, Naked Reloaded and a steady stream of others.

None of them landed the same way, and the reason is curation rather than formula. The original worked because the twelve shades were chosen by someone with a clear view of what people actually wanted to wear. The successors read as a colour story assembled to fill a launch slot.

The rest

Stay Naked Weightless Liquid Foundation has a broad shade range and a perfectly reasonable formula that would be unremarkable at half the price. Vice Lipstick has an enormous shade range and a good creamy formula. 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil is a genuinely excellent kohl liner — soft enough to smudge for thirty seconds and then locked in place.

Ethics and transparency

Urban Decay is Leaping Bunny certified and has maintained a consistent cruelty-free position, including declining markets that would require animal testing — a genuinely costly decision and unusual for a brand inside a large group. That is why ownership and ethics scores 8.0 despite L'Oréal ownership.

Transparency is poor. No meaningful ingredient discussion, no allergen flagging, and marketing copy that is entirely about attitude.

The branding problem

Urban Decay's identity was built in 1996 against a specific enemy: a beauty industry that sold pink, red and beige and nothing else. "Does pink make you want to puke?" was the launch line, and at the time it meant something.

That enemy no longer exists. You can buy green lipstick at a supermarket. Every brand has a rebellious capsule collection. The counterculture position Urban Decay staked out has been fully absorbed by the mainstream, which leaves a brand whose whole personality was opposition with nothing to oppose.

What is left reads as costume — skull imagery, aggressive product names, a graphic identity that belongs to a decade that ended twenty years ago. Meanwhile the actual differentiator, which is that the shadow pressing is excellent and All Nighter genuinely works, gets almost no airtime.

There is a version of this brand that leads with its formulation record and drops the attitude. It would be a less distinctive brand and a more persuasive one.

Price

$22 to $58. The palettes are the weak point: $58 is a hard ask when ColourPop and Makeup Revolution press respectable shadow for a third of that, and Urban Decay's advantage on formula is real but not threefold.

The verdict

Buy All Nighter. Buy Primer Potion if your lids crease. Buy a 24/7 pencil.

Approach the palettes on the shades rather than the name, and do not expect the original Naked to come back in a different box.