Urban Decay, the high-performance color cosmetics company, reignited the makeup world by relaunching its iconic original Naked Eyeshadow Palette on August 4, exclusively available at Ulta Beauty stores nationwide, ulta.com and urbandecay.com, with a limited number of palettes available. The relaunch has set social media ablaze with billions of impressions and palettes are selling extremely fast, with urbandecay.com selling through 60% of stock in the first 48 hours. Customers overwhelmed the Urban Decay website with orders, causing the brand to pause sales to get the site back up and running. The Naked Palette has officially sold out on urbandecay.com in less than a month, selling three times as many units as the prior Naked Palette launch. Ulta reports the palette was its number one seller the first week of launch.
“The massive response to the return of our original Naked Eyeshadow Palette is a testament to the timeless appeal of Urban Decay’s products and the dedication of our fans,” said Arnaud Kerviche, VP of Marketing at Urban Decay. “Our partnership with Ulta Beauty has allowed us to bring this beloved palette back to life, and we’re thrilled to see it resonate so powerfully with our community and prove that the eyeshadow palette isn’t dead!”
To create this high demand for the palette, the Urban Decay team developed a rolling marketing strategy with a focus on fueling intrigue and bringing multiple generations together. To achieve this, Urban Decay began implementation ten days before launch.
On July 24th, Urban Decay collaborated with Ulta Beauty on an Instagram post that hinted at something HUGE on the horizon. The video quickly garnered more than 500,000 views and inspired the first Reddit thread titled “Urban Decay Droppin Teasers?”
The next day, Allure subtly featured the palette in the background of a video on Instagram, while over on TikTok, Isabel Clancy, known for her 2000’s nostalgic videos, shared a sneak peek that garnered 4 million organic views and 224,000 in less than 36 hours. When the “coming soon” page went live on Ulta Beauty’s website eight days prior to launch, excitement reached a fever pitch. Redditors buzzed, @trendmood spread the news on Instagram, and Mikayla Noguiera’s TikTok post titled, “Bring It Back and I’ll Be First in Line,” amassed 1.5 million views and 166,000 likes.
On July 29th, six days before the launch, Urban Decay officially announced the return of the OG Naked Palette across all channels with media outlets reporting on the news and select influencers receiving the palette via synchronized brand mailer drops.
To further fuel the goal of bringing generations together, Urban Decay utilized a “pass the baton” method. The brand collaborated with OG creators who were instrumental in the palette’s rise during the beauty guru YouTube era in the early 2010s, like Nikkie de Jagger (NikkieTutorials), Manny Gutierrez (Manny MUA), and Shayla Mitchell (MakeupbyShayla.) Within their content, they “passed” the Naked Palette to some of today’s top beauty influencers, like Isabel Clancy and Lindsey Rowley (linsmakeuplooks).
“The relaunch of the palette is not just about bringing back a beloved product; it’s about celebrating the evolution of beauty and connecting generations of makeup enthusiasts,” shared Arnaud Kerviche, VP of Marketing at Urban Decay. “We want to ensure the legacy of this iconic product continues to inspire and empower a new generation of beauty lovers.”
“It’s an honor to partner with Urban Decay as the exclusive retailer for the relaunch of the brand’s iconic Naked Original palette,” said Maria Salcedo, Senior Vice President of Merchandising, Ulta Beauty. “As a home to multi-generational guests across the US, we are proud to celebrate and reintroduce a palette that was an instrumental part of beauty history and a trailblazer in the eye category. For some of our guests, the Naked palette was one of their first forays into beauty, being used as a tool to self-express and build community with beauty lovers, and we are so excited for the newer beauty generations to experience the palette’s versatility, neutral yet bold pigments, and long-lasting formulas. The response from new and existing guests has already been incredible and we are looking forward to continuing this momentum for a limited time only, in Ulta Beauty stores nationwide and online.”
Since the start of the campaign and the official launch on August 4, Urban Decay Naked has generated almost 7 billion impressions through media coverage without a celebrity endorsement, and engagement across Urban Decay’s social channels is up more than 200%.
First launched in 2010, the Naked Palette was born from a simple question posed to the product development team: “If you were stranded on a desert island, which four eyeshadows would you choose to take with you?” The resulting palette became a sensation, with one sold every 6 seconds. After more than 30 million units and over 1 billion dollars in sales, Urban Decay made the tough call to formally put the palette to rest in 2018 with an honorary funeral hosted by Nicole Richie.
The current iteration is an incredibly close match to the former, still containing 12 pans featuring classic shades like Sin, Toasted, and Smog which have been meticulously color-matched by the Urban Decay Product Development team. The palette also maintains its classic rich chocolate brown velvet packaging. The shadows now boast an updated, vegan formula for a creamier texture, and longer-lasting wear without creasing, fading, or fallout. The palette also boasts a larger mirror and an updated cruelty-free brush.
