Review! Urban Decay Naked Skin Beauty Balm

I recently acquired a free sample of Urban Decay's new Naked Skin Beauty Balm.  I received it as a sample with a purchase, and it was not given to me for review, nor with the knowledge that I have this blog.  It was simply a standard free gift with a purchase.

Ok, with that disclaimer out of the way; I was completely unimpressed.  A big part of my assessment is coming from trying out so many Asian BB creams, so Urban Decay already had their work cut out for them in that regard.

• It has a very orange cast to it, so much so that if I were any paler would have turned me orange.  
• I used more of it than I would with an Asian BB cream, and got far less coverage; almost none, in fact.  I put on another layer using the same amount, and aside from my skin now looking matte and a bit more even-toned, it still wasn't much coverage.  
• I would assess it as "very sheer" to "still very sheer".  
• Furthermore, especially after trying Asian BB creams (and so far, the only "real" ones, as far as I am concerned), this one was a lot more like a vaguely tinted primer than anything else.  It wasn't as much coverage as a tinted moisturizer.  
• As for functioning like a primer, it worked well, comparable to my Lancome LA Base Pro.  
• It did make my skin matte.  That isn't a feature I like, as I favor a dewy complexion, but they say it will do that, and it did a good job of that.
• It did make my skin feel silky, as most makeup primers with silicone do.
• There is only one color, so if that shade doesn't work for you then you will have to put your regular foundation on over it.  To be fair, most (but not all) Asian BB creams also only come in one shade, as well.

As I usually do, I gave it several chances before coming to my final conclusions, and my opinions of it did not change at all.

Pictures!

Here I am with not a lick of makeup on. 

Here is the sample I received:

This is 5 drops of product.  There is a little smudge of it on my middle finger because I wiped off the top of the tube to keep the lid from getting messy.

4 - One application of 5 drops is on the left.  Then, another application of 5 drops is in the middle.  It looks better in the photo than it did in real life.  There is sunscreen in it, so the photo lightened my complexion.  Finally, as it was not enough coverage, I put on one pea-sized amount of a Skin79 BB cream, and that picture is on the right..  I'm getting to the bottom of this cream's sample-sized tube, so a bit of air blew out at the end and made that funny looking divot.  I think they all look very similar to photograph.  In person, the first application looked like I hadn't applied anything, and the second layer looked a bit orange.  The Skin79 covered the orange, and turned me back to pale.  However, both of these products contain a lot of sunscreen, so they photograph similarly (i.e., they will wash you out).

To compare, here is the drop of BB cream I used.  It has that divot in the middle from a burst of air at the end blowing a little divot in it.  It was a pea-sized drop before the air blew on it, and was about 3 drops worth of the Urban Decay (to compare volume used).:

So, because my big attraction to the Asian BB creams is the whitening properties and its remarkable coverage level for so little product, and because the Urban Decay version didn't do much more than matte-ify my skin and turn me a bit orange, I don't have a use for Urban Decay's version.  Their information says you have to use the product for several weeks to see some of the benefits, but my sample won't last that long, and I have no desire to spend the money for a full sized version.