Products/Dupes

As a part of my research into MUA, I created a survey of multiple questions. This was done for my own understanding of the brand, who buys the products, etc. One of the questions and results was as follows:

From these results you can see the most popular products purchased by females within the age range of 17-22. It is clear from the chart that the most purchased products from this targeted people are the Eyeshadow/Eyeshadow Palettes and the Lipstick/Lipglosses. These products also came up in the email received from a member of the MUA team.

Some of MUA's products have proven to be great dupes of high end brand products. Reviews took the internet by storm, which resulted in a form of product promotion! Below I am going to show you the comparisons to prove that price of products doesn't mean that the quality is compensated.

Eyeshadows:

MUA Undressed Palette:

Palette, 1. (2015). 12 Shade Undressed Palette | MUA Make up Academy. [online] Muastore.co.uk. Available at: http://www.muastore.co.uk/12-shade-undressed-palette [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

truccarsi, R. (2013). La palette UNDRESSED di MUA. Un'alternativa economica alla palette NAKED di Urban Decay | Come truccarsi. [online] Cometruccarsivideo.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://cometruccarsivideo.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/la-palette-undressed-di-mua.html [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

Here we can see the wonderful Undressed Palette, one of MUA's greatest eyeshadow successes. The palette has a beautiful selection of mattes and shimmers in light to dark colours to create a varied intensity of nude eye makeup.

In the above pictures we can see the direct comparisons between Urban Decay's Naked Palette and MUA's Undressed palette. The colours are practically perfectly imitated as the image shows. Urban Decay retail this product for £36, MUA retails their eyeshadow palette for £4! The swatches are of MUA's product which shows great pigmentation, and with each eyeshadow colour averaging out for less than 50p each, it is an absolute bargain.


Undress Me Too Palette:

This palette by MUA is one of my absolute favourites and has the ability to create a subtle day time look and transform it to an evening look. The combination of mattes and shimmers of golds, nudes, and light to dark browns is perfect for creating any neutral eye look. The palette this time comes in white, which is a little different than the usual packaging of MUA's eyeshadow palettes. Not only does MUA Undress Me Too Palette again retail for a remarkable £4, it is also the perfect dupe for yet again another Urban Decay product, Naked 2, which retails for £36! Below shows the direct combination of both eyeshadow palettes:

review, N. (2013). The Black Pearl Blog - UK beauty, fashion and lifestyle blog: Naked 2 dupe (?) MUA Undress Me Too Palette + review. [online] Theblackpearlblog.com. Available at: http://www.theblackpearlblog.com/2013/02/naked-2-dupe-mua-undress-me-too-palette.html [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

I took these swatches to show the comparison of each palette. Both have a base foundation under, and no primer:

MUA Undress Me Too

Urban Decay Naked 2

There is a very slight different in pigmentation, with Urban Decay's palette being more pigmented, but nothing clearly noticeable in these images. When applied to the eyes there is definitely not a visible difference, and with a massive price different of £32 I think I know which product I would chose!

MUA Luxe Velvet Lip Lacquer:

This product creates a fabulously pigmented matte lipstick, in the shape of a lipgloss tube with an applicator brush. As you can see below, this product comes in a large range of bright colours to produce any desired look.

Dare, M. (2015). MUA Luxe Velvet Lip Lacquer - Dare | MUA Make up Academy. [online] Muastore.co.uk. Available at: http://www.muastore.co.uk/mua-luxe-velvet-lip-lacquer-dare [Accessed 27 Apr. 2015].

The lip brush enables easy application and the product easily smoothes over the lips without having to apply more than once. These images below are to show how some of the colours come out when applied directly to the lips.

Atomic:

Funk:

Serene:

Tranquility:

This product has be compared to Lime Crime's Velvetine Lipstain range. They come in very similar styles of packaging and produce almost the exact same initial effect on application. They also produce similar shades, such as Lime Crime's Suedeberry and MUA's Atomic.

Lime Crime, (2015). Velvetines. [online] Available at: http://www.limecrime.com/velvetines-1/ [Accessed 28 Apr. 2015].

As much as I adore the initial application of the MUA product, unfortunately the product begins to flake unattractively rather than fade gradually like Lime Crime's lip product. But as you can see in the above image, Lime Crime's Velvetine lip product retails in the US for $20 USD, which may not seem too pricey when converted to pounds. But Lime Crime do not ship to the UK, yet other websites such as Amazon and Ebay will have sellers who try and sell this product for over £30!