Real vs Fake: Urban Decay Naked 2 palette

So long story short, I bought the Naked 2 palette from ebay and ended up getting a FAKE palette!

I didn't start using it right away but when I told my friend about it, she noticed that the outer packaging looked different from hers. Neither of us are die hard crazy 'Naked' fans or anything. We just wanted a nice, long lasting, versatile palette. We initially thought that maybe hers or mine was a special packaging, but we came across some bloggers who were saying that they have been duped by fake palettes from ebay and Amazon! I was pretty shocked and then laughed about it....AFTER I bitched out the seller on ebay of course. :)
I was curious to know exactly how different they are from one another. I mean, the fake palette looked pretty legit after all......so I did a quick comparison test to see how they match up.

FYI: A legit seller on ebay sells the fake Naked palettes, but they don't label it as "Naked" since that's a brand name of Urban Decay's. They give it some generic name instead, like "12 color natural palette" or something. They go for about $25 each and I've seen both the Naked 1 and 2 dupes being sold.

[Keep in mind: The more "purple" looking one is the FAKE one. The brownish looking one is the AUTHENTIC one.]

The top is the fake. The bottom is the authentic.

Besides the apparent color differentiation, they look almost identical!

A major way to know if it's authentic is that serial number print! If it doesn't have it on the back, it's a fake!

Fake on the left. Real on the right.

With the brushes, you can really tell a difference. The top one has a runny, messy looking print. The bottom might also look inconsistent but it's because of the lighting.

Fake on left. Real on right.

Upon closer inspection of the packing, you can see that the fake one is a bit poorly constructed.

A lot of the colors are actually pretty similar (^ this is the fake one) but half baked and chopper look really different on both palettes.

(^authentic) 'BLACKOUT' looks really dark on the authentic one, although it's pretty black on the dupe too. It just doesn't compare in terms of pigmentation.

Here's a swatch of both palettes. Sorry this is the first time I did something like this, so it probably doesn't look that nice lol. But mind you, I used my pinky finger for both of these and each swatch was only ONE swipe! The top is the obvious FAKE here; bottom being the authentic one. As you can see, the real Naked 2 palette is more densely pigmented.

Like I said, a lot of the colors are actually quite similar, although they are not completely the same in colors. The thing that stands out the most is the shimmer colors. As you can see in comparison, colors like HALF BAKED, CHOPPER, and VERVE are really shimmery and vibrant on the authentic Naked 2 palette. I also can't get over how black BLACKOUT really is!

So is it worth it to get the original Naked 2 palette when such a similar dupe is out there at half the price? In my opinion, and being that I can be extremely cheap sometimes (this not being one of those times....) if you're going to invest in a nice neutral palette, this DUPE is not actually terrible. Considering that drugstore eye shadows are not very well pigmented either, and are about $10 for a full on palette, $25 for a nice neutral palette isn't too bad. But the thing is, you'll be using the dupe palette up way faster than the original, because in order to get it more pigmented and vibrant on your eyes, you'll need to use multiple swipes, whereas the authentic Naked 2 palette is dense enough that you don't need to dab your brush on it multiple times.

With that said, I would invest in the authentic because it will last longer. But if you want something quick, cheap, and for a short duration, then as I said, the dupe is not terrible. It's actually quite decent, it just doesn't compare to the real thing. But that should already be a given. You get what you paid for. :)