Tag: NARS

NARS Makeup Brand Review

NARS is simply one of the best brands in the market. It’s also one of my favourite makeup brands. They have some of the best formulas in the market plus their complexion products are always inclusive. NARS is a high-end brand so with that comes a high price tag but are they worth it? I thought I would do an overall brand review since I have a few of their products. If you are still on the fence hopefully I can convince you to try them

NARS have both skincare and makeup items however I only have the makeup items.

Foundations

NARS has a few foundations and I have 3 of their main ones, Sheer Glow, All Day Weightless Luminous and Natural Radiant Longwear Foundation. I have full reviews on all 3 foundations which can be read here, here and here.

It’s hard for me to choose a favourite out of these 3, but I really REALLY like the All Day Weightless Luminous foundation. It’s the right balance of luminosity and coverage. I have normal to combination oily skin but I always opt for a dewy luminous finish for my makeup. This foundation is lightweight and dewy plus coverage buildable coverage. Check out the reviews!

Concealer

Their iconic Creamy Radiant Concealers are best sellers for a reason. They have buildable coverage and leave the under-eye brighter without looking cakey. They are available in a ton of shades and there is a shade for everyone. I have two shades: Café and Amande but I also want to get Truffle or Hazelnut. The concealers are lightweight and easy to blend. It’s one of my favourite high-end concealers I own.

Blushes/Highlighters

NARS blushes are so pigmented! The shades look absolutely beautiful on dark skin. If you’re looking for high-end blushes, I always recommend either NARS or MAC blushes. They have some iconic shades like Exhibit A and Taj Mahal which dark skin beauties swear by (unfortunately I don’t have these shades yet).

Their iconic bestselling shade Orgasm is a pinky shade with golden reflect which I actually don’t like for dark skin as a blush (give me a sec). I got the mini size in the Debenhams Beauty Advent Calendar last year and I think it looks better as a highlighter than a blush. NARS has extended the Orgasm range and added Orgasm X which I think looks better on dark skin.

They recently added new shades to the blush collection and I picked up Savage which is this cute copper shade! I do want to pick up other shades: Lovejoy and maybe Orgasm X are on the list

I have 5 NARS blushes: Seduction, Dolce Vita, Savage, Torrid and Orgasm

Eyes/Lips

I have 2 items from their eye products. Last year BrownBeauty (online mag I write for) had a makeup event with NARS which I got to model for. In my goody bag, I received the Tinted Smudge Proof Eye shadow base. Let me tell you, I have never believed in eye primers but this product (OMG) is a life changer! The light brown base evens out my lids and it’s tacky so eye shadows stay on( it comes in 4 shades and I have the shade dark). No smudge no creasing. I have oily lids so my shadows ALWAYS crease on me (I think this is why I’m not as creative with eye shadows because they crease on me) even when I use concealer and set it with a powder. Using this as a primer my shadows stay on and they last! No creasing, GURL I was shook. I will 100% buy this when I’m done and it’s definitely worth it. I have a travel size Audacious Mascara, I haven’t used this yet.

Lips

I have one lipstick from their Pure Matte lipsticks in 413 BLKR. This is a warm brown shade and it looks amazing on. They say it’s pure matte but I honestly don’t think it is, I have matter lipsticks than this. It’s a comfortable soft matte/satin. Then I have 3 lip balms in Orgasm, Torrid and Hidden Pleasure, I got these for Christmas, my friend brought them by mistake, I put the torrid giftset but she was confused and got these instead lol. The lip balms are ok, they add a hint of colour and hydration to the lips. I finally got Torrid for my birthday from a friend!

Conclusion

Is NARS worth the money? Absolutely. If you can only get one item from the brand I would definitely recommend the foundations. They are some of the best formulas I have tried. It’s worth investing in a good base for your makeup because it will set the tone for everything else! If you can pick 3 items then go for foundation, concealer and blush.

I hope this helps! NARS is a reputable brand and it’s definitely worth the money. In terms of high-end prices, they are reasonably priced and are in the same price range as MAC, Fenty and Lancome. They have a ton of products and mini sizes you can try out too. During Christmas, their gift sets are amazing and well-priced so it’s a good time to test them out!

Will you be picking anything up? let me know

Birthday Make up Haul

Happy Belated Birthday to meee!

I picked up a few makeup items for my birthday and I also got a few as gifts. I honestly can’t remember the last time I got new makeup so I’m excited! Check out what I got and swatches below!

NARS Blush– Savage. NARS recently expanded their blush shades which included Savage! This is described as a shimmering red-brown. How gorgeous is this shade? It doesn’t have chunky glitter and it feels so smooth on the skin! I can’t wait to use this! I think it will look good paired with a brown or nude lip but even a bold red lip too.

Becca Highlighter– Chocolate Geode- I remember when Becca released this shade 1 or 2 years ago and I LOVED it. I didn’t pick it up then because I’ve sort of been on a low makeup buy. I haven’t been buying makeup as often as I do with skincare because I have a lot of makeup with similar highlighter shades so as much as I really wanted it then I just didn’t need it. This year I got this as a present from my bf because I thought why the hell not? 2 years on and I still love it LOL. It’s a beautiful golden shade that looks so good on the skin. It was either this or the new Fenty Cognac Diamond bomb but went for the Becca because it doesn’t have chunky glitter. It’s very similar to their Topaz highlighter in the pan, but Chocolate Geode is more coppery

CoverFx Face Perfector Palette– Medium. I’ve been watching a lot of makeup videos lately and so when I saw this palette I knew I had to get it! This looks like the perfect travel palette featuring a contour/bronzer, blush and highlighters. I can see myself using every single shade. I will probably use that finishing powder as a highlighter and blush. The contour shade is dark enough for my skin tone for a subtle contour or bronzer. That blush shade is lovely and I also like you have two options for highlighter: a subtle shade ( heavenly and a popping shade(Twilight) the brightener, of course, can also be used as a highlighter as well as an inner corner brightener.

Jouer High Pigment Lipgloss– Champs Elysees- it only took me 26 years to finally love lipgloss LOL. I have hated lipgloss for a while simply because I couldn’t find any that were pigmented enough and not sticky. If I wanted shiny lips I could just use a lip balm. Last year Barry M lipgloss changed my life so I’ve been on the search. The Jouer High Pigment Lipgloss is just that, high pigment and no stickiness! I got the shade Champs Elysees which is a warm chocolatey pink. I love

Morphe Lipgloss– Free bird- another lipgloss I picked up was from Morphe in the shade Free bird. This is the perfect nude gloss. The camera is not doing my swatch any justice 😦

Fenty Eye Primer and Eyeliner– the NARS eyeshadow primer got me thinking about eye shadow primers. For the longest time, I have not enjoyed doing my eyeshadow looks because I have oily lids and somehow they always crease on me even if I use concealer & powder. Well NARS eyeshadow base changed all that for me so I decided to get the Fenty Eye primer to try as well. I got the mini version to test out first. I also received this as a present and it came as a set with a mini eyeliner. How cute is this? Shout out to Fenty for doing mini and travel sizes of their makeup!

Fenty Setting Spray– I am OBSESSED with setting sprays. I collect them, I use them, I love drenching my face with them. When Fenty came out with a setting spray, I knew it was a matter of time! Again I didn’t get it when it was first released because I actually have 15 setting sprays waiting to be used( like I actually got up to count LOL)My brother got me this for my birthday and I can’t wait to use it!

Path McGrath Skin Fetish Concealer and Mini Matte Trance Lipstick Trio– I got the concealer shade MD26 and lipstick trio in SkinShow. MD 26 is described as Medium Deep with neutral undertones. Skin Show has 3 mini nude shades in Omi, 1995 and Flesh 3. Storytime! I made my order on 3rd April but I never received an email confirmation of my order only a PayPal receipt. According to the website it takes about 24 to 48hours to pack and ship. With everything that is going on, I knew it may take longer which I don’t mind. By 8th April, I emailed them to say I haven’t received an email confirmation or an update regarding my order so it would be great to get an update. By 10th April, I hadn’t heard back so I emailed again saying hey my previous email was ignored I just want an update if I don’t hear back by a couple of days I will contact PayPal for a refund. I immediately got a response with the most condescending message ever: your order is waiting for shipment when it ships here is a tracking number! That’s it! No acknowledgement of my previous email, no mention of my order confirmation or when it will actually ship! To be honest I’m disappointed! I was so close to just cancelling it and getting something else! LookFantastic and even BOOHOO have been better at communicating during this time than a high-end luxury brand like Pat McGrath. I only ordered because there was an offer going on, 25% off everything and I wanted to see the hype of her stuff (I think it’s overpriced but we move). The swatches of the lipstick didn’t look that matte for me. The concealer though, its a heavy glass bottle and it feels so creamy. I think I want another shade! lol. I was debating on MD 26, MD25 and MD24 I went with MD 26 to be safe but I think I want MD24 too. Let’s see how this fairs

So one of the lipsticks I got had a slight defect. there was a white cast around the 1995 shade. I emailed them regarding this and asked if they could confirm what it was. To be honest from the customer service and the defect lipstick, it was a bittersweet anticlimax moment and I wasn’t happy at all. They emailed me back the next day with a full refund of the lipsticks and apologised but didn’t ask the questions I sent. I’m happy because they gave me a refund but I would have also liked to have my questions answered. Will I purchase from the website again? Probably if there is another sale, probably the delay with the information may just be due to the ongoing situation but I still find it really weird I didn’t get the order confirmation email. I don’t know if I even want to use that lipstick

That’s all folks! I’m excited to use these items. I haven’t bought new makeup for a while

simply because I have been focusing on using up what I have! It was my birthday so I used that as an excuse to get some items I have wanted for a while now.

Watch out for reviews

Catch you later

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Foundation Of the Month April- NARS All Day Weightless Luminous Foundation

If you are looking for a new foundation, I got you covered. I decided to start a foundation series over on my Insta page because I realised I have a few foundations and its only best to share which ones work well and have enough shades for dark skin tones! So the challenge I set myself is this, every month (I made a rota guys smh), I stick to using 1 foundation and report back to you guys. I am loving the challenge so far because I am enjoying re discovering some foundations I had in my collection! Doing this has also shown me how far I have come in selecting better foundation shades & undertones for my skin tone. I am also learning how to work with the shades that aren’t quite a good match but not bad enough to sell or throw away

Anyway, let’s get into it!

For my birthday month, I went with my absolute favourite foundation, the NARS All Day Weightless Luminous Foundation. I have the shade Benares.

 

Absolutely beautiful full coverage foundation with a luminous finish. This has a high conc of pigment so I found using a 1 and half pump plus a liquid illuminator (my recommendations will be on insta soon) was enough for a full face. NARS makes sure you also use less product as one full pump comes out with the tiniest amount compared to other foundations.

The NARS All Day Weightless Luminous Foundation is extremely lightweight and blends seamlessly into the skin. This foundation can easily look cakey if you use more than 2 pumps (I found this out the hard way). I also feel like it blends better with a buffing brush or a stippling brush.

I’m a huge fan of dewy/luminous finishes and this one is so beautiful not glittery at all
My absolute favourite foundation and I highly recommend. I have normal to combo oily skin types and this works well with my skin. I double prime in my tzone area
Available in 33 shades

Foundation Of the Month March- NARS Natural Radiant Foundation

If you are looking for a new foundation, I got you covered. I decided to start a foundation series over on my Insta page because I realised I have a few foundations and its only best to share which ones work well and have enough shades for dark skin tones! So the challenge I set myself is this, every month (I made a rota guys smh), I stick to using 1 foundation and report back to you guys. I am loving the challenge so far because I am enjoying rediscovering some foundations I had in my collection! Doing this has also shown me how far I have come in selecting better foundation shades & undertones for my skin tone. I am also learning how to work with the shades that aren’t quite a good match but not bad enough to sell or throw away

Anyway, let’s get into it!

For March I was using the Natural Radiant Foundation in New Caledonia. I know this post is super late, sorry!

 

This is the latest foundation from NARS and it’s already a hit! New Caledonia is described as dark with golden olive undertones

This is a full coverage extremely lightweight foundation that blends seamlessly into the skin. I love how smooth it leaves my skin. It has a truly natural radiant finish.  I find this foundation long lasting and still looks amazing even hours after application! It pairs well with a lot of concealers but I think it looks amazing with the NARS Creamy Radiant Concealer or the Kat Von D lock it concealer. NARS claims this foundation is sweat and transfer resistant but hmm this slides off like my other foundations when I sweat albeit not as easily or quickly but it is definitely not transfer resistant even after setting with a powder. I think it’s the same as any other foundation

The Natural Radiant Foundation comes in 33 shades and so many undertones for #darkskin. NARS did an amazing job with this collection! I was matched to 3 diff shades! But chose New Caledonia in the end. NARS can sell me any foundation and Imma buy it!

This picture was taken after 7 hours of wear after eating, dancing and sweating!

Make sure you check this out!

Jan Foundation of the month

Feb Foundation of the month