Product Reviews

Wearing NARS Miss Liberty Highlighting Blush on my cheeks and drinking a pumpkin chai latte!

Let’s band together, fellow makeup revolutionaries, and declare our freedom from big chunks of glitter! — because we, the blush lovers of the world, have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of a subtle glow.

And this year, victory is ours! Demure, shimmery cheeks are just a NARS Miss Liberty Highlighting Blush ($27) away. After you don a few layers of this sheer, shimmery peach, don’t be surprised if you suddenly feel the urge to raise your fist, power-to-the-people style. I did (and then quickly lowered it when I remembered how long it’s been since I shaved my pits, whoops!). 🙂

Miss Liberty, a member of the NARS holiday collection corps, calls attention to cheeks without shouting. A warm peach speckled with tiny pieces of silver glitter, it beautifully balances both color and shimmer.

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I can’t even remember the last time I finished everything on my daily to-do list. Let’s see — when was that again? Maybe six months ago?

But no matter how poop-tacular it is to be as busy as we are, I try not to let it get my inner optimist down. Being busy, after all, is a good excuse to streamline your makeup routine, which can be a lot of fun, especially when it leads to products like the new NARS Podorosa Cream Eyeshadow ($23; from the Holiday 2011 collection).

After moseying through last weekend wearing this glossy, glittery golden brown shadow, I can safely say that it’s almost everything I’d want from a creamy brown.

Ponderosa gets its name from the tall timber pines indigenous to North America. For a sheer eye look, apply it to lids with a fingertip, and blend well. Or, for more saturated color, build it up in layers.

Pigmented, yet lightweight and thin, Ponderosa’s non-greasy texture blends easily into my skin. With it, I barely have to exert any effort (or whip out brushes, for that matter) to apply.

For a fast, fresh and sexy look, I’ll prime my lids first with the unstoppable NARS Pro-Prime Smudge Proof Eyeshadow Base, pat Ponderosa on top with my fingers, and then smooth out the edges.

Yeah, baby! 🙂

Now, brown shadows aren’t necessarily the first shadows that come to mind when I think “sexy,” but this one definitely revs my engine. Not in a tight red dress and sky-high heels way, though, but more of a button-down plaid shirt, worn jeans, Chucks and cherry Chapstick kinda way.

The glossy finish gives the color an informal ease that keeps it from appearing too formal, and when I wear it with some of the quieter shades from NARS Holiday, like Albatross Lip Gloss and Miss Liberty Highlighting Blush, I feel so California cool…

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The new limited edition NARS Albatross Lip Gloss ($24 and part of the NARS Holiday 2011 collection) really put me in a fowl mood today…

(Sorry! 🙂 I couldn’t resist.)

Based on how it looked in the tube, I was sure I’d only feel “Eh” about it, but once I got it on my lips, I totally changed my tune.

For more on the NARS Holiday 2011 collection, check out…

• NARS Holiday 2011: Product Pics!
• NARS Holiday 2011 Swatches
• Celebrating the End of the Week with NARS Joyous Red Lipstick

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Oh, NARS! You and your cheeky naughty nurse names. 🙂 I would love to sing the praises of your new G-Spot Multiple ($39; part of the new Holiday 2011 collection) to every woman in my life, but as much as I love the color, I can’t bear the thought of mentioning it to my mom…

I can hear it now — she’d like the color and would say, “I really like that G-Spot!” or “Thanks for the G-Spot!” or “Next time you order online, would you get me a G-Spot?”

Sure, Mom, okay, anything, can we please talk about something else?

It’s like that time we were stuck in traffic when George Michael’s I Want Your Sex was playing on the radio, and my brother yelled, “TURN IT UP!”

Now THAT was a long ride home, but I digress…

About G-Spot’s rosy golden hue, I think it looks kinda dark at first, but blended in this cream blush produces the most perfectly coy “Please be gentle with me” flush.

Love.

For more on the NARS Holiday 2011 collection, check out…

• NARS Holiday 2011: Product Pics!
• NARS Holiday 2011 Swatches
• Celebrating the End of the Week with NARS Joyous Red Lipstick

And it gives my cheeks a good bear hug, too, latching on to my dry skin for a good five or six hours, which is not too shabby, tabby — especially for a cream product.

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Like other classic pairings — peanut butter and chocolate, Lady and the Tramp, Ryan Gosling and shirtless-ness — the purple and bronze Larger Than Life Eyeliners ($23 each) in the new NARS Holiday 2011 collection are even better together than they are apart.

If you haven’t tried any of the Larger Than Life liners yet, the cosmetics camaraderie between vibrant violet St. Marks Place (has a matte finish) and shimmery bronze Campo De’ Fiori, the only two liners in the holiday release, makes them a great place to start.

Both of these highly pigmented, super soft liners cling to lash and water lines like raindrops cling to roses. I applied both of them before lunch yesterday, and they were still hanging tough a full eight hours later.

For even more NARS Holiday 2011 coverage…

• Celebrating the End of the Week with NARS Joyous Red Lipstick
• NARS Holiday 2011 Swatches
• NARS Holiday 2011: Product Pics!

I haven’t had an opportunity to put their water resistance through a rigorous test like the nervous breakdown I had in the middle of heavy traffic a while back, but since the other colors managed it well, I see no reason why these wouldn’t also be up to the task.

If you’re curious about eye color and looking for ways to incorporate more of it into your looks, here’s one idea: apply purple St. Marks along your upper lashes, and bronze Campo along your lower lashes and at the inner corners of your eyes (the sides closest to your nose). I’m wearing both of them here with a smokey blue/bronze/gray eye (using the NARS Mandchourie Eyeshadow Duo from this same collection), but you could just as easily wear them with other colors or have them fly solo on bare lids.

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There are two kinds of fall. There’s the fall where you get caught in the rain one gray day without an umbrella and cold raindrops slide down the back of your shirt, making you cry “Yeee!” while you clench your fingers and toes, and then there’s the fall right after the first rains of the season, when the sun returns, at least for a little while, and grasses and saplings have sprouted on the hillsides and turned them all from brown and yellow to green.

That second variety of fall is the one that reminds me of the new NARS Joyous Red ($24; part of the new NARS Holiday 2011 collection). I can’t think of a more fitting red lipstick to wear on a sunny Friday in fall. 🙂

For more on the NARS Holiday 2011 collection, check out…

• NARS Holiday 2011: Product Pics!
• NARS Holiday 2011 Swatches

NARS could have called it Celebration, because that’s how wearing it makes me feel — like I’ve just slipped on a pair of old jeans and found them a little loose (in other words, YAY!).

NARS has a knack for super wearable, eye-catching reds (Dolce Vita springs to mind), and for me, Joyus Red was love at first swipe. Warm, with golden orange undertones and a semi-matte finish, it even has microscopic flecks of golden glitter.

Just gorgeous, and I can’t wait to see it sing on gals with warm skin tones.

The lightweight, unscented and unflavored formula has a semi-matte finish that may be slightly drying, especially if you already have dry lips, so you might try prepping your lips first with a layer of moisturizing balm beforehand. As for wear time, it clocks in at about four-five hours on me (stays on like a MOFO!).

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