nars

Unsung Makeup Heroes: NARS Dolce Vita Blush

September 6th, 2018 by Karen 13 Comments

What’s an unsung makeup hero? For me, it’s an oftentimes underrated makeup morsel, a permanent collection product that scoots under the radar screen of many makeup lovers but regularly rocks my world. The long-running Unsung Heroes series features some of my favorites.

Anyone who’s ever rocked a fall berry or red lip *and meant it* should own NARS Dolce Vita Blush. I started wearing it years ago to go with Dolce Vita Lipstick (that classic NARS reddish brown pink), but along the way I found out that it also ROCKS the heck out of other opaque, intense fall lipsticks, especially berries and brownish reds (but also chocolate browns and plums, too).

One swipe — literally, just one! — across the pan, and then buffed gently on my cheeks, and I look MUCH more awake. It also perfectly balances with whatever matte or satiny fall color I have on my lips without competing with whatever I have on the rest of my face (yup, even smoky eyes).

Plus, you can skip highlighter with it if you want, since Dolce Vita has a touch of sheen. Just a touch, though, so tell your pores to chill. They’ll be alright. 😉

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

The NARS Fall 2018 Collection! (First Look and Swatches)

August 2nd, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

nars 7 deadly sins — New NARS Fall 2018 collection

You guys, I am shooketh, and shooketh am I, for there is no blush to be found in the NARS fall 2018 collection.

LIKE NONE.

Perhaps François is assuming that your cheeks will naturally flush when you wear (and perhaps commit) some of the lippies in the 7 Deadly Sin Audacious Lipstick Palette?

Along with the lip palette, there are also two eyeshadow palettes, an eye and cheek palette, and a new line of brow pencils, so there’s lots of newness to fawn over, for sure.

Still…it’s hard for me to imagine a fall without a new NARS blush.

Can you?

Guess I’ll just have to continue my love affair with NARS Deep Throat for a little longer.

The NARS Fall 2018 collection is available now and includes…

7 Deadly Sin Audacious Lipstick Palette, $52

Atomic Blonde Eye and Cheek Palette, $59

Quad Eyeshadows in Singapore and Mojave, $52 each

Brow Perfectors in Calimyra, Goma, Makassar, Moanda, Komo, Naia, Lava and Atacama, $25 each

nars fall 2018 swatches 7 deadly sins — 7 Deadly Sins Palette: Pride, Disobedience, Idolatry, Foolishness, Greed, Wrath and Sloth

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The NARS Orgasm 2018 Collection! (Yes, More Orgasm)

May 31st, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

nars orgasm blush lip balm k — Bare skin (just under-eye concealer), with NARS Orgasm Blush on my cheeks and Afterglow Balm on my lips

NARS Orgasm will forever and ever be the most embarrassing blush to say in front of your grandma. Or your kid! Gee, I wonder how that conversation’s gonna go. (Connor: “Mama, what does orgasm mean? Is it a color?” Me: “Ummm…”)

Chances are you’ve heard about NARS Orgasm… Yeah, I figured. It’s iconic. This golden peachy pink gets written about all the time and described as “universally flattering,” and it’s one of the cornerstones of the NARS color collection. Every year NARS does a few limited edition items with different iterations of the product, and this year there are three pieces in The Orgasm 2018 Collection — an LE oversized Orgasm blush for $38 (if you can’t get enough of it!), a loose highlighting powder ($28) and a darling lip balm in rose gold packaging ($28).

Oversized Orgasm Blush ($38)

My relationship with Orgasm blush runs hot and cold. I’ve worn it, but not much lately. Sometimes I feel like it’s too shimmery for me, like whenever I’m wearing a good amount of base makeup, ’cause then all I see are PORES, PORES, PORES!

But lately, since I’ve been doing the whole minimal base/no base thing, which is what I did over the Memorial Day weekend, I have a greater appreciation for Orgasm. It’s fabulous on bare skin or on top of a minimal base, like a tinted moisturizer.

nars orgasm blush 2018 — NARS Orgasm Blush 2018

All weekend long I wore under-eye concealer and really nothing else on the rest of my face to even out my skin, and with this blush, I find that the less you’re wearing under it, the better, because when the shimmer isn’t sitting on top of foundation or concealer or powder, it doesn’t highlight pores as much it does otherwise, so what you mostly see is the peachy pink color, which just looks so fresh and youthful.

It looks exactly like my cheeks after I finish a HIIT workout — flushed and healthy and a little bit dewy — and maybe even 5 years younger? (Keep tellin’ yourself that, Karen, LOL!) And that’s when I totally get the magic of NARS Orgasm. So, yeah, I’m feeling the oversized blush a lot this year — but only on bare skin! If you’re a makeup minimalist, you’ll like it.

By the way, if you have this blush sitting around but don’t wear it often because you feel like it’s too shimmery, try buffing it down like CRAZY with a clean blush brush after you apply it. A powder blush works too, as does a skunk brush. Any big face brush with a fluffy head should work. The buffing disperses most of the golden shimmer, so all that gets left behind is the peachy pink (just be mindful of not buffing away your foundation and concealer, if you’re wearing them).

❤️❤️❤️❤️ 4 out of 5 hearts.

Orgasm Illuminating Loose Powder ($28)

The loose highlighter caters to the “more is more makeup crowd” that likes a lot of bling. I’m not into a frosty highlight, so it’s too shimmery for my taste, but you might like it if you love highly reflective cheek bones.

nars orgasm illuminating loose powder — NARS Orgasm Illuminating Loose Powder

And even though I feel like the 0.09-oz. jar is small for $28, on the plus side, you don’t need to use a lot…and the powder grains are very fine.

❤️❤️ 2 out of 5 hearts.

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The NARS Erdem Strange Flowers Collection, and Familiar Flowers in My Neighborhood

April 19th, 2018 by Karen 38 Comments

The new NARS Erdem Strange Flowers summer collection is out now (side note: Erdem is a women’s fashion designer, if you’re not in the know… I had to look him up, so you aren’t alone if you had no clue!), so, of course, being the frustrated botanist that I am, I walked all over my neighborhood looking for strange flowers, and that’s when I realized that there aren’t any strange flowers in my neighborhood…

LIKE, NONE.

I don’t think it’s too much to expect to see a Venus Flytrap while you’re taking your cat for a walk.

But I digress…

The NARS Erdem Strange Flowers Collection

Wanna-Be Botanist Karen is like YAAASSS because every piece in this LE release is covered with ??? flowers.

The eyeshadows palettes — Super potent. Just a little dip with the tip of eye brush lays down loads o’ pigment. If I get in there and blend with a fierce purpose, I’m fine. Fun for smoky looks. 🙂

The blushes — Frostier in the arm swatches than they are on cheeks, yay! Good news for those of us with, like, pores.

The lipsticks — Such a twist! They look dark and intimidating, but five of the six are sheer. The only opaque one is red Blood Flower, which I think is OK, but the sheer ones, I LOVE. They’re like super intense lip tints, and I’m all about the pink and purples because they could almost pass for nudes.

The blotting papers — OK.

The stick highlighter — Opalescent purple dewy gorgeousness. Also doubles as an eyeshadow base (I used it in these pics underneath the blue and charcoal from the Night Garden Palette, and it tinted the smoky look with a hint of purple)

The lip palette — I like layering the lip powders on top of the cream lipstick, but they make my lips look and feel a little dry…

Instead of strange flowers, I saw a bunch of familiar ? flowers, and even though I’m bummed about my neighborhood’s lack of exotic horticulture, the familiar flowers always bring me so much joy and fill me with happy memories. 🙂

nars night garden eyeshadow palette — Strange flowers with familiar flowers

Like these white and purple daisies. Oh, my goodness! When my my parents first moved into the house I grew up in, which is the house my parents still live in today, it had this big patch of daisies just underneath the living room window, and when you’d walk in and out of the house, they were the first things you saw in the yard.

nars fleur fatale eyeshadow palette — Fleur Fatale Eyeshadow Palette

My friend Karrie, who lived next door to my childhood home in the East Bay, would hop over the fence, knock on the door, and ask if I could go outside and play. At some point whenever we’d be playing, a few of these daisies would be picked, and they’d end up either in our hair, around our wrists as bracelets, or squashed underneath bicycle tires.

And these California poppies… OH! They take me back, too.

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The New NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palette II

March 15th, 2018 by Karen 8 Comments

nars narsissist wanted cheek palette 2 — The new NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palette II ($59)

Hark! Dost thou hearest the ? trumpets? ’tis the clarion call of the makeup goddesses! Have they answered my call? Because the blushes in the new NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palettes are JUST AS GOOD as the blushes in the permanent collection. If you’ve been into makeup for a while, you’ve probably seen some pretty dicey LE products before, but everything in this palette is permanent collection caliber. Same quality as the NARS blush singles.

Six powder blushes live in the $59 NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palette II — three mattes and three shimmers — and the only re-promoted shade is Taos. The other five are limited edition.

nars narsissist wanted 2 cheek arm swatches — PYT, Ambition, Taos, Explosed, Penthouse and Queen

Wanted II is the Wanted option designed for darker divas, whereas Wanted I caters to lighter lovelies.

As you may already know, because I’ve been saying it for, oh, 11 years (!), I’m a MAC NC42, and I feel like I can wear these blushes, but it definitely takes more effort than Wanted I. I have to bust out my fan brush AND an additional blending brush, because the Wanted II colors look dark on my skin (so they’re more effort to buff and blend), but because they’re so finely milled, they’re still easy to work with. The petite powder particles practically prance across the skin.

It’s just that the colors require some moderately serious buffing to get them looking natural on the apples of your cheeks.

nars exposed blush cheek swatch — Exposed

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The New NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palette I

March 14th, 2018 by Karen 16 Comments

nars narsissist wanted 1 palette top pic — Your new favorite everyday blush palette

WANTED! Reward offered for the capture of the new NARS NARSissist Wanted Cheek Palette I, which may or may not have fallen between the cushions of my couch.

This bad boy is $59 and one of two new LE NARSissist Wanted blush palettes to launch with the new NARSissist Wanted Power Pack Lip Kits. It comes with six 0.13-oz. pans of powder blush, which are just sliiiightly smaller than regular full-size 0.16-oz. NARS blush pans.
Four of them are mattes, and two are shimmers.

nars narsissist wanted 1 swatches — Unlimited, Buzzed, Notorious, Kingpin, Bumpy Ride and Crave

Now for the really good news: 🙂 Only one of the shades is a re-promote — shimmery candy pink Bumpy Ride. The other five colors are LE.

Of the two Wanted Cheek Palettes, this one, v. 1, is the lighter option, and while its raison d’être is to kiss the cheeks of lasses with light and medium skin tones, I also like it for brown skin because it’s so easy to wear, on account of the mid-toned shades, which means that I can apply them half-asleep using a regular blush brush… Because they don’t look too intense or deep on me, I don’t have to overthink the application.

nars narsissist wanted palettes — Wanted 1 and 2 with my t-rex claw for scale

NARS gets REALLY high marks from me for the mattes, which have had their powder grains whittled down to almost microscopic size, so the blushes look like someone painted pure color on my cheeks. No powdery residue at all! They’re all beautiful on bare skin, too, but matte coral Buzzed and matte rose Kingpin are my faves. I think they’re the most wearable of the six shades.

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The NARS NARSissist Wanted Power Pack Lip Kit in Hot Reds

March 13th, 2018 by Karen 15 Comments

nars wanted power pack lip kit hot reds — $26 for two 0.09-oz. mini NARS Powermattes

When my friend/red lipstick kindred spirit Alis cuts my hair and we get to talking about red lipstick, girl, time ceases to exist. I’m not kidding, seasons will change! We’ll spend 15 minutes deconstructing minute details, like the differences between NARS Red Square and NARS Dragon ~~Roll~~ Girl, or MAC Russian Red and MAC Red. She’s that person in my life!

She’s precisely the kind of makeup lover the new NARS NARSissist Wanted Power Pack Lip Kit in Hot Red was made for, because, at first glance, both of the red liquid lipsticks in it probably look more or less the same to most peeps — but they definitely do NOT look the same to members of #teamredlips like Alis. If you’re a red lippie lover, you probably already noticed that Cherry Bomb is cooler and bluer than Don’t Stop, which is warmer and yellower.

Really, they’re totally different!

nars cherry bomb dont stop powermatte swatches — Cherry Bomb (new, limited edition) and Don’t Stop (a re-promote from the permanent line)

The $26 kit, one of three (the others are Warm Nudes and Cool Nudes), is coming March 18th to Ulta. Each one contains two mini liquid lipsticks from the groundbreaking NARS Powermatte liquid lipstick line.

Only thing is, these diminutive versions leave my lips feeling noticeably drier than the NARS reds in the permanent collection. I rock those all the time without any issues…

nars dont stop lip swatch — Don’t Stop, a geranium red

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NARS NARSissist Wanted Power Pack Lip Kit in Cool Nudes: 3 Things to Know

March 13th, 2018 by Karen 10 Comments

nars wanted power pack lip kit cool nudes — $26 for two NARS Powermatte minis

Awww…freak out!

(Le freak, c’est chic!)

FREAK OUT!

If you listen to disco, you know that your booty is guaranteed to start shaking whenever this song plays.

Le Freak, by the way, is also the name of one of the liquid lipsticks in the new $26 NARS NARSissist Wanted Power Pack Lip Kit in Cool Nude, which is coming exclusively to Ulta very soon — March 18th!

nars le freak lip swatch — Le Freak, a matte pale pink

Cool Nudes is one of three new liquid lip kits from NARS, and each comes with two cute Powermatte Pigment minis. One of the shades is a re-promoted shade from the permanent line (American Woman), and the other, Le Freak, is a new limited edition pale pink.

nars le freak american woman swatches — Le Freak (a new LE shade) and American Woman (a re-promoted shade from the permanent collection)

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