NARS

I Get All the Feels From The Texture of These New NARS Dual-Intensity Blushes…

February 23rd, 2015 by Karen 43 Comments

As Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock so eloquently put it, “It takes two to make a thing go right… It takes two to make it out of sight.”

Truer words were never spoken, particularly as they pertain to the new NARS Dual Intensity Blushes ($45 each). 🙂

Yeah, even though I braced myself for it, I still freaked out a little when I opened one of these compacts for the first time and saw, not one, but TWO blushes within it with the same pattern on the pans as the NARS Dual-Intensity Eyeshadows (which I love, and these feel very similar).

Hearts may or may not have shot out of from my eyes.

NARS designed these new blushes, which arrive March 4 as six $45 duos, to 1) look and feel weightless on the skin, and 2) to create two completely different looks. Applying them with a dry powder brush paints your cheeks with bold color, while a wet brush seduces your skin with a softer watercolor-like effect, similar to what you’d get from a cheek tint, and you can wear the shades separately or mix them together.

The one called Frenzy fuses a sparkling pinkish gold highlighter with a shimmering bright tangerine…

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Frenzy — Dual-Intensity Blush in Frenzy

While Fervor partners a shimmering soft pink with a deep, sparkling coppery rose…

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Fervor — Dual-Intensity Blush in Fervor

And if you’re craving a trip to the tropics…Craving combines a sparkling seashell pink highlighter with a shimmering beachy bronze.

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Craving — Dual-Intensity Blush in Craving

WARNING: Do not panic when you see Panic…which is the brightest duo of the six. It contains a shocking, shimmering fuchsia and a shimmering orangey pink.

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Panic — Dual-Intensity Blush in Panic!

If you’re just plain partial to pinks in general, you might adore Adoration, which pairs a soft, sparkling baby pink with a shimmering hot pink.

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Adoration — Dual-Intensity Blush in Adoration

Last, but certainly not least, there’s Jubilation, yay! It partners a sparkling hot gold with a soft and shimmering nude peach.

NARS Dual-Intensity Blush in Jubilation — Dual Intensity Blush in Jubilation

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NARS Soft Velvet Loose Powder: I Got 99 Problems But This Powder Ain’t One

January 23rd, 2015 by Karen 18 Comments

These days, my pores run the show. They drive the car. They’re the CEOs of my face, and every face-related product I use, from foundation to primer and powder, like the one I’m wearing here, new NARS Soft Velvet Loose Powder, has to keep the CEOs happy.

And $36 NARS Soft Velvet does.

What is it exactly?

Honestly, it’s a loose powder. It does not exist to bring about world peace, but it will, however, set your foundation and concealer (and it does so without appearing thick or heavy), blur those pores (yea!), smooth the texture of your skin, and soak up that pesky oil patch in the middle of your forehead. You can wear it all by itself on bare skin, or on top of other products.

My skin always gets dry this time of year, so this isn’t the best time for me to assess an oil-controlling product, but I’m guessing that if I were in one of my oily skin phases, like when I could fry egg rolls with the grease on my forehead (throughout my teens and early 20s), this would have laid a decent smack-down, although it probably wouldn’t have gone home with the championship belt.

Before NARS Soft Velvet Loose Powder

The before shot: Wearing NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation on my face — The before shot: Wearing NARS All Day Luminous Weightless Foundation, but without powder.

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The NARS Eye-Opening Act Spring 2015 Collection: There’s Smoke in the Eye of This Storm

January 21st, 2015 by Karen 29 Comments

Wearing new limited edition spring 2015 items from NARS: Matte Velvet Shadow Stick in Flibuste, Eyeshadow Palette in Yeux Irresistible and Illuminating Multiple in St. Lucia — From the new NARS Eye-Opening Act collection, I’m wearing the Matte Velvet Shadow Stick in Flibuste, the Eyeshadow Palette in Yeux Irresistible, and the Illuminating Multiple in St. Lucia, all available now at Nordstrom stores and online.

Lo! What manner of marvelousness do I see before me? ‘Tis a smokey eye lover’s dream!

New from NARS, the new Eye-Opening Act spring collection is freakin’. Gorgeous.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to push myself out of my smokey eye comfort zone, but dayum, girl! — this launch is not making that easy.

With a focus on eyes…

Did you get that? “…a focus on eyes”? Ha! You know what they say — a bad pun a day keeps the dentist away. 🙂

NARS Spring 2015 — Seven of eight pieces in the new NARS Eye-Opening Act collection

The eight-piece limited edition release is, for the time being, available now exclusively at Nordstrom (as if I needed another excuse to shop there!), but it also arrives at NARS boutiques and the NARS website March 15.

If the thought of waiting till two days before St. Patrick’s Day pains your makeup-loving heart and you want to jump on these products meow, here’s the gist: two powder eyeshadow palettes (one warm, one cool), a brand-spankin’ new line of creamy stick shadows with a velvety matte finish, and a new shade of Illuminating Multiple.

NARS Yeux Irresistible Eyeshadow Palette and Filbuste Velvet Shadow Stick on my eyes, St. Lucia Illuminating Multiple on my cheeks and lips — From the Yeux Irresistible Eyeshadow Palette, I’m wearing All About Eve (my brow bone and inner corner), Jezebel (lids), Brousse mixed with Coconut Grove (crease and lower lash line), Colombo (center of the lid); I’m also wearing the Velvet Shadow Stick in Filibuste in the outer corners.

Yesterday I wore the $48 warm palette, cutely named Yeux Irresistible, and here’s a testament to how bomb NARS powder eyeshadows are: I was already wearing my foundation and concealer when I started the smokey cat eye portion of the look I’m wearing in these pics…

As you can tell, dark shades are in the house, like the warm brown in my crease, the shimmery sable/coppery red on my lid, and the dark black in the outer corner.

Forty-five minutes into the eye look, I realized something…

There was hardly any fallout. Like, almost none at all. And these are fairly intense colors — the kind that almost always leave at least a little fallout under my eyes — but I hardly had to do any cleanup at all, so two big paws up to NARS for that.

NARS Eyeshadow Palette in Yeux Irresistible ($48), aka “the warm palette”

NARS Eyeshadow Palette in Inoubliable Coup D'Oeil ($48) — NARS Eyeshadow Palette in Inoubliable Coup D’Oeil ($48), aka “the cool palette”

The two palettes in the release aren’t just gorgeous. They’re also easy to blend. Plus, they leave behind almost zero fallout, which adds up to a NARS dream come true if you frequently have a hard time figuring out which shades are warm and which shades are cool.

The collection also marks the launch of an exciting new line of matte cream shadow sticks. You can use the new Velvet Shadow Sticks ($28 each) in a variety of ways, including as a base on your lids, upon which you apply other shadows, or use them as straight-up eyeshadows, which is what I did in this look. I’m using Flibuste, the black shade, in a cat eye shape in the outer corners.

NARS Velvet Shadow Sticks clockwise from the far left: Reykjavick, Glenan, Flibuste and Nunavut — Velvet Shadow Sticks clockwise from the far left in Reykjavick, Glenan, Flibuste and Nunavut ($28 each; four of five are shown)

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The New NARS Spring 2015 Collection Is Hot and Cold About Nudes

January 15th, 2015 by Karen 34 Comments

Wearing the NARS spring 2015 collection on my eyes, cheeks and lips

Spring. NARS. 2015.

A pendulum swings back and forth between two nude worlds — one, a realm of cool-toned silver, and the other a roiling river of warm-toned coppery caramel.

My pulse pounded as I gazed at the new NARS Spring 2015 collection on the floor in front of me. Staring wide-eyed at the color palette, I thought, “Yeah, I’ll be able to rock this.”

Um…yeah, that’s where the story got weird, because the pieces proved to be a little more challenging than I thought.

This one’s a study in extremes.

It’s a small release, only seven pieces, but for me, that’s not enough. I will most definitely need to include some other products in the mix to make the most of these.

The word “dissonance” comes to mind, the concept in music where you purposefully play two notes at the same time that aren’t intended to be harmonious. That’s how I feel about what NARS has done here with the cool tones butted up against the warm. Yeah, nudes have been done to death…but not in this way. It’s very, vary NARS.

Why stop at pink nudes, peach nudes and brown nudes when you can also have silvery nudes? Maybe that’s a question NARS asks here, because there’s a lot of silvery shimmer in the house, which is kind of unusual for nudes.

I’m also getting a strange concealer vibe…

The 7 piece NARS Spring 2015 collection, coming to January 1 to NARS boutiques and online at narscosmetics.com, and February 1 to Sephora, NARS counters and online — The seven-piece NARS Spring 2015 collection is available now online and coming February 1 to Sephora and NARS counters.

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Satiny Lids, Red Lips and Soft Black Cat Liner: A Friday Face of the Day With the NARS Dual Intensity Eyeshadow Palette

December 12th, 2014 by Karen 37 Comments

The sun is out there…

Somewhere…

It’s out there somewhere behind the oppressive soup of (now) light gray clouds over our little hill here in Novato, but at least it isn’t raining! 🙂 By no means am I hanging out on the deck in a pair of booty shorts and drinking a margarita or anything, but it looks like Stormageddon 2014 has at least temporarily paused.

Compared to yesterday’s monsoon, the current minor gloom is welcome. I also tried to inject a little more brightness into the vicinity with my makeup, a glowing neutral lid with soft black cat eyeliner and a bright red lip.

I started this look with the new NARSissist Dual-Intensity Eyeshadow Palette ($79, coming to NARS Boutiques and the NARS website January 1, 2015; on counters February 1)…and I apologize in advance if I blabber and ramble when I talk about it because it drives me wild (I’m also thinking that the lines on the pans are hypnotic).

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A Friday Face of the Day With the New NARS Laser Cut Holiday Palette: Hazy Khaki Eyes, and Rosy Cheeks and Lips

October 17th, 2014 by Karen 20 Comments

Now we shall dance like children of the night!

Or not. 🙂

We can dance around my kitchen though, but only if it’s low impact because I’m still resting up for the race.

What are you doing tonight? I have a feeling El Hub is going to coerce me into watching Fury, that new WWII tank movie with Brad Pitt and the guy who played Shane in The Walking Dead.

Sounds like a hoot!

Oh, well. I’ll get him back in November when the new Hunger Games comes out.

I’m just gonna wear the smokey-light khaki eye look I wore today with the new $59 limited edition NARS Laser Cut holiday palette (available now).

Not that I’m gonna do it, because I feel lazy, but it would be really easy to turn this into an evening/party look by just swapping out the rosy gloss for a more dramatic lip color, like this glossy plum number perhaps…

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The New NARS Nail Polishes in Barents Sea and Algonquin From the Laced With Edge Holiday Collection

October 16th, 2014 by Karen 16 Comments

NARS Nail Polishes in Barents Sea (left) and Algonquin (right)

Oh, the life of the easily amused… I wouldn’t have it any other way!

I get a weird kick out of knowing that underneath my socks and boots I’m wearing two different shades of nail polish.

I couldn’t decide between royal blue Barents Sea and violet Algonquin (both from the NARS Laced with Edge Holiday collection), so I stopped trying to decide and went with both. 🙂 I also wanted to see how long it would take El Hub to notice that I was wearing different colors on each foot…

That man is full of surprises, I tell ya! I thought it would take him at least three days, but he said something within 45 minutes. This from the same person who took two weeks to notice the time I dyed my hair pink!

Smooth and pigmented Barents Sea and Algonquin are limited edition shades from the NARS holiday collection, available now at NARS counters and online for $20 each.

I’m wearing two layers in the pic above, but I could’ve gotten away with one.

I feel like I’ve seen these colors before over at OPI, but I still like ’em. Those limited edition bottles speak to the hardcore collector in me.

About those boots…

The boots! I had a $20-off coupon to DSW burning a hole in my pocket, so I picked up these Crown Vintage Tuff Booties last Saturday.

Tabs appears to like them.

The New NARS Modern Future Set Has a Cinematic Past

October 16th, 2014 by Karen 31 Comments

It seemed like the right thing to do.

Yesterday afternoon I watched Roman Holiday (for, oh, I dunno, the ninth or tenth time) while painting my nails with NARS Roman Holiday Nail Polish from the new $49 Modern Future set.

I was also wearing Roman Holiday Blush and Roman Holiday Lipstick (also from the same set) on my cheeks and lips.

It just made sense. I mean, I could have watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Sabrina instead, but that would have been totally weird… Watching Roman Holiday seemed like the right thing to do. 🙂

Which reminds me, please, PLEASE tell me you’ve seen this movie. Breakfast at Tiffany’s seems to get more love, but Roman Holiday gets my vote for best Audrey Hepburn movie, ever. She even earned a Best Actress Academy Award for it.

If you haven’t seen it, do it! Audrey plays a princess who goes rogue by taking an unsanctioned, impromptu vacation from her life as a royal public figure. During her adventure she hangs out with an American newspaper reporter, played by Gregory Peck. The sets, the clothes, the dialogue, the ending — SO GOOD. Just watch it already!

And if you can, watch it while you’re wearing NARS Roman Holiday Blush, Lipstick and Nail Polish. It’s, like, extra poetic that way.

NARS Roman Holiday Lipstick — Roman Holiday Lipstick

NARS Roman Holiday Nail Polish — Roman Holiday Nail Polish

Roman Holiday is a cool pastel pink with slight purple undertones…but don’t let that description scare you! — because it’s actually really pretty and wearable.

Originally, the color only came as a lipstick, but NARS turned it into a blush and a nail polish for this LE holiday set.

Roman Holiday Lipstick

When I’m in the mood for a smooth, easy-to-wear cool-toned pink that doesn’t shimmer and isn’t too shiny, Roman Holiday Lipstick’s sheer pink wash rules. I can literally (well…) throw it on without having to use a mirror. I also like that it’s a build-able sheer, so you can intensify it by adding another layer. I also think it looks super pretty with NARS Angelika or Easy Lover Lipgloss on top.

The set includes a full-size 0.12-oz. tube.

NARS Roman Holiday Lipstick and Blush — Wearing Roman Holiday Lipstick and Blush

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