NARS‘ spring 2017 collection has hit stores and I’m getting a very “cool waters, bronzey tones and coral flare” to the whole collection. It’s a nice change from the “flowers for spring” theme that people just will NOT LET DIE – so I’m really happy to see NARS try something a little bit different. This collection feels like a pre-cursor to summer!

I don’t have the full collection (you can see that whole roundup on NARS‘ site here), but I’ve got a couple of their Velvet Shadow Sticks and a gorgous new blush.

The two Velvet Shadow Sticks are in the shades Siros (bronzey-amber) and Grand-Large (shimmery sky blue). The Bumpy Ride blush is a *stunning* pink-coral with a faint hint of shimmer. It doesn’t look like glitter on the cheeks, but there is some definite added luminosity coming from the blush.

In terms of colour, the Velvet Shadow Sticks are beautiful. The bronzey-amber Siros shade is absolutely stunning on the lid and blends out very nicely with a fluffy brush. Great for quick and easy application!

However… it doesn’t last. The Velvet Shadow Sticks are an absolute disaster on my eyelids. When I initially wore this out to a movie one evening I couldn’t believe how badly my eyes looked afterwards – they were creased and tacky-feeling. Just all around gross. I reapplied the shadow sticks over the weekend so you could see what happens to them within a scant few minutes of application. My left eye (your right side in the picture) has eyeshadow primer on it… and as you can see, it didn’t make any damn difference. I don’t even know how anyone could successfully wear these without causing creasing. Ugh.

Moving on to something I did love: the blush. Bumpy Ride is absolutely stunning. It’s pigmented and easy to apply. This shade is everything I *love* in a blush – it’s a coral-pink which is pretty much perfection in my book! As with all NARS blushes I’ve tried, the powder is absolutely flawless.

Final Thoughts

The Velvet Touch Shadow Sticks are… (sorry NARS) garbage. Do not buy them. (And if you’re someone who loves these shadow sticks, please, PLEASE tell me how you wear them!)

That Bumpy Ride blush though? Holy smokes man… that is absolutely 100% worth your money. It’s a gorgeous shade, packs plenty of pigment punch and is easy to apply and blend out. As it turns out, Bumpy Ride is being introduced with this collection but it’s also now a permanent shade! Huzzah!

The products in this post were sent to me for consideration. Post may contain affiliate links.

The imagery for the NARS Sarah Moon Holiday Collection made me gasp. It was ethereal, beautiful,  futuristic and yet sensual and commanding all at once. It’s been quite a while since a makeup collection has grabbed my interest so intensely and I felt I just had to know more.

I’ll link you to the Wikipedia article, but, in short, Sarah Moon (born Marielle Warin) was a French model turned photographer throughout the 1970s. In 1985 she decided to focus on gallery and film work. This NARS holiday collection was created in collaboration with Sarah and the packaging focuses on inspired imagery from the movie Metropolis (1927) and the idea of transparency. This article from Independent explains a lot more about the collaboration and I encourage you to read it if you have the time/interest. It’s rare for me to look deeper into a collection, but there was something about THIS ONE that made me do so. Perhaps you’ll feel the same.

But anyway, let’s get into the makeup!

The Get Real Lip & Eye Set is jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The whole set comes packaged in a heavy-duty acrylic box with frosted imaging on the top lid. The lid lifts off to reveal a set that contains two mini Audacious Lipsticks and a full size Audacious Mascara. The products lift out of their separate plastic packaging and the whole box can be recycled as a beautiful keepsake box for you vanity.

The products in the Get Real Lip & Eye Set are healthy size products too – the NARS mascara is full size and the mini lipsticks are larger than any deluxe size sample I’ve ever seen in my life.

The NARS Audacious Mascara has 200 (!!) molded bristles and lengthening hooks. It’s a plastic bristle brush and it’s on the large side of things for a mascara wand. The bristles and hooks are also far larger than your average size brush, which means they’re also spaced out a lot more.

I was neither in love, nor hating on this mascara. It thickened my lashes more than it lengthened them and I found it could clump a little bit (not a bad thing for a volumizing mascara). I personally prefer a bit more of a taper to the ends of my lashes, but, as we’re all aware at this point, everyone has far different views on mascara so it’s really, REALLY hard to review one for someone else. This was neither a wet nor dry formula – it was kind of in between. (Please note, in all following face shots, I have falsies on.) I noticed a slight bit of flaking, but nothing like I’ve experienced in some other mascaras, and it really only happened after the six hour mark.

Also included in the Get Real Lip & Eye Set,  are two Audacious Lipsticks. And these lipsticks take a back seat to no one! I fell in love with them during the Fall 2016 launch, and these shades are just as impressive as those. My swatch shot shows basically no difference between the two shades, but the face shots definitely tell another story.

NARS Leslie was a slightly thicker and creamier formula for the Audacious line. I found I got a lot of pigment deposit, so I would suggest applying this lightly so that you just don’t end up overapplying. This colour shows up very terracotta with a hint of berry on me.

Despite my swatches, Bette comes out very dark in tone and completely dissimilar to Leslie. This was a thinner formula than Leslie and had a tendency to fade right on the center of my lips. I love the colour so much, that I’d just encourage you to wear a lip liner underneath.

There are a few other sets in the collection (which I don’t have), as well as a slew of individual products. Most of the products, of course, focus on tones of red which is entirely appropriate for a holiday collection.

I’m done saying I’m not a nail polish person, and NARS‘ Never Tamed nail polish may be the shade that pushed me over the edge. Having never owned a true red nail polish, this shade has had me staring at my fingernails in awe. It’s almost a week later since I took these pictures and am now writing this post, and I’m still looking at my fingernails and sighing in happiness. This shade is everyyyything to me right now. The formula was very easy to apply, although I did find the brush was identical in width to my pinky finger (never done a nailpolish application in one swipe before!). For full transparency: Because I always apply a glossy taco on top of my nails now (quick drying top coats are something I should’ve gotten into sooner), please be aware I’m also wearing Seche Vive on top. I’m also wearing two coats of Never Tamed.

New to me is the Matte Lipstick formula – I have the shade Fearless Red, and I think this is my also first ever NARS blush: Impudique. (“Impudique” is French for “immodest”.)

I’ve been wearing Impudique blush in all of the face shots in this post, but I’m also pairing it with Fearless Red matte lipstick in this shot. Impudique blush is beautiful – it is everything I want in a red-toned blush, and more. It’s super pigmented (so go lightly with your brush) and adds an unbelievable colour to my cheeks. It also has a sheen built into the product that I was not expecting – the first time I applied it I was so confused – although I had not, I looked like I had applied highlighter on top! (I’m not wearing highlighter in any of the face shots in this face.) This is also the perfect shade to make it look like you just came in from the cold winter air.

I have mixed feelings about the Fearless Red lipstick. The colour is fantastic, there’s no doubt about that, and  I really like how I look wearing this shade (you can see me wearing it in my Drugstore Favourites video). It also feels “comfortably” dry. That being said, I also had varying results: with no primer applied, this lipstick wore well through a lot of talking (my video), but, I wore it the next day to work and coupled it with H&M’s lip primer, it did not do so well. My suggestion would be to wear it without lip primer, even if you feel you usually need one.

So there are the pieces from the NARS Sarah Moon Holiday collection that I’ve been playing around with! My recommendations are towards that stunning nail polish, the Impudique blush (*swoon*) and anything involving the Audacious lipsticks (there’s even a set with eight of the lipsticks!). Let me know if you were intrigued by this collection and whether or not you plan to pick anything up.

Several sites have sold out of various items from the collection, but you can take a gander at them on sephora.com, nordstrom.com and narscosmetics.com.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.

Coming soon to a counter and store near you: NARS‘ Audacious fall collection! New shades of lipstick, limited edition eyeliners and a brand new brow cream!

The NARS Audacious lipstick line ($39 CAD/$32 USD) hit the beauty world by storm a while back. But for me, I never managed to experience the amazingess of that launch. You know how it is… you get caught up in beauty launch after beauty launch and somehow you don’t get around to trying everything. So this was my first time interacting with a NARS Audacious lipstick.

I knew about the hype… but guys… I was not prepared…

At first swipe (I was doing my swatches), I actually gasped. While the bullet felt solid, it also glided onto my arm like absolute butter. The swatches you see below are my very first time swiping the product AND it’s a single swipe.

These are hydrating, creamy, and completely luxurious. They have no scent and are opaque in a single swipe. For me, this has been an absolute jawdropping experience – I don’t think I’ve ever worn a more comfortable lipstick…. ever. This the kind of lipstick that makes me want to own the entire range (I can see my wallet staring at me in horror).

Stefania is a stunning fuchsia with a cool-toned edge. I managed to pair this with pink and purple eyeshadow and it didn’t look like pink overkill (which can be difficult!).

Kate is a gorgeous medium-deep purple with some pink in it. Scared of purple lipstick? This might be one to try since it seemed to look quite natural (in my opinion) and less fluorescent.

NARS is also releasing their Brow Defining Cream with this collection (although I’m looking on Sephora and I already see it in stock – $29 CAD/$22 USD). Danakil is their darkest brow colour so it’s not going to match me, but I wanted to play with it and get a sense for the texture.

As you can see, Danakil isn’t quite made for blondes! 😉 Regardless, the texture is creamy and yet is has a hint of grit to it. That sounds weird, but bear with me. It’s not as stiff as the NYX Tame & Frame (which I’m not a fan of) and it’s not as creamy as the Anastasia Dipbrown (which I do love). This feels like the perfect hybrid between those two products because it helped me carve out my eye brow (which I don’t have much of to being with!) and yet it wasn’t slopping all over the place.

I love the shape and texture I got with the Brow Defining Cream. I’m absolutely going to look into purchasing my correct shade (there are three other shades on top of this one) since I loved how well this applied to my brows. As you can see in the shot above, my eyelashes are quite blonde, even white in some areas (the tips are stained from mascara of course!), so I wasn’t going to show you a full face shot because it would have looked weird. But yeah, suffice to say, I’m impressed.

The limited edition Unrestricted Eyeliner Stylo comes in two shades: a matte black (pictured in this post) and a satin finish one. It’s a felt tip liner that is long enough to make me happy (yay!) and comes to a fine point.

At first swatch, I was a little bit unsure of this liner. However, a swatch doesn’t tell the full tale:

This NARS eyeliner is nuts you guys! I took this picture after a work day – so I applied my liner at 7:30 am and took the above shot at 5:15 pm when I got home. You can see some of my eyeshadow has transferred onto the liner, but the liner itself HAS NOT BUDGED. It’s not faded or less crisp than when I went to work in the morning. From the swatches, I had thought that maybe I’d be dealing with an eyeliner that spread (since you can see it spreading into my arm texture lines) but that was not the case on my eyelids. Really, really happy with this one.

Final Thoughts

This is one of those collections that really makes you fall in love with the brand. Between trying out their Audacious lipsticks for the first time, to discovering a new brow cream that applies beautifully, to finding an eyeliner that stands up against an entire work day… I’m really, really impressed. There really wasn’t a dud in everything I tried and it’s piqued my interest to perhaps jump on the bandwagon a bit quicker when NARS releases a new product.

Let me know if you’re going to be picking anything up from this collection! The NARS Audacious collection will be available at your usual NARS retailers (Sephora, The Bay, Holt Renfew, Nordstrom and Murale) on September 1, 2016.

The products featured in this post were sent to me for consideration.