Nars Hollywoodland / Goddess Soft Touch Shadow Pencil reviews/ swatches (eyeshadow liner)

Nars soft touch shadow pencils are chubby cream eyeshadow pencils with a Nars signature (i.e. disintegrates quickly and attracts a lot of dust) plastic cap. You need a thick sharpener for these as a usual eyeliner sharpener would be too small for it.

Top is hollywood land and bottom is Goddess. The colors match the end of the eyeliner pencils.

Top (or left) is Hollywoodland and Bottom (or right) is Goddess.

Goddess on left two, and Hollywoodland on right two swatches.

Goddess is a peachy pink shimmer, while hollywoodland is a more champagne gold shimmer. I liked goddess much better since it's a softer looking color and hollywoodland is a bit too yellow even for my Asian skintone.

Without flash:

Blended out:

Honestly these look far prettier on smooth skin than on my eyes- any minor skin creases make these look creased as well and the shimmers can look uneven or a bit chunky. I didn't really intend to use them as an upper lid eyeshadow or liner, but rather as a lower lashline highlight or liner for that dewy eyed look. 

Unfortunately I think the textures are just not refined enough to give a totally natural look and any skin lines or creases will make the shades look stark and uneven.

As a cream eyeshadow for upper eyes, it still will accentuate any skin lines you didn't think you had- even with eyeshadow primers like urban decay.  The textures are just a bit too 'thick' to be blended out evenly on eyelids.

Really wanted to love these, but for the price they just don't perform up to expectation. Rating 2/5.

Nars Larger Than Life Lip Gloss Place Vendome swatch /review

Nars Larger than Life lipglosses were released in early 2012, comes in an array of shades between light to dark, I picked a few shades and Place Vendome was the darkest shade I have at the moment. Nars describes this shade as 'strawberry pink'.

They RRP for 26USD.

Comes in a standard lipgloss tube, again the handle is Nars signature semi-rubbery plastic which is probably going to disintegrate and attract a lot of dust in no time.

Under different lighting:

Features a really short point bristle tip- it's a brush tip but it's a lot shorter and pointier than most other brush bristled lipglosses.

Here are a few swatches:

You can see it's a brightened strawberry pink, more red than pink I thought. It has a slightly sticky texture but not more so than a lot of other glosses out there. It's high shine and very pigmented. Obviously it applies sheerer than it looks in the tube but the pigmentation is a lot better than expected.

Under different lighting:

Overall this shade turned out a bit too deep colored and bright for me, while it does build to a lustrous shine and glossy finish and you get that pouty lip look, I find it very hard to wear with my other makeup look as I usually wear very neutral or minimal eye makeups.

I did realise something unique about these Nars glosses, they have a unique texture where it almost feels a bit like gel-gloss, which means I can actually apply a bit and dab on my lips to get same effect as using a lip tint. You get some color but minimal shine. So it looks like I just got more pinker lips naturally. (same theory as Benefit's Benetint series )

Rating is 3/5. $26 USD is quite hefty for a lipgloss (though I would categorise these are liquid lipsticks due to the high pigmentation). Separately it does require a decent amount to build to that glossy lustrous high shine look. On the plus side I believe these are unscented , there is also no taste to it.