yesterday afternoon i found myself in a very dangerous stretch of fifth avenue (56-58, yikes!) with a couple of hours to kill. i’ve been doing everything i can to stay away from henri bendel, but i just couldn’t help myself!
is there anything better than being surrounded by so many beautiful, sparkly accessories and makeup counters everywhere? the answer is no, obviously!
when i was fourteen, my parents took me to bendel’s for the first time and all i could think about was how i just wanted to have a huge sleepover inside its marbled walls! (i still do…so bendel’s if you’re listening…hook me up!) *huge* mistake on their part because now i’m a total bendel’s girl!
the nars counter quickly caught my eye because i’ve been lusting after their new spring lipgloss, ophelia, a beautiful soft pink, and sephora was out of stock the other day.
i was greeted by the lovely gisella who offered to show me around the new spring colors and since i had plenty of downtime, i agreed to a full makeover!
gisella prepped my skin with nars brightening serum, a light moisturizer infused with shimmer. for foundation, she used nars sheer glow in fiji and concealed my terrifyingly dark circles with the vanilla/honey concealer duo. next came nars’ classic bronzer, laguna, and blush in deep throat. she brushed nars’ new spring highlighting duo, hungry heart, on top of deep throat for a little extra golden shimmer.
nars’ orgasm blush is a total classic (much like laguna) – its a beautiful peachy-pink with gold shimmer that flatters across all skin tones. i *love* orgasm and have it not only in its original formula but also in the mutiple as well, but deep throat is another *excellent* shade from nars. its close to orgasm, but more peach than peachy-pink and glows on fair skin like mine. peach and coral are big colors for spring!
with bronzer and blush, always remember the three six rule! bronzer should be applied in a “3” shape on the face from the forehead to the chin, and blush in a backwards “6” on the cheek up towards the hairline.
we wanted to go dramatic on the eyes to balance the soft color of ophelia and experiment with the new shadow duo, kuala lumpur, which i was instantly drawn to because of its warm aubergine shade – we all know i’ve been loving those purples recently!
gisella began with camargue cream shadow duo, also from the spring 2010 line, using the gold shade all over my eye, and the dark sienna color on the outer third of my eye. she went over the cream with star sailor duo in the center of my eye. gisella then applied the purple color from kuala lumpur along my top lashline and in my crease, finishing the look with goldmember cream blush in my tear duct and outside of my eye as a highlighter.
she lined my lower lashline with the spring 2010 glitter pencil in bains douches, a bright blue with silver shimmer for a totally unexpected look. i decided i wanted to up the drama for evening, so she then applied night breed shadow, a true black with silver glitter, wet along my upper lash line with a flat brush and finished with LOTS of volumizing mascara!
my finished look!
i *loved* the look – a unique mix of antique golds and beautiful aubergine with very bronzed, radiant skin.
but here’s what kills me – when i checked my makeup about 4 hours later at 7 pm, there was a *massive* crease in my shadow!
BLARGH NARS CREAM SHADOWS!!!!!!!!
they come in such beautiful colors (one of my favorite colors ever is corfu) but they *always* crease! drives me completely bananas – i mean, francois nars is a beauty genius, *why* do his shadows crease?! i blended the crease line out with my finger, but couldn’t completely revive the look 😦
gisella did tell me that nars is coming out with two different eye primers with the upcoming summer collection, so i guess we’ll have to see how they fare against the deliciously beautiful but deceptively evil nars cream shadows. today i picked up bobbi brown long wear cream shadow in navajo to try as a base (my usual UDPP isn’t cutting it against these little devils), so i’ll let you know how that turns out!
overall, i was pleased with the look and discovering new nars products and seeing how they could be tied in with some that i already have. i ended up purchasing the brightening serum to try underneath foundations for a bit of shimmer and ophelia lipgloss (obvi!) – i decided against kuala lumpur, even though i loved it, because i have so many purple colors already like it in my collection but did pick up taiga shadow duo, which includes a slate green with gold shimmer that is totally out of my normal color palette and mekong shadow, a deep chocolate brown with gold shimmer. i can’t wait to try my new products with some of the nars products i already own, like deep throat and night breed.
if you find yourself at henri bendel and in need of a nars fix, definitely look for gisella! she did a great job and is really knowledgeable about the line – and she sent me home with three different foundation samples to try and a face chart! the quickest way to my heart 😉
gisella's face chart!
check out the whole nars spring 2010 collection here!
xo!
adore artistry 
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