The newest product offering by uber sleek brand Nars is an eyeshadow that promises "A creaseless, 8-hour wear eye shadow with a transformative texture for wet or dry application". I picked three of the Nars Dual-Intensity Eyeshadows up the morning my local Sephora was putting them on the shelf, and put them to the test.
Normally I tend to stay away from shadows that put out the wet or dry claim as a selling feature, because nine times out of ten when used dry they have little to no pigment. I can say that after swatching them all, some of these were a let down in that sense, but most had very good pigmentation when used dry.
I grabbed three shades in the neutral scope and wore them all day both wet and dry with just slight fading and ever so slight creasing near the end of a very hot day. One thing I noticed is that dry, these three shades really tended to blend into each other to the point where there wasn't much definition of colour. Because these are quite metallic, the sparkle factor is high and I find with some shadows like that you have to keep blending to a minimum so they don't blend into nothing.
I picked up Himalia - a shimmery topaz, Dione - a metallic pewter beige, and Callisto - a cool silvery pink.
After some initial wear and testing, I can say while these are pretty, and the packaging lovely (magnetic, and an little birdie has told me that Nars is rebranding all their packaging this way) I didn't find any of the shades overwhelmingly unique. If you are new to the eyeshadow game, or really love sparkly metallic shadows, then these might be right up your street. For me though, ringing in at $33 CAD each, I just didn't think any of them knocked my socks off. That can be partly to blame for my large palette and ridiculous MAC eyeshadow collection, but for me these just didn't seem worth their price.
I'm probably alone in that thought, and perhaps if Nars expands this range there might be a shade or two that just needs to be had. We'll see!
Have you tried these yet? What new releases we're you/are you most excited for this summer?
