I bought NARS Celebrate Soft Touch Shadow Pencil (one of two pencils released for Spring 2011) before reading Christine's review on Temptalia. Between the underachieving performance she reports and the fact Celebrate has a distinct yellow base and is far less of a parrot green than promised, I'd probably have skipped this one. Truthfully, it wouldn't have been a huge loss.
Right now the NARS Soft Touch shadow pencil range comes in six colors (I'll show and review Hollywoodland in a few days). They vary in texture and perform different tasks, but up until now I liked all of them, including Palladium. Celebrate is the creamiest one of the bunch, which as you can see in Christine's review is a disadvantage. While I experienced less creasing, the melty texture makes it pretty useless as an eye shadow. I've found that applying more than two coats is a bad idea as well as trying to cover the lid with the product. The only way to make it work is as an accent color along the upper lash line. That's where you can get creative and incorporate Celebrate into your look. That is, if you like the color.
I was pretty horrified with the amount of yellow when I first swatched Celebrate. It looked way too yellow on my arm, but apparently since my lids are darker it looks much better up there. The one perk of sporting my weird skin tone is that it really carries color very well. As long as I don't go to town with these shades and blend everything well, I can use blue and green to enhance my very brown eyes. So, yes, this crazy chartreuse may actually work (I use a beige base and ashy wheat in the crease. When in doubt go with Bobbi Brown). Also, there's a similar shade to Celebrate in Shu Umeura Morphorium Blue Spring 2011 palette (Christine also mentions MAC Chartreuse), so it can be intensified and anchored. Not an everyday look but quite fun on darker skin tones, and used with caution (as in minuscule amounts) it's not too wild for those of us born long before 1990.
Used as described above I had no creasing or longevity issues, but that's only true when you don't even try to cover the lid, which limits the use of this NARS pencil. It also takes too much trial and error (lots of error) to figure out how to make it work. A simple eye shadow pencil shouldn't require so much effort.
Bottom Line: Christine gave it an F, I'm more in the D- camp, but honestly, you can pass.
NARS Celebrate Soft Touch Shadow Pencil ($24) is available from NARS counters as well as from narscosmetics.com.
Wow! Chartreuse! That really takes me back. I had a mini "date night" dress in that color back in the 60's. I had a geometric Sasson haircut at the time and I wore these crazy, big chandelier earrings. Fun times :-)
ReplyDeleteThis color is a kind of...tasteless?
ReplyDeleteEileen, it sounds like a wonderful outfit. You just made decide to search for a chartreuse mod-inspired dress...
ReplyDeleteCelebrate was used on me in a makeover this summer, and it was gorgeous. The color was applied all over my lid, and layered with NARS shadows in Rated R, Fuji, and Pandora for a fun look.
ReplyDeleteIt stayed all day, didn't crease, applied smoothly, and layered well (primer was used underneath, of course). The color was also true on my dark skin. I didn't buy it, only because it's not a color I would wear often.