Pure Glitter

I didn’t really go crazy in the post-Christmas sales, but I did have a good look around the beauty section of department stores, Mecca Cosmetica and Kit. I spotted NARS Enchanted cream blush on sale at Mecca for $23 (from $45). It’s probably not a NARS blush I’d set out to buy at full price (Laguna and Luster are next on my wishlist), but discounted NARS isn’t something I see very often (at least in physical Australian stores), and there was only one left, so I was reluctant to pass it up.

Swatches of Enchanted are misleading — it looks like a decently pigmented soft peach with gold shimmer. On the skin, unless you're extremely pale, there's next to zero colour payoff. It fails spectacularly as a blush. Not only does it require 3-4 layers for just a subtle peachiness to come through, but the amount of glitter for such minimal pigmentation is overwhelming. Not shimmer, but glitter. You can see the gold/diamond particles, but what's extraordinary about Enchanted is there are larger chunks of glitter that remind me of miniature glass shards. They’re predominately gold but flash clear or almost white in the light. You can kind of brush them off after the product has set, as the pieces sit on top of the cream and don't adhere to the skin very well.

Enchanted is more an extremely festive cream highlighter better suited for parties and special occasions. The glitter factor is way too much for everyday wear, but you might be able to away with it if lightly and sparingly applied. Just be prepared to see a lot of glitter on your face every time you look in the mirror, particularly under artificial light. Otherwise, I imagine you could use this as a cream version of a shimmer powder on the body, mainly to add sparkle to the décolletage, shoulders and neck, kind of like The Body Shop The Sparkler. This might also work as a cream eyeshadow, either as a sparkly base or lightly dabbed on top of powder shadows to add a finishing dusting of glitter.