I have to admit that NARS blushes within the berry family were never really my favourite. I dont think I was scared away by the menacing colour of the blushes in the pan. They’re so damn hard to work with and it is almost impossible for me to make them workable. The only one that I kept until now is Outlaw, it got the right composition of everything. With so many people complementing Crazed and Mounia I guess there’s this part of me that was wee bit challenged to make it works for me. I proudly reported, that I finally make it work!
L-R: Sin, Outlaw, Crazed & Mounia
Sin – inclining more toward mauve than it ever will be a berry although it is described as berry with gold shimmer. Even the gold shimmer in other blushes such as Luster or Super Orgasm is much more stronger than the one in Sin. Definetely not my cup of tea and I heard that most people agree with this. Sometimes it is hard to make this blush looks complementing on our Asian skin tone, it looks too muddy somehow. I understood the blush more when I had the Blush/Bronzer duo in Sin/Casino, they work perfect together. Even with Lovejoy, Sin looks healthy – but alone it spells disaster! If you want mauve blush you can try other brands that over more workable colours.
Crazed – This blush really frustrate me because everyone keep saying that this is one of the loveliest NARS blush they ever had. Everytime I used it I feel like my face look so damn burnt, greyish and overly warm. Crazed is raspberry red with soft golden shimmer. It is lovely for the warm toned skin but harder to work with cooler skin tone. I suppose it’s due to the raspberry colour rather than the shimmer itself.
Mounia – This blush intrigued me more than crazed. It’s described as cinnamon coral but I never really see any coral in it but I supposed the inclusion of coral is what makes it more wearable for both warm and cool skin tone. It has less noticeable shimmer than Crazed since the shimmer in Mounia is pretty much has the same cinnamon colour.
Both Crazed and Mounia takes me several attempt to make it right. Here’s the difficult part, other than making my face looks burnt because it’s so pigmented if you dont blend it well it looks horrid on your face because you look like a clown so you have to be very careful with this. I’ve tried every possible brush Fan brush, Stippling brush, MAC 188 brush, angled brush even my trusted MAC 138 brush. The bottom line is, I never achieve the result that I want easy. So here’s the trick *drum roll please*, apparently using full rounded dense bristle brush such as Everyday Mineral Long Handle Kabuki, Kemeiru baby kabuki or MAC 182 buffer brush is the answer. Tap lightly your brush to your blush, and apply lighhandedly in circular motion. The dense bristle ensure seamless application of the blush onto your cheeks. Build the colour as you wish but make sure you start lightly.
If the blush prettify your face, than it is the highlighter that up it by a notch. I find for my cool tone it is best to pair Crazed and Mounia with highlighter that are more on the frosty pink side or with the combination of bronze, mine was Laura Mercier Shimmerbloc in Pink Mosaic and The Body Shop Blushing Daisies 01. Even with peach highlighter or golden bronze (not just bronze or gold) both blush looks extremely pretty. I’ve tried mixing it with Laura Mercier Shimmerbloc in Peach Mosaic and I get more wearable colours for work.
Outlaw – Save the best for last, and that is this one. Rose with soft shimmer that is just perfect for every skin tone. It looks warm even on my cool skin tone but just the perfect warm so it’s perfect for tropical weather like us. I’m not sure though that this will looks right during winter because it seems misplaced somehow. I will relate this colour with warm summer sun.
My two cents, NARS should make a blush duo from every berry field and pair it with Lovejoy instead with a bronzer because they’re just everybit beautiful to pair it with Lovejoy. Usually I will put Lovejoy on the entire cheeks area and then tap lightly either Sin/Crazed/Mounia/Outlaw onto the apple of the cheeks.
