NARS Larger Than Life Eyeliner ($23/ 0.02 oz.) is a long wear pencil eyeliner available in nine shades. Four shades I tried are Via Vento, Bourbon Street, Rue De Rivoli, Rue Bonaparte.
NARS says these liners wear for 12 hours without smearing or caking. I've tried wearing them for 11-12 hours and they held up pretty well. There was no smearing or caking up to 9-10th hour of wear. By the 11-12th hour there was slight smearing and the color appeared a bit faded but not noticeable unless looked at up closely.
These liners come in retractable applicators which mean they will always be the same length. And they come with built in sharpers for the pencil tips. These two factors are great bonuses since I hate using pencil liners after they've been sharpened away more than half of the initial length of the pencil (short pencil liners are harder to use and easier to lose). But I don't always buy retractable pencil liners because the tips can't be sharpened to pointy tips. So the added built in sharpener for these retractable pencil liners works out well. The sharpening did take some practise to get it done without losing so much of the actual product. But losing some useable product when sharpening any pencil liner is inevitable.
The four pencils I tried are creamy rich colors that are well pigmented and apply on the skin evenly with ease.
Via Vento is matte black, Bourbon Street is purple with a slight sheen, Rue De Rivoli is metallic forest green, and Rue Bonaparte is matte light beige.
NARS Larger Than Life Lip Gloss ($26/0.19oz) is available in nine colors. I've tried three colors so far: Tiber, Piree, Spring Break. NARS says these glosses are long lasting high shine hues that are infused with ingredients that not only nourish and fight free radicals but also volumize lips with natural lip enhancers.
Colors above are (from top) Piree (rosy pink), Tiber (mauve-ish beige-brown), and Spring Break (beige-nude with slight sheen). The applicator for Larger Than Life Lip Gloss is different from other NARS lip glosses; it has much smaller applicator with plastic bristles with pointed shape which allows for precise application.
I love Piree and Tiber; they are both well pigmented and applied evenly and seem to fill up the lips to make them appear smooth and full. But Spring Break looked bit chalky and made the dry-ness as well as all the lines on the lips very noticeable. These glosses all do stay in place well and they are not as sticky as most other glosses that are "long lasting." As do many NARS lip products, these glosses don't smell or taste good but if you don't plan on smelling or tasting your lip gloss it's definitely worth trying (given you choose one of the well pigmented colors like Tiber or Piree and avoid colors like Spring Break which gives off more of a sheen than color).
I'm very satisfied quality of both NARS Larger Than Life Pencil Eyeliners and Lip Glosses. I'll be purchasing more colors to try very soon.
A week after this post, I did end up purchasing another NARS Larger Than Life Lip Gloss: Odalisque. Please visit
this link for picture+swatch of Odalisque.
All products were purchased by me at
