Flashback Beauty Friday 56: Lunar New Year Special 4

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I've procrastinated so much regarding this post and these images. I wasn't happy with the photos I took last year, so reshot them this week...still wasn't happy, but now I've looked at the stock photos, I can see the brand also had issues with getting the colours correct. Actually mine are a lot closer, so panic over! Okay, last week for my Chinese New Year special, I posted the Bobbi Brown 2021 Stroke Of Luck collection and today I have another one from last year.

I don't buy a lot of NARS, but have picked up a few things over the past couple of years and was really taken with their lunar collection last year. The range included some new shades alongside repackaged mainline colours. The outer boxes were a far cry from the usual matte black and white in a deep, glossy red with metallic gold lettering and a raised floral design all over.

Out of the 4 lipsticks, I chose one of the two completely new shades, Wen Wo. The case is a darkish red matte with a shiny floral pattern. Like the Bobbi Brown one last week, the pattern wraps it's way all around, spelling out NARS in gold. The matte isn't rubbery like usual NARS and it's actually very lightweight and doesn't feel particularly luxe if I'm honest.

Wen Wo has a matte finish, in a deep, warm, brown-pink. I expected it to apply more terracotta and much warmer, but it's a brick-pink-(dark)nude on my lips with a comfortable matte finish. It builds easily and nicely to become opaque.

The other item I got was the Quad Eyeshadow in Deep Sunrise, again with the shiny floral pattern on the compact. There's no information on finishes and individual shade names on the packaging, but there's two matte colours and two (looks to be) shimmer shades. This was the major problem to photograph, the colours were just so off. The shimmers are a light gold and a pink tinted taupe in the bottom corner. That pink tint completely disappeared in some photos, but I've kinda captured it here (that said, it isn't apparent in the swatch). When swatched, the gold isn't as sparkly as the other one, so perhaps it's not called a shimmer, but I'm not an expert on NARS shadow finishes and it would help if they told you these things somewhere!

The mattes are a light beige with a slight pink tint in the pan and a deep brick-pink, not unlike my lipstick. That shade wasn't as scary as I thought when swatched, usually colours like that make me look like I've been in a fight (but I've not tried it on the eye yet). All 4 colours felt buttery soft and applied well in dry finger swatches (I haven't been altering the colours in any of my swatch photos this year).  I've swatched clockwise in the pan from the gold shimmer (left to right on arm).  

It's a nice little palette, nothing ground-breaking, but I can see myself getting use out of it and the quality seems decent.