If you know me, you know I love anything French or anything that has a French connection, so to speak. I could spend hours looking at pictures on Instagram tagged with #paris, #france, #marseille, and so on. I have a dedicated Pinterest board titled
J'adore France. I took French in high school, and again post-school through Emory University's night courses for working adults just for fun. Visiting France has been on my bucket list since I was a teenager! When I saw NARS had an eyeshadow trio called Douce France in lovely shades of rose, I was in.
Douce France debuted in the NARS Spring 2012 collection and was recently on sale for $25.00 USD on the NARS website. NARS trios typically retail for $45.00, which I think is quite steep considering one could pick up the entire Naked or Naked2 palette from Urban Decay (which contain twelve shadows, a brush, and a mini primer potion or a mini lip gloss for $50.00 - just $5.00 more). At nearly 50% off, picking up this trio seemed like too good a bargain to pass up.
The shades are described as shimmery icy pink, shimmery rose petal pink, and matte deep rose. The color payoff was good for the medium pink and phenomenal for the rose, while the lightest shade seemed a bit powdery and required some layering. I was really attracted to this palette because I don't own anything like the medium pink or cranberry shade and I thought it would be a fun addition! Douce France wore perfectly all day over eyeshadow primer.
I absolutely loved the finished look! I used the lightest shade to highlight the brow and inner corners, the medium pink on the lid and crease, and the matte rose all over the lid and blended upward into the crease. I lined my upper and lower lashes with black liner to emphasize my lash line and I finished up with two coats of black volumizing mascara (L'Oreal Voluminous, to be exact).
After seeing these shadows on
Laurie from 312 Beauty, I'm convinced anyone with blue eyes should own this trio because it really brings them out! I'd also love to see this on someone with dark eyes and dark hair. The lightest shadow would really stand out beautifully on darker skin and the warm rosy shades would be quite stunning.
If you simply cannot live without Douce France (which translates to "Sweet France"), it is limited edition and will disappear from the NARS site at some point. If you're intrigued but are willing to gamble, sign up for NARS emails and hopefully you can pick it up for a steal the next time they have a big sale. You can also find this trio for sale on Amazon and eBay, but be careful because counterfeit makeup shows up on eBay quite a bit and can be a little difficult to detect in photos.
What's your favorite NARS trio? Would you ever wear cranberry shadow?
My Rating: B+
Where to Buy:
NARS
Whee way to go, Kristen! These are shades that I personally cannot wear (anything that is too warm/reddish makes me look really ill), but they look great on you! I haven't tried any NARS trios yet. I think I'm still waiting for the right color combination to come along!
ReplyDeleteWow it looks really LOVELY on you girl! So pretty! I remember wanting this when it came out, but skipped it because I thought I'd never wear it because my hair was so orangey red. But now, I think I'd love it a lot!
ReplyDeleteAnd HOW was I not following you on Pinterest?????? DONE.
These are not shades I'd spontaneously pick, but I'm pretty sure that if I tried them I'd like them :-)
ReplyDeleteOh you did?? :-D
ReplyDeleteNars grenadine is an all time favorite eyeshadow and I use it at least 3 or 4 times a week! It is available as a single on NARS site. (I use it with Edie as base/highlight and Mekong for a liner/definer) :)
ReplyDeleteThat eye look sounds beautiful, Clementhyme!! I've long been tempted to pick up Grenadine myself!
ReplyDelete