Purchase Review, FOTD Featuring NARS

There are a couple of products that I'll be showcasing in today's review. I was able to get my hands on the LE Hanamichi palette a couple of weeks ago at a great deal thanks to Lulu of Luluchinadoll. She posted on twitter that we could get a really great deal of $80.00 worth of product from NARS for only $40.00. It was a great opportunity to purchase the Hanamichi palette that I had debated about getting but not wanting to pay the $65.00 price tag. I ended up getting a lipstick to fully use the $80.00 credit.

Unfortunately for us who live in Hawaii, there are some companies that will charge an additional shipping fee to ship it to Hawaii even though across the continental U.S. it is free.Quite understandable in that they are using FedEx to ground ship the products and there is no way that you can ground ship to Hawaii. One of the downfalls to living in Paradise.There are even some companies who will ship via USPS who will charge Hawaii residents higher fees. That I cannot tolerate and will not purchase from those companies at all. Seriously, shipping via USPS costs the same if they were shipping something to Hawaii as it does to ship to their next door neighbor. Fortunately, the shipping fee was quite reasonable.

The lipstick that I picked up is in the color Mitzi, a sheer strawberry pink with shimmer.

I'm sure that most of you have seen the various pictures of the Hanamichi palette and packaging. It comes in a fabric pouch and has the wisteria-wrapped kabuki eye brush in the middle. I have to admit that I haven't opened up the brush and looked at it. I normally don't use the included applicators but I will probably try this one out later.

The palette itself was pretty in the pictures that I had seen online but is absolutely gorgeous seen in person. I got to see it in person when I went to Neiman Marcus a few weeks ago.

After I saw it, it made me want it even more which is why I feel so lucky to have gotten this deal.

Normally I usually only do EOTD but this time I'm doing a FOTD.

Products used:

Missha BB Boomer Primer
Lioele Dollish Veil Vita BB Cream
Sue Devitt Concealer
NARS Sheer Glow Foundation in Punjab
Canmake Shading Powder 01
Cle de Peau Translucent Loose Powder
NARS Hanamichi Palette
MAC Orb eyeshadow
K-Palette Real Lasting Eyeliner
Fairy Drops Mascara
Guerlain Meteorite Pearls--Perles D'or & Teint Rose 01
NARS Lipstick in Mitzi

I started off with the primers and then did my eyes. Using Hanamichi, the gold is applied on the inner corner of my eyes and blended upward and outward in the crease area. The red color is applied in the mid eyelid to the creaseline. The black color is applied to the outer corner of the eyelid and blended inward to soften any harsh lines. I also used Canmake Shading Powder in the outer corner of the eye, just above where the black eyeshadow was applied to soften the black shadow and contour the eye a bit. I applied Orb to the browbone area.

I felt the gold color was a bit dull so I used the off-white highlighter shadow to try to brighten the gold and also over the red to soften it a bit. I don't feel that the red color is an extremely harsh color, nor did it make my eyelids look like it was red and sore but I do like it when I can have all of the colors nicely blended. Unfortunately, the effect that I was going for didn't quite happen.

I then cleaned up any possible fallout of eyeshadow on my undereye area with a q-tip and applied the concealer. Then NARS Punjab foundation was applied. This was a sample that I had asked for when I went to Sephora. It was recommended to me by Jamilla of Makeup For Professional Women. Although I had mentioned that I really like Chanel Perfection Lumiere foundation, I had to try this foundation out. I'm glad that I did. It's a nice foundation although it's a bit yellow on me. One great thing though is that this yellow is a brightening yellow. Most yellows make me look dull and sallow but Punjab doesn't. As I've started to do recently, I use Canmake Shading Powder 01 on the outer edges of my face to contour and to darken it a bit to match my neckline better. Lightly applied Cle de Peau powder over entire face.

Now I go back to my eyes to finish up. I lined my upper lashline and outer corner of lower lashline with K-Palette. I went over K-Palette with the black shadow and applied the gold color to the mid lower lashline. I didn't curl my lashes but did apply Fairy Drops mascara.

For my cheeks, I had read somewhere--I think that it was twitter and Sheila mentioned it--that she had read a blog that mentioned how they used the red color in Hanamichi as a blush. I decided to be adventurous and do so too. Using a duo-fiber brush, I tried to lightly pickup the color and apply it to my cheeks. It's definitely a bolder cheek look for me to use, especially during the day time so I then picked up some of the off-white highlighter color to go over the red. It didn't quite tone it down as much as I liked so I used Guerlain Meteorite Pearls in Perles D'or over it. I then realized that my face was a bit too yellow for my preference so I used Gerlain Meteorite Pearls in Teint Rose 01 on my forehead to add a touch of pink/rosiness to tone down the yellow.

Next I applied NARS Mitzi on my lips. Since the description is that it's a sheer strawberry pink color with shimmer, I thought it would be a brighter shade of pink. Unfortunately, it's an almost perfect match to my lip color, which is not what I was really going for when I bought the lipstick. I don't like to use nude shades on my lips as it makes me look really washed out so this color is what I would call my nude color. It worked out well with this stronger eye and cheek color.

The Hanamichi palette is so gorgeous to look at. The only really pigmented color is the black, which is a matte black. The red is pigmented enough but not so highly pigmented that you can easily over do the color application. The disappointment for me was the gold color. It is a dull gold and it doesn't show up well on my eyelids. It kind of just blends in with my coloring. Using the off-white highlighting color didn't really help to brighten up the gold and red so I think that if you want to add more brighteness to these two colors, perhaps a nice brighter gold like Urban Decay's Half-Baked or a nice shimmery silver can be applied over the two colors as a wash of color to lightly brighten it up. I think that I'll try using Half-Baked the next time I use Hanamichi. Overall, I'm really glad that I have this palette in my collection. It's definitely more of a collectors item than practical but it will not be one that will sit completely unused. I will be using it from time to time.

The holiday season is upon us. I hope that everyone will be enjoying it, whether you celebrate Christmas or not.

*Kat*