NARS Virtual Domination Blush Palette

Hi all!

Happy New Year!!

I could have written a load of resolutions for a post today or made a ridiculous list of dreams and hopes but instead I’ve decided to stick with beauty. I hope you all had a wonderful evening seeing in the new year and my aims for the year will no doubt be up soon; but having my first Christmas off in ten whole years – yes TEN years! – I decided to take my time with everything and a more comprehensive and realistic list will hopefully be winging its way onto the blog in the next week or so…..

Without further ado here are my thoughts on the NARS Virtual Domination blush palette.

If you haven’t heard of the Nars Virtual Domination Blush palette I’m not quite sure where you’ve been. However after a quick browse of these pictures you should be up to speed:

The palette contains three blushes, one bronzer and a highlighter and all are encased in a beautiful glass based palette with a digital lace design on the front and contains a rather large mirror.

This palette was a big blogger hype and indeed I snapped it up too not wanting to miss out. But I’ve waited well over a month to post about it not wanting to get too caught up in the hype and give it a good road test. I’ve recently bought Nars Orgasm and Torrid blushes (reviews here and here) and loved their pigmentation….would this match up?

This palette clocks in at £45, the internet tells me that gram for gram this palette is worth £117 if bought individually which immediately grabbed my attention. I haven’t seen this palette in any sales (to be honest I haven’t looked) but if it is its worthy of snapping up! The bronzer is actually bigger than a normal full size bronzer and the blushes are only 0.01oz less than the full size so this is a SUPER good deal.
You can buy the bronzer, one blush and the highlighter separately, but 2 blushes are limited edition to the palette and are Sex Fantasy, the lavender coloured blush and Final Cut which is a matte coral.

The packaging is sturdy and although made of glass I can’t imagine it breaking very easily even in my clumsy hands. I imagine you’d have to hit it at a certain angle on a sharp point for it to shatter which is reassuring! The whole palette is quite heavy but not overly so, travelling with it would be fine as you’ve got yourself a good variety of colours in blushes plus a bronzer and highlighter and sizeable mirror all in one.

The names on the back of the palette are handy but it isn’t 100% clear which is which to those (like me) who didn’t know what any of them were called aside from the bronzer. But that’s being picky I guess!
I do like the arrangement of the products inside though, I love clean lines and equal spaces (OCD anyone?!)

At first glance I worried that the Laguna bronzer – famed for its flattering colour – was going to be far too orange for me and the blushes would be wearable but not my favourites. The corals are something that i lvoed as I wear colours like this daily (orgasm and torrid from Nars being 2 of the main ones). The lavender colour scared me and the highlighter seemed far too glittery…. I did begin to wonder how much wear I would get out of it.

Here are the colours swatched onto my very goosepimply arm. The first shows without flash and the second with:

First is the highlighter, what a beautiful colour and shimmer. It is very glittery but is so flattering on my skin that I want to wear it all the time. I wore it last night for NYE and boy oh boy did it look perfect!
Next up is Sex Fantasy; the lavender lilac blush colour that i wasn’t sure about. It’s swatched heavily here and you can see the pigmentation even on my arm, the colour is pretty and although I was unsure about it it is so flattering on my skin that I love it! I’d consider buying Hervana from Benefit also after using this because its a lush colour.

Deep Throat and Final Cut are both gorgeous corals, Deep Throat is first with the shimmer and Final Cut is a matte finish, Both are super wearable for me as I love coral and they are definitely my favourites.

Laguna is also a new item to my make up wardrobe and the colour was nowhere near as scary as I thought it would be. It’s a great contour colour and warms the face with the tiniest bit and i can see that it’s going to last me a long time.

Below is my face wearing Laguna bronzer, Final Cut blush and the Miss Liberty highlighter:

They are so flattering and I’m really pleased that I will get so much wear out of it.

Below are a few images from when I wore Sex Fantasy, it looks nowhere near as lilac as it does on my arm or in the palette and it’s a lovely shade.

What do you think of Nars? Did you pick up the Virtual Domination blush palette?

Have you got any favourites from their range?

This has definitely been a year of new Nars purchases for me, I’d never tried them before and am now fully obsessed with them all! It seemed fitting to start the year with a review of such a lovely collection of their products. I certainly plan on buying more from them throughout 2015!

L xxx