Nars Satin Lip Pencil in Hyde Park

Hello there!

It's no secret that I'm newly obsessed with Nars having kept my wishlist at bay for such a long time, the flood gates seem to have been opened. I can't even begin to tell you how many blushes I now want, not to mention their Virtual Domination palette and their lip products are also highly rated by myself. You can see my previous review on the infamous Cruella lip pencil here, and this review is on the Satin lip pencil Hyde Park.

I bought this from the Space NK website; I'd never seen it in reality and pretty much bought it because the shade looked like something I'd like and get a lot of wear out of and the name was appealing. Who doesn't love a London named product??

Hype Park is described as a 'cardinal red' which to me sounds a lot more red than this. I would say it's more of a berry toned red and whilst I haven't tried other lip pencils from the Satin range to compare it to, I loved the more hydrating and lip balm feel to it than was expected. you could easily wear this pencil as a wash of colour and top it up with lip balm, or layer it up which is my preferred way of wearing it.

It's a gorgeous colour for almost any skin tone and for me personally with my dark hair and pale skin it's an absolute winner for the upcoming winter season.

The pencil style is super easy to use especially on the go, you just need to make sure you have sharpened it recently as otherwise you'll be a bit stuck! It;s the only downside I can find to the pencils as a whole as on the go it can be difficult to find a sharpener and this is where a traditional lipstick would have a major advantage.

That said, they're easy to apply and the colour can be built up with a few layers leaving a lovely stain after a few hours of wear and I didn't find that it settled into lines too badly either, though this does always happen eventually.

The photo above shows the berry colour and below is the lip pencil on my lips:






In my personal opinion sometimes I feel I need an actual lip pencil to line and fill my lips as something this can be a bit translucent as you can see in the image above. I just feel this kind of colour and look requires a clean and defined line.
The colour however is one of my favourites and it's now one product that always seems to live in my handbag. I wore it to a wedding recently and loved it, was so easy to apply and was even appropriate in the day time:

In short, I love it. I definitely want more of the lip pencils from Nars now I know where I stand with finishes. The set from Space NK for Christmas, the Digital World Lip Pencil Coffret holds 5 of the lip pencils in a smaller size and I've definitely got my eye on it. 

It contains Cruella and also Iberico(intense matte coral), Yu (shocking pink with cool undertones), Descanso (tea rose with satin finish) and Torres del Paine (peach coral with satin finish). Cruella and Yu are part of their normal range whilst the others are limited edition. I need to get my hands on this set as Torres del Paine looks beautiful! 

Have you tried any of the Nars lip pencils? Is the gift set on your wishlist? What colour is your favourite?

L xxx

Review: Mac's Viva Glam Nicki Minaj Lipstick

Before Christmas I was a little naughty and picked up a new Mac Lipstick.

In my mind, as it was the Nicki Minaj one it was for charity and therefore didn't count...obviously!

M was with me at the time and you can ask anyone, I went a little wild.

It was the same time i picked up the Naked Basics palette, Mac's MSF in soft and gentle and also 3 for 2 on premium beauty in Boots (Coralista, Dior foundation and Origins moisturiser) oops!

After I'd swatched it on my hand in the shop I knew I had to have it.

On top of that my Mac lipstick collection was missing one of the Viva Glam black and pink lipstick casings, so I just had to snap it up.

I love that they've kept the box exactly the same apart from 'Nicki Minaj' scrawled over it in pink!

Again, who can resist the pink and black combo??

Viva Glam Nicki is a bright pink satin lipstick, and the first satin one from Mac in my collection as well.

It's a gorgeous bright pink, but unfortunately really hard to photograph!

Here it is swatched on my hand:

And here are some photos of it on my lips:

It's a gorgeous colour, but for me and my peeling lips it's a little hard work!

I find that it's very drying because its a Satin which i haven't had that much of a problem with before.

However a few goes with Lush's bubblegum scrub and lashings of lip balm for a while before it seems to work fine and the result is worth it!

I love wearing this when I meet the girls for a drink and especially on a Saturday night!

What's your favourite Mac lipstick? Which other Viva Glams would you recommend??

L xxx