A little before the holidays, I fell upon the info that Nars was releasing a new liquid foundation for Spring 2015. Some Middle-East based blogger posted review articles on the foundation when they weren't supposed to and the news spread throughout the whole beauty word. The foundation was released at the beginning of January on Nars' official website and I was waiting for the foundation to be released in French Sephoras so that I could return my product if the shade wasn't matching.

30 ml for 43€ on sephora (fr) , Nars (fr)

30 ml/1 fl.oz for 48$ on sephora (us) , Nars (us)

Full, natural-looking coverage with unexpectedly weightless, 16-hour wear. Highly pigmented and perfectly balanced, this breakthrough formula builds and blends effortlessly with just one drop—the result of exclusive innovation uniquely designed to deliver long-wearing full coverage, weightlessly. Shake, pump and blend in sections for complete coverage that's completely natural looking.

Pure Innovation. Exclusively NARS.
Weightless Long-wear Technology delivers up to 16 hours of wear, while always feeling light-as-air. Featuring advanced flexible polymers and first-to-market treated pigments.

• Advanced flexible polymers move with the skin, providing extraordinary breathability and comfort.
• First-to-market treated pigments weightlessly deliver long-wearing, complete coverage without ever masking for perfected, natural-looking skin.

Even Tone Technology is designed to instantly neutralize redness and dullness, while working long-term to reduce the appearance of discoloration for more even, uniform skin.

Okay, if you were lazy to read all of this up, let me sum this up for you :

The claims are such : Weightless, Long-lasting up to 16 hours, full and natural coverage, only one drop is needed, Even tone technology : neutralizes redness, dullness, long term use of this foundation is supposed to reduce de the appearance of discoloration.

Nars is finally providing a pump with the new foundation (which wasn't the case with Sheer Glow/Matte). The bottle is a frosted glass giving you that sleek and quite expensive feel to it. The cap is as always, that rubbery material Nars seems to love so much. As you can see in the pictures (or not, I tried really hard to clean them), that rubber cap gets dirty pretty quickly and it's also quite hard to remove the stains.



I'm going to be nitpicking a bit with the pumps though, I'm noting the lack of stopper in the pumps compared to the pumps purchased for the Sheer Glows. Foundation pumps tend to get messy with time and use, and with the lack of a stopper, it's a bit trickier to clean them without pushing the pump.

Dimethicone, Water, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Polymethylsilsesquioxane, Glycerin, Boron Nitride, Propanediol, Adipic Acid/Neopentyl Glycol Crosspolymer, Peg-10 Dimethicone, Isostearic Acid, Vinyl Dimethicone/Methicone Silsesquioxane Crosspolymer, Decyl Isostearate, Isododecane, Bis-Hydroxyethoxypropyl Dimethicone/Peg-2 Soyamine/Ipdi Copolymer, Isopropyl Titanium Triisostearate, Phenoxyethanol, Acrylates/Polytrimethylsiloxymethacrylate Copolymer, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Isostearyl Isostearate, Boerhavia Diffusa Root Extract, Ascorbic Acid, Retinyl Palmitate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Synthetic Fluorphlogopite, Silica, Polysilicone-2, Tin Oxide, Tocopherol, [+/- (May Contain): Mica, Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891), Iron Oxides (Ci 77491), Iron Oxides (Ci 77492), Iron Oxides (Ci 77499)]

As analyzed on Cosdna, the ingredients in bold are acne triggers irritant : Isostearyl Isostearate (Synthetic ester Emollient) is marked as 4 as an acne trigger. 

Nars do claim that this foundation is non comedogenic, oil-free , paraben free. 

Nars says it on the packaging but you really don't want to forget to shake the bottle really well before applying your foundation. As it comes in a serum consistency, the formula separate itself after a while and you can see it through the bottle as well, so remember to shake well before using.

François Nars' technique to apply foundation is always to fingers, the representative NARS makeup artists show videos with them using fingers to apply the foundation. However, I found that the Weightless foundation sets very quickly and is hard to blend when you use only your fingers. If you're used to dot your foundation all over the face, you won't be able to do that too, unless you blend with an incredible speed. 

I tried this foundation using a beauty blender once, it looks more natural but as always, you'll have to use the double amount of product and you're loosing that full coverage capacity. With the beauty blender, I found that the foundation was more comfortable to wear on my current dry skin.

 
After seeing the swatches, I was afraid that Barcelona would be too light for me. As it counterpart in Sheer Glow is the exact shade for me, Barcelona in this All Day Luminous Weightless foundation is a tad too dark. It's really slightly too dark but it's dark enough that my face look like I have a brown/tan cast all over it. I decided to go with the shade lighter, and do what I hate to do : Mix both shades to get the perfect shade.

Stromboli is from what I can tell a bit more yellow that it's counterpart in Sheer Glow. It's definitely too light for me, but as I just said, mixed with Barcelona, it brings back the yellow in my skin.

Here's the shade Barcelona in the Luminous Foundation (on top) compared to Barcelona in the Sheer Glow version (at the botom). I couldn't properly take a picture of the difference of both shades, they are both very similar but you can tell that the Luminous one is a bit darker and more peachy/almost brown undertones whereas the Sheer Glow one is more golden. The pictures are terrible and are most likely showing the exact opposite of what I'm saying, but here it is nonetheless :

Nars claims that the foundation suit any skin types but as I mentioned previously, my skin is pretty dry right now (it isn't currently dehydrated as I stated in previous articles though) and even with great preparation before the foundation, I found that it didn't work that well with my dry skin. It kind of accentuates the dry spots on my cheeks and looks obvious. Whereas, blended, the Sheer Glow looks extremely natural, I do find that this new foundation, doesn't look that natural. I do have to say, that it's because I'm used to the extreme natural finish the sheer glow currently gives me, but maybe it's because my skin is dry, but I do find this foundation noticeable. And you definitely do no want, anyone looking at you and being able to tell if you're wearing foundation or not. As a result, if you have a skin that is quite textured, you might want to test this foundation first, before purchasing it.

    As Nars was stating, one pump is really enough to cover your whole face, an extra half of it might be needed if you use a brush with it. It is full cover, but the brand succeeded in making the foundation non heavy and pretty much "weightless" on your skin. If you are like me, and you don't like full coverage foundation, you can sheer it out by applying less and blending it well. It dries semi-satin finish, it's not glowy or luminous as the sheer glow can be and as I said, isn't extremely natural looking as a finish. But it still looks like skin, it has the finish the Sheer Glow would have with a tiny amount of powder on.

    The one major flaw this foundation has, it settles into your fine lines ! Now, keep in mind that I'm only 20 years old, I do not have any wrinkles whatsoever but this foundation had the awful tendency to set into my laugh lines, my under-eyes fine lines, the corner of my nose and last but not least.. I might be frowning too much but it also settled into the lines on the forehead (I didn't know I had..) I get after I frowned. I only set my nose and forehead with some Banana powder but even with that, it has that awful tendency to highlight those areas and make me look older than I'm. In this case, if you're older or just have many fine lines, you might want to test the foundation first as well. It also settles into the pores of my nose, and let me tell you, it really looks bad after a few hours of wear.

This foundation would probably be a great foundation for the summer time, when my skin goes back to normal type. As I can't give a proper review on that part, I might do a part 2 of this article to talk about how this foundation last up in summer on my non dry skin.

Other NARS reviews :

Sheer Glow (Barcelona)
Audacious Lipsticks (Vera & Audrey)
Luminous Powder Foundation (Barcelona & Stromboli)