NARS Chronicles : Radiant Creamy Concealer - Ginger & Biscuit - Swatches & Review

makeup
My love story with NARS is still going strong. As of today, this brand is the make up brand I talk about the most on Wished Chronicles. Believe me, this isn't sponsored or anything, It's really a love story going strong here. After trying, the Sheer Glow foundation which perfectly matched my skin and had finally the right amount of warmth and yellow for my tan/indian skintone, I just had to try their famous Radiant Creamy concealer.




I only got Ginger at first, and after casting away my MAC's Pro longwear concealer, I finished my first round up of the Radiant Creamy Concealer. Mind you, I was scrapping the sides away to get the last bit of product it left. I still have half a bottle of the MAC concealer but I still went ahead and picked up another radiant creamy concealer and this time, with an extra shade : Biscuit.




What the brand says


Coveted by artists for its luxurious texture and luminous finish, new Radiant Creamy Concealer evens skin with lightweight medium to high buildable coverage. Enriched with hydrating, multi-action skincare benefits and light diffusing technology, it creates a softer, smoother complexion while instantly obscuring imperfections and diminishing fine lines and signs of fatigue.

  • Long wearing and crease-proof
  • Paraben-free, Alcohol free, Synthetic fragrance free, Non comedogenic

The packaging

The concealer comes in a wand type packaging with the classic black rubbery Nars packaging at the handle.


It comes with 6 ml/0.22 oz for a price point of 27€/29$ (us).



The packaging is also see-through, which lets you see how much product is left inside (you do will have to scrape the sides like I did for that) and the doe-foot applicator has a perfect flat side which allows you to apply the product easily on your skin.



 Swatches 

The formula is very creamy, just like the name says it and is very pigmented. A little goes a long way, and the coverage ranges from medium to full depending on the amount of product you use. The finish isn't matte but it's not dewy either, it's definitely light reflective and thus, has a natural finish. Even though, I'm all for the natural finish and don't like to powder my whole face, I do powder my under eyes to first, set the concealer and second, to get a matte finish. 



Ginger is a shade lighter than my skin tone and is similar to MAC's NC35 shade, I use it to brighten my under eyes and it works well for my tan/indian skin tone. Biscuit is supposedly my skintone shade, I did find that it was a tad too dark but nothing too noticeable. I bought it to spot conceal and cancel out my dark under eyes on days when putting a lighter shade would just turn the finish gray. (Read the review on Mac's orange corrector here).

If you want to compare with MAC's shades, Ginger would be the equivalent of an NC35 and Biscuit of an NC42. 

Below, is the comparison swatches with Nars' Lightweight foundation in Stromboli, and Sheer Glow foundation in Barcelona.



My thoughts

The product lasted for around 7 months of daily use and is extremely easy to apply and blend. I used a dry/wet beauty blender to blend the concealer in on most days or would even use my fingers. It's not thick if you don't over apply the product and it is fairly unnoticeable if, again, you use a fair amount of product.

The concealer claims to be crease-proof, now, if you do have fine lines, don't expect them to disappear, that's not what the product says it will do. If you do use a reasonable amount of product, it won't crease and will look really natural while covering everything you need to cover up. In term of longevity, it's not overly long lasting but it does last for around 7 or 8 hours if you powder.

Let's talk about the cons now :
This concealer is expensive. Nearly 30 bucks for a concealer is crazy in my book, granted there's more expensive but when you can buy less expensive and just as good elsewhere, it's worth checking other product out. The other concealer I own is MAC's pro longwear which is 20 bucks for 9 ml of product whereas NARS' concealer is only 6 ml of product. 

Why did I buy it again then ?

This concealer isn't phenomenal but it is great. I do think it's over priced but the consistency, application and shades are good enough to get my crazy self to spend this much for the Radiant Creamy Concealer.

In comparison with MAC's pro longwear concealer, it's indeed more expensive and is packed up with less product but, the pro longwear creases not matter how little product you apply and the packaging is horrendous. Though, as the name suggests it, MAC's prolong wear concealer is truly long lasting compared to the Radiant Creamy Concealer.




“My rule of thumb: lightness, transparency, and less is more.
Do not cover the complexion, enhance it.”
– François Nars


The reason why I love Nars products even more, is that I love François Nars' view on make up. For myself,  I share the idea that make up should only enhance your own beauty which is why I always go for the more natural look.

Buy yours now

Amazon - Nars (US) - Nars (fr) - Sephora (US) - Sephora (fr)

Other NARS reviews :


Banila Co - Clean It Zero Cleansing Balm - Review & Demo

skincare
Do you cleanse your face every day ? You should. It's been said again and again but you should always remove your make up before going to bed. Yes, even after a crazy night. Luckily enough, Banila Co's Clean it Zero will make that annoying step a little bit more enjoyable. 




What the brand says

I couldn't find any official description from the brand that wasn't in Korean but this cleanser is basically a sherbet type of cleanser which melts into an oil when you spread it on your face. Stay tuned for a little demo of this product.


Ingredients

Mineral Oil, Cetyl Ethylhexanoate, PEG-20 Glyceryl Triisostearate, PEG-10 Isostearate, Polyethylene, Butylene Glycol, Water, Rubus Suavissimus (Raspberry) Leaf Extract, Bambusa Arundinacea Stem Extract, Aspalathus Linearis Leaf Extract, Viscum Album (Mistletoe) Leaf Extract, Angelica Polymorpha Sinesis Root Extract, Carica Papaya (Papaya) Fruit Extract, Malpighia Glabra (Acerola) Fruit Extract, Epilobium Angustifolium Leaf Extract, BHT, Butylparaben, CI 16255, CI 15985, Fragrance

In bold, ingredients which could be potential acne/irritants.


Packaging

To me, the packaging is a stellar. I'm not a fan of pink stuff but.. This jar is gorgeous. Sleek but simple. It comes in a 100 ml jar with the lid and the spatula that comes with it. Depending on where you buy it, this version of Banila Co's Clean It Zero, retails for approximately 20$.






The product

This cleanser is in a balm format which transforms into an oil when you massage it into your skin. The oil is thin and feels wonderful on the skin. It doesn't feel heavy on the skin and it melts all of my makeup even the most waterproof one without having to force or anything. It then emulsifies into a milky texture which rinses away effortlessly.




Demo

I'm doing the demo first with Etude House's 101 Pencils previously reviewed :

Here's the balm turning into oil after rubbing it on the swatches :


After massaging the product into my skin, the swatches are slowly melting away :


After emulsifying the product with water, it turns into a milky consistency. I forgot to take the after picture, as always, but I can assure you that there wasn't anything left !



As I said in my Etude House review, the pencils aren't long lasting at all. So I thought I would do a demo with actual waterproof makeup : From left to right we have : Mac's prolongwear concealer, Kiko's Waterproof eyeliner (review), Mac's Blacktrack Fluidline, Limecrime's Red Velvet Velvetine, Urban Decay 24/7 Pencil and Nars's new Weightless Foundation (review).





Then again, I forgot to take the after picture but surprisingly enough, there wasn't anything left on my forearm. Banila Co's Clean It Zero cleansing balm completely cleansed my most waterproof makeup and god knows how waterpoof that Kiko eyeliner is and it was removed without crazy rubbing as I would usually do.

My thoughts

I love this product, I fell in love with it, I was obsessed with it but sadly, seems like it was an one-sided love. 
First, you get more than enough product for your money. It does cost 20 bucks but the jar is so huge and you need only a pea sized amount that the product will last you for at least a year. The packaging is cute and looks actually good in your bathroom. The whole cleansing step was effortless and the product being thin and easy to use turned this annoying step into an actual pleasant one. I love this cleanser but unfortunately, it broke me out. I didn't want to believe it first, but after removing every single suspicious products from my routine, I realized that the Clean It Zero balm was the culprit. I'm not too sure yet but I'm thinking that I'm one of those people who reacts to mineral oil. Mineral oil is actually an oil recommended to acne-prone skin, but some, like me, hate it. 

I love this product so I don't want to give up on it. For now, I went back to Klair's Cleansing oil but I will certainly try the Purity version of this cleansing balm which doesn't have any mineral oil in it.


TL:DR

Effets on combination/acne-prone skin :

The balm doesn't strip your skin, feels lightweight and is easy to use. But this particular product did broke me out because my skin seems to hate mineral oil BUT it doesn't mean it will break you out. I do recommend everyone to try this best seller in Korea, if you don't want to take your chances, you could try the Purity version or one of the other versions available.

I got mine from Testerkorea in this haul , but it's widely available on Roseroseshop with free shipping here (and you got samples for 3,35$ with free shipping).


Life and blog update + Collective Skincare Haul

haul


I did my comeback last week with the review of Etude House's 101 Pencils, but I feel like this article is actually the comeback article. I couldn't come out of my hiatus with this rather not-really-review-oriented blog post and up until now, I was frankly debating with myself whether I should write this or not, if this would be relevant or not.
But the little changes I recently made in my life actually matter and well, get into the beauty description the way I see it. 


First and foremost, the issue on hauls and reviewing products :

I’m well aware that the last few posts are all hauls. I personally love hauls and have a twisted mind of liking to be enabled. Now, I know haul posts aren’t actually constructive or that interesting when you think about it which is why I'll only do a rather quick combined haul in this post.

Why have I been posting hauls then ?

Here’s the thing, to truly give you an honest opinion on products, I have to test them out for a subsequent amount of time : 2 weeks to a full month after a full week and half of patch testing. One product at a time, and the time gets even longer when I do react badly to a product (which has been the case lately). I end up accumulating unopened new products waiting to be tested at the right time.

In almost all of the hauls I’ve done, I’ve always mentioned that I’ll do full review on all the products that I’ve bought but here’s the reason why it doesn't always happen : Either the product was pretty bad, I’ve finished all of it before being able to snap pictures or even have a definite opinion or I simply felt like it was pointless to even review it.
I’ve been learning from my mistakes and so, I’ve been paying a particular attention to ingredients and I’m refraining myself from buying stuff without having read a few reviews on them too.

When working-out and overall lifestyle changes bring out the beauty in you

I never really talk about myself in this blog, I like to stay pretty private about who I'm and I've never actually shown my face yet. I'm still debating on all of that stuff, and if one day I'll be brave enough to show myself , that would probably happen on my instagram so you know where to stalk me. Talking about Instagram, you'll notice that I posted this picture :
Une photo publiée par WishedChronicles (@wishedchronicles) le


What's so crazy and interesting is that I'm the exact opposite of that picture. I hate sports, I'm bad at it and never really enjoyed it either. I was that kid in High School asking why sports were including in the baccalauréat (French secondary school diploma) grading. After spending almost a year with either a cast and a splint on both of my ankles, now that both of my ankles are finally healed, I've decided to actually start working out. I mentioned a few times in my first articles that I had stress and anxiety issues last year due to school, working out helped me a lot with dealing with stress and anxiety for my finals this year, amazingly enough I didn't get stressed at all. 

Why is this relevant for this blog ?

Here's the thing, stress can be a major reason for break outs, and it was for me. Getting my stress issue fixed helped my skin to stay clear especially after breaking out from testing new product as I said in the first part. I've also changed my diet and stopped eating unnecessary food, I've never been into junk food but hey.. I'm a student and diet choices aren't always that great. All of this helped my skin a lot, and if you are struggling with either stress or anxiety I do suggest trying that out. Not only did it helped my asthmatic self with improving my cardio, the dopamine rise after your work out will make you feel better than ever. If you hate sports and need a little more inspiration : you can read this article from Into the Gloss : I Hate Working Out (But It Feels So Good).

So would you be up for some burpees like the never-aging Sandara ?

Collective Skincare Haul


I hope all of this wasn't too long, so I won't be babbling about these purchases. I'll be making a list of where to shop soon as I tried a few of them now.


I've restocked on Nars Sheer Glow foundation (review) here and somehow splurged on Su:m 37's Miracle Rose Cleansing Stick. I purchased it on an impulse, I never should've but here we are.  
The foundation is from Sephora and the Cleansing Stick from W2beauty (excellent service read here).






As I was battling with break outs from testing products, I thought I would give Cosrx's BHA Blackhead Power Liquid a try, review to come (And I mean it !). I bought it from Jolse.



That's a hell lot of sheet masks there. For the last few months, I've been kind of addicted to /r/AsianBeauty, and you can't get out of the sheet mask temptation when you lurk there. Innisfree's global website got 1+1 deal going on and I got 40+40 = 80 sheetmasks but.. There was an issue, I said I won't make this long so you can read the whole story here.


A little haul filled with Mizon products. The snails creams were for my mother so you won't see any reviews of those, but I'll review the Good Night White Sleeping Mask and Too Cool For School's Pumpkin Sleeping Mask when I'll get to try them fully. I have yet to try the Mizon one though so that will take a while. Bought this from Roseroseshop.



Stocked up on Klairs' cleansing oil (review) and picked up Cosrx's Hyaluronic Acid from Wishtrend. Cropping is bad on this picture, my apologies, but I've got Biore's UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence SPF 50 PA ++++ , Innisfree's Eco Safety Perfect Sunblock SPF 50 PA +++ and Missha's All Around Safe Block Essence Sun SPF 45 PA +++ as sunscreens. I can already tell you that I broke out from Biore's, as much I wanted my skin to love it as much I did , I also broke out from Innisfree's and I'm currently giving Missha's a try. (Biore's sunscreen is from Ichibankao, and the last two sunscreen from Roserosehop.)
I will be doing a sunscreen post with these 3 ones, along with a french one. 

I haven't stopped looking for sunscreens and because I loved Innisfree's one and I'm suspecting Zinc Oxide to be the problem, I purchased Innisfree's new sunscreen line (Extreme Safety) from Testerkorea. 


And that is all ! Next week will be Banila Co's Clean it Zero cleansing balm, or the one who hated me even though I was in love with it.



Etude House - Play 101 Pencils - 5, 11, 12, 21, 22 & 49 - Review & Swatches

makeup
That small hiatus took a bit longer than planned ! Finals madness over, I took the liberty of taking a couple of extra weeks to blow some steam off before coming back and going back to work. The semester's over but the student in me is going to start a summer job. Last year, was a summer job in one of the world's biggest bank in one of the world most renown avenue : Les Champs-Elysées. Well, for this year, we'll see where it goes, for now, I have a bunch of Etude House's 101 Pencils in action !



These pencils are pretty popular in the Asian Beauty community for being relatively cheap and multi-functional. As seen here (click on the picture to enlarge it), the finish of the pencils ranges from matte, creamy, glitter, glossy to shimmer. Depending on the finish of the pencils you can use them on your eyes as eyeshadow (glitter, shimmering, creamy) , as eyeliner (glitter, matte, creamy, shimmer), on your lips as lip liner (matte) or lipstick (glossy for instance). You can also use them as blush and some of the lighter creamy colors can be used as concealer for lighter skin tones. 

Having a few of those pencils in your makeup pouches are perfect for on-the-go touch-ups of basically, your whole face makeup !


I wanted to try them for a while and got them in this haul from Testerkorea.

The product






I have here :
- Shade #5 : A pearly gold color with a glitter finish
- Shade #11 : An orange coral with a creamy finish
- Shade #12 : A red with slightly orange undertones with a glossy finish
- Shade #21 : A red with a glossy finish
- Shade #22 : A darker shade of red with glossy finish
- Shade #49 : A dark shade of brown with a matte finish




Packaging

The pencils come in what I call the best packaging ever for pencils which is the automatic type : You only need to twist the bottom part to get the product out, no need for sharpeners and all that jazz anymore. BUT , remember about those different types of finishes ? Glossy and creamy finish tend to lose their shape and go flat as you apply them, for a more precise application , Etude House thought about including sharpeners at the bottom of each pencils.  
The end of the pencils are all colored with the shade of said pencil, making it easier for storage and grabbing the color you want. 
 

My thoughts

These pencils retail for approximately 7$ or less depending on where you get them, as I mentioned there's a broad range of colors and finishes, with that, you are bound to find a pencil that could work out for you. I love the fact that these pencils are multi functional, you can get the most out of them and you also get a good amount of product for the price.
The pigmentation of each of the pencils I bought was good, shade 5 which was a glitter finish needs a bit more swaps to get some color as the first swaps delivers glitter. You can see on the swatches below how pigmented are each of the pencils in one swap (left swatch of each color).
Etude House didn't say nor marketed anything about longevity, so these aren't supposed to be long lasting. Depending on the finish once again, they can last a long time like glitter finishes which are trickier to remove and matte finishes that tend to stay put. However, I do want to mention that I bought shade #49 Dark Brown as a eyeliner and waterline liner and I found that It didn't stay on pretty long, but I should also add that I have quite watery eyes so that wasn't surprising.
As for the blendability, you guessed it, it depends on the finishes once again. The #49 which is matte wasn't blendable at all, the glossy and creamy finish are easily blendable. I did succeed in blending the shade #11 (coral one) on my cheeks to use it as blush, it wasn't long lasting but it was pretty seamless and easy to use.



As an overall, the results you will get will depend on the finishes of each pencils, I do recommend these pencils because they are easy to find with a wide range of colors and finished (most of the K-Beauty e-shops carry these), not expensive, and quite easy to use.


Swatches

I took pictures of the swatch in both indoor and outdoor lighting :



I do want to mention that I got shade #5 as an inner eye corner highlighter, if you read my NYE post, you would know that I love highlighting with yellow/gold shades and well, the glitters were a bit too much for my taste. I usually go for a more natural looking makeup, so heads up : The glittery pencils are truly glittery, if you're not into that, I guess the shimmery finish would be lovely (should've grab one !).







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