How many miles to Babylon?
Three score miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light. (Anonymous, Nursery Rhyme, 1805.)
From the Fall 2003 collection, Raw Glamour. I have especially warm feelings towards this duo, here is a shortened and oft edited treatise on why:
It's a-m-a-z-i-n-g. A description would not do it justice. For one thing, the colors don't seem as complex as some others on the market, though that is misleading. Besides, the combinations are startling and often putrifying (Arctic: burgundy and steel blue? what?). Furthermore, they morph drastically on the skin into something beautifully, amazingly flattering. No, a NARS shade does not have the obviousness of a Urban Decay or Stila shadow, but it performs where it matters, on you, where it will gather a complexity all the more remarkable for its subtlety.
In any case, here goes:
One side is a sparkly creamsicle color... you know, tangerine with a bit of a champagne pearlm with a few flakes of sparkle interspersed into it. There's a soft, silvery beige-y sheen to it (hence why I noted "champagne"). The other is a dusky suede of a greyed grape... it rather reminds me of the now defunct Jane Purple Heart but not as bright, and completely matte.
You have to understand, this is not a set of shades that should flatter me. Matte purple-gray? Eugh... looks like I have dirt on my skin. And ORANGE? I wear soft colors, usually on the warm side: champagnes, golds, pinks, warm lavenders and violets, greens. Imagine my surprise, when I was fooling around in Sephora (which is how I discover most of these "genius!" discoveries from Nars, it seems), and I found that this works. The tangerine goes on soft and warm and not too orange. The violet you can use as liner, or, as a wedge (looks sultry without any whorish overtones) with a small, firm shadow brush. Of course, you can smoke it all around and layer the tangerine to soften the edges, in which case it's very, very sultry and sort of early-90s-supermodel heroin chic, a look I would *never* have thought I could pull off (my features aren't strong enough, but rather petite and delicate). The combination is a lot like looking at the very last bits of twilight in the Arizona desert (it's the closest I'll ever get to owning a Georgia O'Keeffe). It is not an eye look to wear with blush, maybe with bronzer, though I wear it with blush anyway, simply because I need something rosy in my face otherwise I look washed out. So I pair this with MAC O lipstick, sometimes with Delux Asher lipgloss over it, and the effect is cool, sleek, and mauve-y.
A word of caution, you do have to use proper eyeshadow brushes to appreciate it, so try and pilfer some to use...
I'm not a fan of buying "color stories" for their sake alone, but this really is perfectly Fall 2003. Very much the old glamour that designers like YSL Rive Gauche and Carolina Herrera have been channeling, except with a modern twist, as the colors are quite modern. But of course, you can wear it any time. It's just beautifully autumnal.
The duo, on me, combined with MAC Powersurge Eye Kohl:
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