 Hey guys, what is up? Welcome to my channel. For today's video, we are starting up and close, nice and personal, because I'm going to be doing a demo and review of the brand new NARS High Profile Cheek Palette that launched in their Holiday 2021 collection. So if you want to see my demo, some ways I suggest you use it, my thoughts, all the good stuff, then just keep watching. Hi guys, if you're new here, my name is Morgan. I am a product knowledge enthusiast. I just love knowing anything and everything about all the new makeup on the market and sharing my thoughts with you guys. And I just realized I didn't have a lip color on. Let me do something. Hold up. Guess since this is a NARS video, I'm going to use my Power Matte Lip Pigment in American Woman. It's been a long time since I've used this. So let me shake it up. These are very interesting because they're really watery, super pigmented. Beautiful. This formula, by the way, great for masks. Anyways, back to the good stuff. Like I said, I'm going to be reviewing the new Holiday Cheek Palette from NARS. They have a lot of sets that are going to be coming. They have some eyeshadow palettes, but it's the Cheek Palette that always gets me. Now, I don't pick up every single one of NARS' Cheek Palettes, but I pick them up if the packaging looks pretty enough. So I'm excited to see that they came out with a new one. I believe they didn't come out with one last holiday season, but I've picked up a couple ballads that they've come out with in between. So I'll do a comparison over a similar one very soon towards the end. But let's go over the details on this. This is currently available on the Sephora website. And anywhere else that is available, I will put it down below in the description box for you guys. It's going to be $59. They say it's a $113 value. This is limited edition for the holiday season. However, it's going to be available for as long as how much stock they have. It says that this will be coming into stores at Sephora October 1st. As of now, you can only order this online. They describe this as a holiday themed blush, highlights, and contour palette featuring six limited edition shade in one of NARS' most innovative formulas. Very interesting. Let's start off by taking a look at the packaging here. So the box that it's going to come in is going to look like this. I absolutely love the way that this looks. I think it's so cute. And as you can see, the palette itself corresponds with the box, but it's even prettier. Look at all of the dimension on here. I love the metallic hot pink. This palette is made in Italy and it has an 18 month shelf life. Like most of the NARS palettes, this is kind of difficult to open with the snap closure. Though I do feel like it's a little bit easier to open than in the past, but I still have to like get in there. What I like about these palettes is that the mirror will stand up on its own. So it makes it easy to take this to travel. Something that you don't think about that's very important, but when the time comes and you need a mirror to stand, it's very nice that this does. You have a great big mirror inside and it's going to reveal the six shades. Something that I thought very interesting is it said that this was a blush highlight and contour palette. To me, it looks like a blush palette with one highlight, but we'll try these as contours. Very interesting. I don't know if they're referring to maybe using the blush shades as contour, which is what we're going to do. But yeah, there's no distinct contour color here. And I was looking on the website. It doesn't seem like they give actual directions as to where to put what's on the face. So I will be the one giving that to you guys today. And you can see based on the finish here, it is a shimmer finish. They do say online that these are a shimmer finish. However, they are not the shimmeriest formula that ours has come out with. Taking a closer look at the swatch. Obviously, you can see the highlights the most shimmery, but the blushes are really beautiful. I believe this formula is going to be great on a matured skin. We'll see how it sits on the skin. But while they do have a slight sheen to them, they aren't particularly shimmery. I would say this shade right here, I did notice, swatched a little bit more shimmery than the rest of the blushes. But the majority of the blushes here, I'd say about three of them, two to three of them, are more of a satin as opposed to a shimmer. But let's find out. Actually, first thing I wanted to do was put one of the colors on my eyes. So right now, I'm wearing the Charlotte Tilbury Smokey Eye Palette that just came out and I'm only using these three shades on my eyelid. So I have nothing matte except the cream shade underneath. So I wanted to try one of the blushes to see if it could add like a fun matte element. So I think that this shade right here is going to be the best match for my look. So I'm just going to pop this in the crease. It's going to look shimmery no matter what because my base colors are super shimmery. But that added some nice depth. I'm just using a $1 ELF blending brush. It has some good density in it to pick up the blush formula. That's really pretty. That added some nice pink dimension to the lid. One thing that I'm noticing though, this is the color that I was going to use as my contour but it's quite pink on the eyes. Let me put just a little bit of that leftover right in the outer corner. And by the way, I say this with every NARS palette release that comes out for the cheeks. You can totally use these on the eyes. They might not be as pigmented as an actual eyeshadow. It's not similar to their eyeshadow formulation at all. But you can get a really pretty pinky look with the palettes. Let's start using this on the cheek. I don't know how they have the names done. The NARS always confuses me so I'm just going to point to the colors. I'm going to try these two to start off as our contours. So I'm going to use a refer number five brush and we're going to start off with the darkest shade to see how this looks. I think they're talking more so about using these blushes to shade the face because these are not contour colors. Like that's pink. I don't have any bronzer on or anything by the way. Like that's pink but because it's deeper it did shade my face. Let me wipe the brush off and let's try this on. This one has a little bit more tan to it. And one thing I am testing to see is if these colors look different on the cheek because on my hand I feel like they're very similar. So I mean when I swatch a blush palette I would have liked to have seen a little bit more variety. Am I going to come out looking pink? I might very well come out looking pink because this did not shade my face very well nor did the other one. But we'll keep going. I can add bronzer later if I need. So we use the top two colors. Let's start building. This shade right here looks absolutely beautiful. It's a little bit more pink and I'm going to put this towards the back of my cheek. I'm using an Esum G53 brush and one of the hairs came out. This one is quite bright. I feel like this formula is more of like a baked gelay kind of formula. So a denser brush will do you well if you're looking to get a lot of pigmentation. However, if you only like a soft wash get a less dense brush because that way it's not too overpowering because I dug pretty hard in to get this payoff right here. This color is pretty. I added a hotter pink element wiping off my brush. We're going to go into this shade next right here. This one looks a little bit more mauve. So you can see not a crazy amount of color. This brush does not have a lot of density. So let's try a brush that is synthetic this time and it's a little bit more dense. This is a blinged brush F14. Let's see if application is a little bit different. So I'm going to go back into the shade. The shade is pulling a little bit more peachy on my skin than I anticipated. You can see it has that gorgeous satin glow. Really pretty not too shimmery. It's even less shiny than an hourglass blush but it's totally not matte so it looks really healthy on the skin. Okay last one we're going to go into this bright color right here. I'm not rude you know it's pretty but I feel like all the colors are kind of washing into one another. Let's experiment with a natural hairbrush just to see. The finish on the cheek is really beautiful but I don't know if this is worth it you guys. You know the colors did kind of blend into one. I can't really tell what I applied where because I always do my blush reviews in this style. I layer. I like the look of layering blushes and you can see the difference in the colors. That's how you know it's a good blush formula. With this one they all kind of look the same. I can't tell that there's different colors on different places of my face so that right there's not very good. Okay I'm going to clean off my Sonia G brush and we're going to go into the highlight. Now this looks like it might be a little bit too deep on me. Let's see. Does have a pretty strong metallic finish to it. It is emphasizing the texture on my cheeks. Nothing crazy though. It's a highlight. That's what happens. I really like this. It's quite metallic on the cheek but it does leave a slight cast on my cheek. It has a pinky tone to it which is really pretty or maybe that's just because it blended it with the blushes. The highlight's pretty. It's just a little bit deep for me and that's okay. Not a big deal. I'm kind of about this palette you guys. Normally I love these Nars palettes but let me tell you the pros and cons. Pros. Very easy to work with. Pretty foolproof. The finish is gorgeous on the cheek. It looks super natural and healthy. It's not going to dry out your skin. It's not too matte but it's also not too shimmery. It's even less shimmery than in hourglass blush and the blend ability of the shade is very easy to apply depending on what type of brush you use and the density is going to determine how much pigment that you can get. The cons for me they all kind of look the same on the cheek honestly. There's just not much variation in the color really and I don't know. I'm just not in love with it. It doesn't have the it factor that some of the other cheek palettes that I've worked with from Nars have but for me that big thing is the differentiation in color because what's the point of having a palette. Now as far as what skin tones I think that this is going to work on I really do think that the depth in here is pretty good though I do worry about the pigmentation because it's that big gelay formula. If you have a deeper skin tone you're really going to have to use a dense brush and probably build it up. I even had to build up these colors on my cheek but there are some deeper options in here so I don't want to say that this palette is not inclusive. However I have not tried this on deep skin tone obviously so I can't speak for myself so if you do have a deep skin tone and you've tried this palette out please let me know down below and I will be sure to pin your comments so that we can help each other out. I don't think it's a very bad color story here and I think the formulation allows for some versatility and widens the range of skin tones that can use this but I'm just not very sure how it would work on those deeper skin tones and the highlight right here if you're more light or fair it's not going to really work for you it's going to be a little bit darker. You can use this as an eyeshadow even on my light medium skin tone there's a cast so I feel like this palette itself is best suited for medium skin tones. Now let's talk about some comparisons. The most recent palette to have come out a few months ago from NARS is the Orgasm on the Beach Cheek Palette and I love this I think it's phenomenal and initially when I put them side by side I thought that they looked very similar and that they had a similar range of colors. Now the Orgasm on the Beach has two highlights but I felt like the shades could be kind of close so I swatched them side by side on my hand. This side right here is the new palette this side right here is Orgasm on the Beach and the formula is not the same the Orgasm on the Beach is definitely more shimmery and if you don't like a shimmery cheek then I told you in my review not to get this palette so if you want something less shimmery then you actually might like the high profile palette better but I felt like the formula on the Orgasm on the Beach is better just because you get more pigment from it it's not necessarily that bake chalet formula it's definitely less hard pressed so you get powder which actually fine helps it blend out a little bit better and makes it a little bit more versatile in terms of the range of skin tones because the powder builds up a little bit easier so honestly my personal preference is if you have the Orgasm on the Beach palette I really like this one I like it more than this year's holiday palette I would say this is probably most similar formulation wise to the Hot Trist palette that came out a while ago and I wasn't crazy about this either it grew on me and these are a little bit more shimmery than the palette this year I think there hasn't been a palette that has come out from Nars in a while maybe there hasn't I might have missed it that is that bake chalet formula but is not too shimmery so I really like that but I don't necessarily know that this is worth it the last palette that I picked up before this palette was the Overlust Cheat palette again another one of my favorites this formulation is a lot different this is more powdery it's not the bake chalet so I didn't care to compare those final thoughts on this palette it's not Nars best I don't think you need to run out and grab it truly it's just okay maybe if you can get it on a good sale it might be worth picking up or maybe if the formulation sounded like something that you would enjoy definitely go pick it up but for me I'm not ecstatic about it the thing that really drives me to enjoy this palette is the packaging more than anything else the colors look absolutely beautiful on my cheek I can't take that away but for $59 and I just feel like the colors all look the same I can't recommend it to you guys I'm gonna take a step out so that you can see how the cheeks look from a little bit further of a distance seriously if you guys tested this palette out let me know your thoughts down below did you like this or you kind of lukewarm like myself I will keep you updated on if my opinions change on this and as I continue to use this but for now I'm gonna end this review here thank you guys so much for watching this video if you aren't subscribed to my channel already I would love it if you would consider taking the time to do so and I will see you all in the next one bye guys have a good one