 There's just some holiday launches that I will never stop buying and the NARS Holiday Blush Palette is one of those, so for today's video I'm going to be reviewing the new NARS Rising Star Cheek Palette. I'm going to compare it to last year's and of course demo all of the shades. So let's go ahead and get into it. So I picked this up from the NARS website, you can also get it at Coles and Sephora. I will have everywhere, you can get it linked down below now. I'm not sure if this still applies, but when I ordered this off of the NARS website, I found a code NARSFFF20 saved me 20% off this brand new item. So make sure you go ahead and give that a try, I'll have it linked down below. But yeah, I was pretty stoked that I was able to pick this up for 20% off and like that counts for the whole website as well. So definitely worth a try. It saved me a little bit of a coin. I said this is the new limited edition blush palette from NARS for the holiday 2020 season. You can get it for $60 and it's described as NARS award-winning blush formula in six limited edition shades designed for all skin tones. And then the claim to the formula is that it's very lightweight, has micro fine pearls in here that's going to give kind of a glowy, lightweight look to the face. So let's take a look at the packaging, shall we? When you get this, it's going to come in this box covered in stars. You can see a rising cheek palette. The palette is made in Italy and it has an 18 month shelf life. If you need to look at the ingredients, take a look right here. Palette itself is going to come like this. It feels nice, very well made. And here's the packaging itself. Now at first I thought it kind of looked a little childish kind of juvenile, but I actually quite like it for the time of year. I think it looks nicer in person. I don't think it's as cool as last year's, but it is more of that sleek NARS design with the stars on it. And then here on the back, you have the names of the color, the size, all of that. And it is not a magnetic closure. It's a snap closure, which is not very easy to open ever. What I do like about this is that it does stand up on its own, so you can place this on a windowsill or vanity and you're able to use the palette. It's something that's not that important, but when you need it, it's really important. So I'm happy that this will stand up on its own. And then here are, that's just lovely. I'm freaking out when that happens and it just nicked my blush. Well, if you want to see what it looks like out of the pan, if you were to depot it, it doesn't have a metal protection around it. Anyways, I'm just going to hold this right here. And here is the palette. I'm looking at it compared to what we see in the photograph. It looks more deep and almost neutral than it does in person. The colors have much more pop to them. It looks more orange in the photo than it does here. It looks more peachy. This definitely looks a lot more deep in the photograph than it actually is. So yeah. And then these two shades are definitely brighter in person than they are in the photo, so just keep that in mind. So we are going to go ahead and swatch these. I am going to swatch these three first. Unfortunately, I can't hold it up and show you because my palette is broken anyways. So here's how they look on the finger. You can see guilty pleasure right here. Looks like it could be a highlight, especially if you have a medium skin tone. So guilty pleasure, then we have famous. And then we have limelight, which I am struggling to swatch. This one is quite bright. And you can see they all have that sheen. Guilty pleasure in particular has more of a sheen. Let's get into the bottom shades next. Oh, and excuse me. I said that this was limelight. This is not. This is guilty pleasure, famous, golden age. And then this next one is limelight, which is a really pretty neutral blush. And then we have paramount, which has more pink in it, but still very neutral. And then premier, which is the deepest shade. We're going to see that pigmentation level on the face. But these are the six blushes. You can see all of them have a very similar sheen to them. These are pretty much the exact same formula as the blush palette from last year. So if you picked up last year's blush palette, if you weren't a fan of the formula, probably not going to like this. So and I'll be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of that formula. So take this review with a grain of salt. But this is how the blush palette looks. It looks very blushy. So let's hop on and put it on the face. Did clean my brushes for this, by the way. So I want to see how golden age looks on me. Golden age is this shade right here. I suspect if you have a medium complexion or deeper, this is going to be a highlight. I'm getting it on my Sydney Grace brush. And it really is not showing up too much on me. Now with this formula, if you have a heavy hand, you'll like it, but you do need to kind of dig in a little more. So this is more so just giving me a sheen and pretty much no color at all. So I suspect this is going to be more so of a highlight. I'm going to go ahead and take a Sigma soft blend concealer and see if I can use a denser brush. Yeah, so this is definitely just going to be a highlight if you have more of a fair complexion. The shade is not going to do too much for you, honestly. But that's pretty. Next, we're going to play with Limelight, which is a little bit more of a neutral color. I think I'm going to like this. And I'm going to put this towards the front of this cheek. This is an Angie hot and flashy, a 507. And that deposited a good amount of color, immediately different from the guilty pleasure shade. This is pretty, it is bittable. It's pretty sheer. It pulled more pink than I had thought. But this is kind of an everyday color for me. So I really do like that. With this formula, it's very forgiving. So if you have a heavy hand, I think you'll like it if you're very fair. That's really great that it doesn't carry too much pigment. If you like a pigmented blush, you're not going to like this formula. I'm going to head on over to Paramounts right here, which is also pretty neutral. But I'm interested to see how this pulls on the cheek. So I'm going to wipe off this brush. I'm digging in here. I am not being scared because it's not going to show up on camera. If I don't press in a lot, that's pretty. And this is just like a very light sheer layer. So this palette's going to be great for fair skin tones in the first three shades that I tried. Now I also didn't really care for last year's blush palette because I felt like all of the shades literally looked the same on the cheek. I couldn't tell a difference. At least with these first two shades, I can tell a difference. This is more orangey. This is more pinky. And they have that really pretty sheen that I did not appreciate last year but I think I'm appreciating more this year. I'm going back into Guilty Pleasure, which is the highlight shade. And it actually works as a gorgeous highlighter now that I've accepted it as such. Like very subtle, but very pretty. So Guilty Pleasure for the highlight. Then I have Limelight on this cheek and then Paramounts on this cheek. And I think it looks really pretty. We'll use those as eyeshadows in a moment but I'm going to clean up my face and we're going to apply the darker colors. All right, let's get into these deeper colors to see how they pull on my skin tone. And I'm going to start off with this shade right here which is rather bright. It actually has some depth in there. This is famous. I'm going to use my Angie Hot and Flashy Brush and I just use a little bit. So let's see. So this has some brightness, but I can still layer it. You know, it is a very buildable formula on me. I don't really like these kind of baked gelet formulas. They aren't my favorite. It's not that this is not a good formula. It's not just the application I prefer. I don't really care. Like I like a sheer blush that's buildable, but this is, you got to put too much work. Get the product on the brush. I'm keeping going back and building. That color is really pretty. That added a lot of brightness to my face. Now I am over-applying simply so that the colors pick up on camera better. But yeah, I'm putting in a lot of elbow grease and then let's try this one right here, Golden Age. This is the one that fell out so I'm going to be very careful. And again, that's a lot of color on there with a lot of pressure in the pan. Okay, this one is quite bright. I did not need to go so hard. Wow, ooh, I like this shade. This is different than what I'm used to. I'm going to blend it out. It is quite easy to blend out though. I think that's just because it generally doesn't give you too much pigment, but that's pretty. This one looks different too, which I'm happy about. That was my biggest con with last year's palette. It's all six looks the same. These don't. They look a little bit more different. They're still blushes. They're still close. They're still pinky, but they look better. And that looks pretty, right? I like that. Okay, I'm going to stick with this brush and we're going to use the last shade that I haven't premiered. So I imagine if you have a deeper complexion, let's see if this will work for you. So I went like this, not as hard as the others. Okay, and see that's good. I think this will work for deeper complexions. I really do. Now, deep dark complexions I'm not too sure about because these don't have the pigment that you would probably need. They just don't pick up on the brush honestly. So if I had like a deep dark complexion, I would not recommend this formula in general. It's just a bit too much to get the pigment onto the brush. Even me with a lighter skin tone, I have to dig in especially with the lighter shades to get it to show up and get the color that I'm looking for. This premier shade is stunning, but the fact that it can work on me kind of says a lot and I did not use a light hand with it. So I'm going to tone down the blush really quickly with just less sponge that I used for foundation so that I can go out in public. And let's put a little bit on the eyes. I do like to use these palettes on the eyes for quick looks. I only have mascara on. So I'm going to start off with some of golden age right here. And I'm just going to blend this in the outer corner to start and then work it through the crease. Just something really subtle. It's going to give a really pretty monochromatic look. But as you can see, the proof is in the pudding in terms of pigment. This gives more of a wash. It's not the best to use as eye shadow, but if you want to get that light wash for something monochromatic and quick, you can do it with this. I'm just going to brush a little along the lower lash line as well, though it's not going to do much honestly. And I'm going back and forth in the pan to get more color, by the way. Did that make my eyes look irritated? It did a little bit. Oh well. And then we're going to go into Premiere and we're going to see if I can build depth. Okay, it's adding something, a little something, something. I am going very heavy handed in these pans though. So keep that in mind. And that added the dramatics of today's look, right? Hey, that's pretty though. I'll give them credit. I'm going to dig into some of paramounts now. So I want to see how the peachy shade looks on the eyelid and I'm just going to put this on the center. And I think using a finger will be easier. I don't got time for a brush. So now you can really see the pigment difference and the color difference on the eyelid. And then we're going to finish off with some of guilty pleasure and just pop that on the inner half of the eyelid. It is quite a sheer shimmer, which isn't as dazzling on the eyelid, but it's pretty and subtle. Okay, that created a pretty look. Let me pop a little bit of liner on and I'm going to do some comparisons for you. Okay, so here are my final thoughts about this palette. Is this palette absolutely amazing, breathtaking, top of the line? I'm going to say no. Is it a good palette? Yes, is it worth $60? Questionable, is it worth it on sale? Yes. Now, it's just simply not my type of formula though. For me, I don't like putting so much effort into digging into the pan to get it to show up on my cheeks. However, if you're heavy-handed or very fair, you might like that. I don't think this is the most inclusive blush palette, but it's not bad. Can build up the colors if necessary, but you're going to have to build them up. But I do feel like the shades look pretty different on the cheek, not as different as I would like from one another, but not, I need to stop doing that, but not bad. So, anyways, overall I like it. It's not a must-have palette for the holidays. The must-have palette for the holidays, in my opinion, are the Hourglass cheek palettes, but I'm not mad that I picked it up. So I want to compare this to last year's holiday palette because this is the palette that's definitely the most similar. Formula-wise, it's pretty repetitive. So last year's palette was the Hypofile cheek palette, and my kind of thing with it, because these are so sheer, they pull pretty similar on the cheeks because they all have a very similar depth. What I like about this year's is they have different depths, which I think really helps with these not looking so similar. So here's how they look one on top of the other, but I did swatch them side by side, so let me get up. So the bottom is the new Rising Star cheek palette, and this is last year's palette. Last year's is definitely more warm and neutral. This year's pulls a lot more pink. By looks though, I would have chosen last year's palette. However, these actually pulled quite pink on the cheek, and I feel like these actually quality-wise are a bit better in terms of performance. So I do prefer this year's palettes even though this color story is prettier, but yeah, they're pretty much the same formula. I would say last year's felt a little bit more smooth and powdery, whereas this one's is a little bit more tightly packed, but they have the exact same look on the cheek, pretty much the same formula. If you didn't like last year's formula, you probably won't like this year's formula. And at least color story-wise though, I find they're pretty different. There's some shades that kind of look similar, right? But not terrible. So there we have it. If you were interested in this palette, I hope this review gave you a little bit of insight. I would give this like a seven out of 10. I think it's a really good product, but I also don't think it's mind-blowing, especially for the price. Now, if this formula sounds like something you'd enjoy, go for it. I think you will really like it. However, if you're more on my side in terms of how the formula fell, if you tried last year's, if you just tend to like things that I like, this is an item that I would wait to go on sale to purchase. I know this Sephora 20% off is gonna come up if you're Rouge. I think that would be a good time to purchase this. I was happy with the 20% off. So yeah, I mean, Nars did once again, a pretty solid job with their blush palette this year, but it is a blush palette. It is repetitive as to what's launched in the recent years, how different can blush looks on the cheek considering how much we spread out the pigment. So if you collect a lot of blushes, it's not a must-have, but if you just want that one blush palette to use for the year, a nice, good, fresh one, I do enjoy this one. So I hope you guys enjoyed this video and found that helpful. Let me know your thoughts down below, make sure you're subscribed, and I will catch you guys in the next one. Bye, guys, have a good one. I'll see you guys next time. Bye.