Tag Archives: nars cosmetics

Discussing Nars Formula Changes with New Blushes and Highlighter Review

Posted on by

By now, many brands have been moving towards being talc-free due to upcoming changes in EU Regulations, but Nars was among the first by reformulating their bronzers in 2023 and the blushes in 2024. What baffles me is that the formulas of their products are not consistent across the board.

As I mentioned in my review of the Hot Escapes Palette, the highlighters in there share the same names as the highlighters in the Light Reflecting Luminizing Powders range, but the ingredients don’t match up, nor even all of the colors. This has been a growing annoyance for a lot of customers hoping to repurchase their favorite shades, only to discover that they are not identical. For example, my reformulated bronzer in 06 is darker than the even newer 06 bronzer from the Hot Escapes Palette. My older Dolce Vita blush is similar, but not identical to the newer one either.
It’s also confusing to buy a product expecting a certain finish and texture, only to end up with something different. The highlighters are a prime example of that.

In an effort to finally put my curiosity to rest, I bought a Light Reflecting Luminizing Powder to compare with what is in the Hot Escapes Palette. I also purchased three blushes in the new formula to compare to the older one.

Nars Powder Blushes in Dolce Vita, Infatuated, and Orgasm Rush

A change that Nars made, that I can definitely support, is that these blushes are refillable. Less packaging being produced is better for the environment, but of course I like the ability to just purchase a pan of blush for a cheaper price and be able to stick it in an empty magnetic palette. Unfortunately, Nars hasn’t improved that option since the launch. At the time that I’m writing this in 2026, there are still only 5 shades available as refills. None of those are dark-skin friendly.

The cost of refills from the Nars are €29 each, but I have been able to get the full products from Flaconi for €19 each. So, I don’t have much incentive to buy refills or purchase directly from Nars anyway.

My history with Nars blushes has been long and unstable. To sum up the gist of my Rediscovering Nars Blushes post: I tend to like them, but I rarely love them. They almost always play second fiddle to my MAC blushes.

The matte blush from Hot Escape shares the same ingredients as the current matte single blushes, but the order is shuffled around. The shimmer blush from Hot Escape contains no kaolin, but the current shimmery singles have some (and definitely less than the mattes).

One of the biggest reasons I didn’t like some of Nars’ past blushes is because they looked a little dry on me. So, I thought if the current line of powder blushes use less kaolin, that could have explained why I prefer the blush singles over the older ones, but it’s still the second ingredient in the matte formula. Now, I’m unsure what is responsible for the reformulated blushes looking better on me.

Dolce Vita is described as a “matte dusty rose” and Infatuated as a “matte deep plumberry” but I can see faint shimmer within the surface of the blush pan of Dolce Vita. I cannot see that shimmer in swatches, but there’s a slight glow on my cheeks in the photo below. Both of these blush shades look much softer on my cheeks than the previous Nars blushes. They’re pigmented, but they build color slower than their predecessors. I’ve always given credit to Nars when they’ve launched dark-skin friendly shades. However, they tended to be very intense in pigment and/or bold in color. For someone like me who prefers subtle natural flushes of color and the occasional pop, the lack of nude options is why I often turned to MAC instead.

Although I love the shades Taos and Liberte in the old formula, I didn’t wear them that often because of the issues of being easy to overapply and looking drier on my cheeks than I like. The reformulated blushes don’t have these issues.

I like my new version of Orgasm Rush better than Night Swim because it’s slightly more buildable and blendable. They don’t seem hugely different in terms of texture (perhaps Orgasm Rush is the slightest bit silkier), yet the small changes made all the difference to me.

The only time Nars used to put this much shimmer in a blush was in their baked gelee formula, so I was surprised to see the shimmer level of Night Swim, and see shades like Orgasm Rush in the permanent blush line. I never ended up reviewing the Nars Orgasm Four Play Blush Quad, but I had the shade Orgasm Rush already from there in the baked gelee formula. Unfortunately, I cannot compare that one with the current talc-free version I own because I left it in the US.


I really like how these single blushes look on me, and I am more likely to reach for these over any others from Nars. That being said, there are still plenty of blushes I like even more from other brands. So, I will only buy additional shades in the future if they are truly breathtaking colors that I can’t resist.

Of course, in true Nars fashion, these relatively new and reformulated blushes aren’t enough. According to @VoceMagazine on Instagram, Nars will be releasing Light Reflecting Luminizing Blushes in seven shades in April or May. I’m guessing these will also be refillable since they share the same compact design as the Light Reflecting Luminizing Powders range.

The link to Voce’s swatch video can be found HERE.

If anyone is wondering, I don’t intend to buy these upcoming blushes.

HIGHLIGHTER

In October 2025, I purchased the refill of the Light Reflecting Luminizing Powder in the shade Ophelia for €19 from Flaconi. I already figured this would not become a favorite of mine based on the review from NikkifromHR, as we have similar highlighter preferences. However, I couldn’t rid myself of the need to buy it in order to personally see how it differed from the Hot Escape highlighter. These kind of decisions based on intense curiosity is something I’m trying to get better about in 2026!

As expected, this did not become a favorite. If I use enough highlighter to get easily visible shine, it’s more metallic looking than I typically go for and the individual shimmer particles are easy to spot when you click the photo to see the enlarged version.
It’s smoother than I expected and it’s pretty when looking at it from afar, but it’s still not really to my taste. It’s more important to me to have products that look great in person over ones that look better in photos.

The smallest amount of Ophelia is comparable in luminosity to a light(ish) application of Skinny Dip from the Hot Escape III Palette. Skinny Dip blends into my skin more because it’s darker, but I also find the shimmer particles to be less reflective in a good way. It’s all a matter of preference though and someone else could still love the Light Reflecting formula.

The photos above and below are some examples in different lighting, plus unblended vs blended swatches.

I prefer Skinny Dip, but even that isn’t my favorite. I’ve created many posts featuring highlighters that I prefer even more. Additional ones not included on that list are the Prada Light Glowing Highlighter Powder as my current number one and the Hindash Gradient Highlighter. I love the effect of the Prada one so much that I could be swayed into never buying another highlighter again if not for it being so heavily scented! In any case, I’ll be reaching for Skinny Dip instead of Ophelia if I ever want to create a “Full Face of Nars Products” type of look.

One final thing to note about the Light Reflecting Luminizers is that the refills have plastic mesh backing, so the product is not housed in a pan. I could try to attach a metal sticker to the bottom, but I just store mine within the original refill packaging and not an empty magnetic palette.

That’s all for today. I hope you enjoyed reading and visiting this blog!

-Lili ❤

Rediscovering Nars Blushes

Posted on by

When I purchased the Nars Basic Instincts Cheek Quad II at the end of July 2021 and two single blushes on Black Friday, it was because I wanted to get a good sense of what Nars blushes could do. I wanted to experience them for the first time. As I went through my blush drawer to prepare for this post, I realized I had several more blushes from Nars that I completely forgot about (and I bought one more product after I was supposed to be finished with this review)! Despite owning their blushes as far back as 2016, I still had no sense of how I felt about them beyond the experience being positive. It was high time that I analyzed all of these further to officially decide where I rate Nars blushes within my own collection.

Nars Basic Instincts II Cheek Quad

This palette was a limited edition Ulta exclusive (now only available at the Nars website), that came in two different versions comprising of Nars’ bestselling shades. The biggest selling point for me was getting my hands on Taj Mahal, one of the beauty industry’s most famous orange blushes, and Exhibit A which I completely forgot I already owned. Ulta was offering a free 3-piece gift with $30 Nars purchase at the time, and I had a 20% off code as well, so I was able to get everything in the top left photo for just $33 (tax included). I felt this was an amazing deal, considering each pan is nearly the size of a full size blush and Nars blushes cost $30 each. I just needed to like one blush for this purchase to be worth it.

I should preface that I currently like shimmer blushes thanks to formulations from MAC which showed me that they could be done in a way that don’t look like I used a colored highlighter or shimmery eyeshadow as blush on my cheeks. They could add a beautiful luminosity to the skin without making too much of a statement. Prior to this lesson, I hated shimmer blushes. Unfortunately, some of the shades in this quad brought me right back to that feeling of remembering why I steered clear of shimmery blushes for so long.

Taj Mahal is a gorgeous color in the pan, but I don’t think it suits me. It may as well be an orange highlighter, and that was quite disappointing to discover because of how much Charlotte Holdcroft raved about how it’s supposed to look bronze-orange on the skin or “tan skin with a touch of orange.” To be fair, it did look that way on her. On me, whatever brown tones are in this are camouflaged against my skin tone and all I get is the golden orange shimmer on my cheek. It doesn’t matter what brush I use, the photo above depicts the result I get every time.

It looks slightly nicer if I carry my bronzer higher up so that it’s partly on my cheeks as well, and not just in the 3-shape on my face, but the shimmer is still too metallic and reflective when it’s in direct light. Blush has always been something that I want to look natural, like I’m actually blushing, but that type of shimmer is a dead giveaway.

This is my same issue with the shade Savage, although I really like the tones of that one. It’s like a warm brownish red or dark copper similar to Kiss of Rose from bareMinerals. It would be perfect if the shimmer wasn’t so metallic looking. It’s at least not as bad as the blush shades of Coloured Raine’s Glowlighters, but still not my preference. Even when I’ve used this as a blush topper, it’s too much like a highlighter for my taste. If I want to wear a shade like this, I’ll put on Kiss of Rose or Faux Sure from MAC.

Torrid surprised me in the best way. For starters, it’s just like MAC blushes where they look far lighter in the pan, but when they’re applied to the skin it looks deeper and actually works for me. I do have to build Torrid up in order for it to be seen, but the shimmer level in this one is far less than Savage and Taj Mahal. I love how this one looks.

As for Exhibit A, it looks a bit rough in the photo, but that’s because I forgot to reapply my foundation between wiping off the previous shade and applying this new one. It’s very pretty. Although it looks extremely intimidating in the pan, it can be sheered out to give a light flush to the skin. While it’s true that the other Exhibit A in my collection is very old, which should make having this one a good thing, I feel that I already have my go-to statement red blush out of the Hindash Beautopsy Palette. The shade Kills gives me Exhibit A vibes and is very similar, though it’s a slightly stronger red. Exhibit A leans a touch on the orange side, but considering the Love shade from Beautopsy also leans orange, I feel I have my bases covered in being able to absolutely dupe out Exhibit A. So it’s still a redundant shade for me to have in this Nars blush quad.

Had I known then what I know now, even at my great deal, I would have skipped out on getting this quad. Since I have it, I do want to continue using the shade Torrid, but I am notoriously bad at reaching for blushes that are in any form other than singles, so we will see how well that goes. Or, perhaps, I will find a new home for this quad. It’s definitely not a bad product in terms of quality, but one has to like statement blushes as well as this type of shimmer at this level of intensity.

Additionally, part of my biggest issue with the shimmer in Nars blushes is that some of them emphasize texture. Any bumps I have on my skin become a lot more noticeable. I would semi expect that from a highlighter, but I definitely don’t want that quality in my blushes.

Nars Narsissist Unfiltered I Cheek Palette in Watch Me, Me First, Takeover, Out There, Chic, and Exhibit A

This palette, along with the lighter Unfiltered II version, was released at the end of 2016, though it was intended to be a Spring 2017 launch. I recall reading online that some people were able to get the palette before launch if they went in-store and asked for it specifically. It was also around the time that Sephora used to have X amount of dollars off a $50 purchase, so I was lucky enough to have paid after tax like $38 for this (I think it was $25 off for Rouge).

The first three shades on the top row are all highlighter shades for me. At the time, Watch Me was even too light for me to use, or at least I was into more subtle highlighters closer to my skin tone. For that reason, I mostly stuck to using Takeover as a highlighter or mixing it with Watch Me if I didn’t reach for a different highlighter altogether. As for Me First, I didn’t use it more than once.

I admittedly hardly used Chic or Exhibit A. Chic was similar to Out There, which I loved, but it was cooler toned so I never reached for it over Out There. As for Exhibit A, I’m pretty sure I was searching for the right brush to give me a sheer enough application for my tastes back then (which was very much about no-makeup makeup) but I stopped using the palette altogether by the time I eventually got brushes to work with it.

By right, this palette is so old that it should be part of my retired makeup shelf, but I decided to go ahead and demonstrate what Out There looks like on my cheeks. This shade used to be what I considered my perfect and favorite blush color. I wanted to try it again for nostalgia reasons as I wholeheartedly regret that I didn’t get more use out of this palette. As much as I loved that shade, at some point I reorganized my collection and this palette became physically hard to reach, and the outer mirrored lid on top made me not want to move it around as much for fear of breaking it. It eventually got buried under other blushes and forgotten about completely. Part of me still wants to make up for lost time, but I have brand new Nars blushes to dig into, so I won’t.

Nars Blushes in Liberté, Amour, Orgasm X, and Goulue

I have Liberte and Amour in the full sizes, purchased during a $19 per blush Black Friday Deal on Nars’ website. I purchased the mini of Orgasm X in April 2021 during the VIB sale. As for Goulue, the shade was originally released in 2013, but became a Sephora exclusive shade in 2016. This particular mini was the Sephora 2016 Rouge gift, so it’s “only” between five and six years old. I decided to demonstrate this shade as well, since I always assumed it wouldn’t work for me so I didn’t do anything with it other than swatching. It does faintly show up, like the shade Plum Foolery from MAC. I wish I had given it more of a chance in the past, but at least I have a newer dupe, so this will be decluttered.

I owned at least three free gift with purchase minis of the original Orgasm blush, but I always give them away because it’s essentially a highlighter shade for my skin tone. Orgasm X doesn’t show the strongest on me either, but I can at least wear it as a blush if I want. My first few uses with this mini had a very shimmery top layer, so I did not like how it looked on my cheeks. Using it now still shows as shimmery on my cheeks, but it’s on that borderline of me liking it and having it be too much. Despite taking it on my trip with me in order to use it more and figure it out, I still haven’t decided how I feel about it. Not being able to decide is kind of a decision in itself because if it’s not a blush I can quickly say I like, then I know I won’t use it.

And unfortunately, another blush I probably won’t be using is Amour. It looked much deeper in product photos. While it does go on my skin darker than it looks inside the compact, it’s still a touch too light for me. It’s a shame because it’s one of the few matte formulas from Nars that I have, but I’d rather give my attention to Liberte.

Liberte was my saving grace for this post, prior to me buying the High Profile Cheek Palette, because it’s not too old in my collection nor too shimmery. Nars lists this as part of their “Sheer” formula, but I get a decent amount of pigment from this. I do consider it still buildable though. There are visible shimmer particles in the compact, but it does not look shimmery on the skin.

Nars High Profile Cheek Palette

Out of all the blushes that are still usable in my Nars collection, Torrid and Liberte are my favorites. My inner makeup goblin wanted me to look into the other non-shimmer Nars blushes, but as nice as they appear, I still prefer my MAC blushes over these. So, I said to myself that unless Nars releases a palette of some kind that has mostly matte blushes, I should be all set and will be able to stop buying them. Then I saw a deal on Mercari for the High Profile palette which was a limited edition release for Holiday 2021 that had only been swatched and I just couldn’t pass it up. I originally wanted that palette when it was first released, but reviews about the shades being nearly identical on the cheeks deterred me. However, I bought it for only slightly more than the price of a single blush, so I figured that was worth looking into, especially since I wasn’t satisfied with how uncertain I felt about Nars Blushes by the time I thought I had finished this review.

The blushes in this palette are gel-powder, which I was curious to try from Nars, with a satin-luminous finish. This type of sheen is more my style than the shimmer formula. The only issue is that I can’t use most of my favorite blush brushes with this because of this kind of formula which requires a more resilient bristle in order to pick up the product. So, my favorite with this particular formula is the Chikuhodo FO-2 because it fits well with the size dimensions of the pans and picks up a decent amount of product that allows me to still control in building up the color. For instance, Hit It Off is a little more sheer than the others and Showdown is quite light, so I need multiple swirls in the pan to have the opacity level I want of them on my cheeks. However, Just Lust is very pigmented and I just need 1 or 2 taps to get enough product of that per cheek with this brush. So, I can apply these quickly and smoothly enough without feeling the need to swap to a different brush for each different shade.

*DISCLAIMER: Unhighlighted links in bold blue font (Example) are non-affiliate links that will not generate commission. The vast majority of links on this blog are traditional non-affiliate ones. The link marked in bold black font with a light blue background (Example) is an affiliate link, which means I would get a commission if purchases are made directly using that link. I appreciate everyone taking the time to read my blog. To those who choose to make a purchase on CDJapan’s website via my links, thank you for the extra support! Now, back to the review!

The batch of photos I took wearing Spin Off didn’t turn out well and that shade is too subtle for my camera anyway as it’s barely noticeable on my cheeks in person. There’s a bit too much brown in that shade for my skin tone but I’m sure it would look pretty on others.

I could have built up High Demand, Showdown, and Just Lust even more, but I liked their levels in the photo. Despite High Demand looking to be the same depth as the very pigmented Just Lust, it’s not as intense of a blush color. They look similar in swatches, but High Demand is a brown-red whereas Just Lust is more of a berry shade. Showdown is more apparent on the skin in person, but I do like to mix it (mainly on the apples) with Hit it Off (mainly towards the back) to get a little more depth from that deep pink-coral with a brighter coral pop towards the front.

Nude Revue is more sparkly than my taste in highlighter, but the tone fits me so well that I could still picture myself using it occasionally. I’m very pleased that technically all these blushes work for me! Everything I said earlier still holds true though. I prefer MAC’s blush formulas overs Nars’. From within their own brand, I prefer Nars’ mattes over their satins but I like satins more than the shimmers. I’m going to steer clear of the shimmers, but if Nars releases another blush palette of mostly mattes and/or satins, I could be tempted to buy them, especially if the packaging is pretty. However, I would like this to be where my exploration of Nars blushes and highlighters end. I will try my best to get use out of what I currently have, and everything else from Nars I’m still interested in because they usually make products that work really well on my face!

That’s all for today!

-Lili ❤