A few days ago, I posted swatches of all of the new NARS Satin Lip Pencils — and I know several of you have been waiting for this review since!
Note: As of 3/6, these are now available for purchase on Nordstrom.com!
First, some details – per the NARS facebook page, the pencils will become available on narscosmetics.com on March 7th; I believe they will show up at other online retailers and in stores a little later, but I don’t know the exact dates. They will sell for $25, which is the current price of the similarly-packaged Velvet Matte and Velvet Gloss pencils. At the moment, you can purchase them through Pinterest; details on that on the NARS Facebook page, here.
Palais Royal Satin Lip Pencil
This review is for the shade Palais Royal, which is a gorgeous deep berry. It’s incredibly pigmented – the thinner line on the left is just one pass of the pencil, and I didn’t press hard at all; just a light touch yields that kind of color payoff. The pencils are quite soft, but not so soft I had trouble sharpening mine (it wouldn’t have needed sharpening, but I wanted to test it out). Here’s the sharpened tip:
You can see that there was no issue. I used my Urban Decay Grindhouse sharpener because I pulled it out of the drawer first, but Essence’s dupe is just as good.
The texture of this product is different than other products I have tried. It applies very smoothly, and at first it feels like a very glossy lipstick or a gloss/lipstick hybrid – sort of like Revlon’s lip butters, or maybe a lip butter crossed with a non-sticky gloss. Note that the glossier the finish is. Here is a freshly applied swatch with a moderate amount of product – I could have easily used more for a higher gloss finish.
Palais Royal
After about 30-45 minutes, the product sort of dries down and melds into my lips, and starts to have more of a natural finish / satin finish. It absolutely does not create a film like some long-wearing lipsticks do – this is more like the glossiness just wears off, and you’re left with all the color and less of the shine.
It’s hard for me to give a wear time in terms of hours, because lipsticks last so differently from person to person and it also depends on whether you’re eating or drinking (and I’m using sipping on something). This Satin Lip Pencil was moderately long-wearing on me; the product itself lasted a few hours, and then it left a stain on my lips which hung around for another few hours (and faded evenly – no ring around the lips!). It wasn’t one of the longest wearing products I’ve tried, but it wore longer than the average lipstick. I personally did not find it either hydrating or drying, but I rarely find any lipstick drying, so I’ll be curious to see what others think!
Here’s a half-face shot, so you can see the color better with my skintone – it’s really a gorgeous shade.
Overall, I think this is a lovely product and a great new offering from NARS. I absolutely love this color, and think they did an exceptionally good job with the shade range. I’m not sure that it will become one of my go-to products, both because I tend to prefer something that transfers less (this does transfer to coffee cups, etc. significantly, especially when freshly applied) and because I usually prefer a very long-wearing lip product. But, those are just personal preferences – this is a high quality product, and worth checking out once it launches!
