NARS Laguna Ultimate Face Palette I Review

The NARS Laguna Ultimate Face Palette is a summer inspired face and eye shadow palette from NARS. It’s been released in two different shades, Light to Medium and Medium to Deep. I managed to pick up the Light to Medium palette so that’s what my review will be based on. The NARS Laguna Ultimate Face Palette I in Light to Medium contains four eye shadow shades, three of which are shimmery and one that is matte. For the face it contains a beautiful highlight shade, two bronzer shades. The palette can be purchased online for $59USD or $98AUD.

Eyeshadows

As mentioned above, the palette comes with four eye shadow shades:

• Spritz – a shimmery gold rose, works great as a deeper all over the lid shade
• Unwind – matte peachy pink, perfect transition shade in the crease that gives your eyes a sultry glow
• Heat Spell – satin rust brown, great for deepening an eye shadow look when placed on the outer corner
• Sizzle – shimmer yellow gold, another great all over the lid shade that gives a lighter look than Spritz

Face Powders

The palette also comes with three face powder shades:

• Laguna 02 (Original) – Light to medium bronze with neutral undertones, which thanks to its neutral undertones could be used as a contour shade too for some skin tones. For me, I generally need something cooler tone to work.
• Laguna 04 – Medium bronze with warm undertones, definitely much more suited to a bronzer given the warm tones
• Drift Away – Champagne shimmer, love this highlighter shade! It is a little on the yellowy side for my personal tastes but I think it still works well with my skin tone

I will add, that I really wish they had added a blush shade instead of two bronzer shades personally. I know it’s a pretty common combo, so I’m not exactly sure why they skipped it this round except maybe a lot of people don’t wear blush when going for the sun kissed summer look? I still would, but maybe that’s just me! Just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity.

Quality & Pigmentation

As you can see from the swatches below, pigmentation isn’t an issue with this palette. The pigmentation is medium to strong and the deeper shades need only a very light hand if you’re looking for a more subtle look. The palette in general is aimed to create a much heavier look, something I would feel super comfortable wearing on say a tropical vacation or even a summer evening out. For work or daily use, with my personal style the palette is a little too heavy for my liking.

Quality is amazing, the powder is for both eye shadow and face coloursbeautifully milled. I wouldn’t expect anything less from a brand like NARS (especially given the price tag). Generally in comparison to other high end makeup brands, NARS leans always more on the artistic side (like a more elegant version of Urban Decay maybe?) so I find pigmentation generally stronger.

Longevity & Wear

I found the wear generally pretty good, I tend to wear my makeup all day from morning right up until my shower before bed and likely thanks to the deeper shades of this palette it worn well. I did notice a little softening of the highlight shade over time, perhaps slowly replaced with the shininess of my own skin after a day of work. And my eye shadow was close to perfect by the end of the day, a little bit of wear which I find is the case with pretty much all eye shadows.

Final Thoughts

I won’t lie, I’m a sucker for most of the NARS palettes (tbh I’m a sucker for almost any palette), and I really wanted to love this one and use it as my everyday palette. And despite my less than perfect experience with this palette I will probably continue to buy future NARS palettes.

On one hand I really did enjoy it, amazing quality! But I was let down by the fact that this isn’t an everyday palette for me. The shades are generally a bit too dark for daily use for me personally, and perhaps even though this is the lighter palette my skin tone doesn’t suit some of the deeper shades of this palette which makes it more of an occasional use palette. I also really wish they would have included a blush shade instead of two bronzers, because had they done that I could at least see me taking this palette on holiday instead!

I think if you have skin tone similar to mine and you want something that is “all encompassing”, you might want to save your money and give it a miss, but if you are closer to a medium skin tone, you might really enjoy the NARS Laguna Ulimate Face Palette I in Light to Medium as a daily palette.