Nars Isolde - An everyday eyeshadow duo

I'm going to honest, I hate Wednesdays. But to make up for it, I get to drink a beer and make a beauty recommendation.

Ladies (and Gents), today, I'm here to tell you about Isolde the eyeshadow duo from Nars. Not Isolde from Tristan and Isolde, the incredibly depressing love story.

Nars Isolde is beautiful duo of gold and copper. These two colors are known to be very flattering for blue eyes, but guess what? They are amazing on Olive skin too (have Olive skin and blue eyes? You lucky bitch.)  My favorite part about these two colors is that they can be used together or alone. Use one of them as a wash and it's flattering. Wear the one on the left on the lid and the one of the right in crease and you have a more put together look. Want to make this night time friendly or add some depth to the look? Pop a chocolate color like MAC Swiss Chocolate or Folie in the outer corner and you have a sexy eye look.

I'm not going to mince words, I love me some gold eye looks. I feel like they're an understated way to make brown eyes pop and always look effortlessly sexy on Olive skin tones no matter the eye color. If you want to give an eye look like this a try, this is a good starting point. The colors are nicely pigmented (though probably a little light for anyone above NC40), a dream to apply and last a good 8-10 hours.

So, what do you say gorgeous, would you try something similar to this?

Dirty Blush?

Man, I love Nars blushes but it's kind of awkward to title my blog post "Deep Throat" it may attract the wrong people. Nonetheless, even though the blush has a bit of an unsavory name it's what's inside that counts and let me tell you...it's awesome.

I feel like people probably don't need another Deep Throat review so I'll keep it short and sweet, but I'd never tried it before I thought it was too close to Orgasm and worried it wouldn't even show up on my skin. I managed to get my hands on the blush for relatively cheap on someone's blog sale, I figured, what have I got to lose? If I hate it I can swap it away on Makeupalley.

I was so worried I'd made the wrong decision it took me a couple of days to actually try the blush, but the day I did I realized, "This is a perfect Summer blush." For me at least, it's a wonderful light pinky flush of color with a hint of shimmer (which I never mind as long as it's not a glitter bomb.)

I like this blush more than Orgasm and I've been an Orgasm user for 2 years now. This one has a certain, something, I can't put my finger on it. It's a little more subtle, gives me a bit of a glow and is less glittery than Orgasm. I definitely recommend this blush as something to try out for the Olive skinned women out there. I didn't think it would work for me but I've been wearing it everyday since I got it!

Bronzers

For many Olive skinned women the thought of using a bronzer seems laughable. In all honesty until very recently I felt the same way, I thought that women who needed to use bronzer were women with pale skin. Therefore, I never considered it as an option for a skin tone that already has some color to it, but recently I realized that is not the case.

During the winter time our skin type tends to lose its color, whether we like it or not, it's just something that happens unless you're one of those lucky few who can go on vacation to Hawaii for the winter. That being the case, I don't know if you know this, but when an Olive skinned woman loses color in her skin it's waaay more noticeable than when a pale skinned woman loses color. We begin to look a little sallow, grey and possibly even less healthy when that happens. This is why the use of a bronzer cannot be discounted for the olive skinned woman. Bronzer is an instant pick me up that adds a healthy and natural glow to skin if done correctly, think of it as giving your paler winter skin a little bit of help faking what you look like during those warmer months.

The biggest mistake someone can make when starting out with bronzer is by putting it all over the face. That is not a bronzer's purpose, while it is meant to give you a more color it also meant to mimic the effects of being in the sun. For this purpose you only want to apply it to the places in the face that would naturally get more sun: forehead, ridge of the nose, highest part of the check bones and a dab on the chin.

There are several types of bronzers available: powder, sticks and liquid/gels. To pick the best one for you consider your skin type. If you have dry skin steer clear of powder which will make you more dry and use the stick or liquid/gel. If you have normal-to-oily skin stick to the powder. There are also two types of bronzers those that have some shimmer to them and those that don't. Personally I prefer a bronzer that does not have shimmer as it tends to look more natural and blend more easily.  Also, when choosing a bronzer ensure that it is only a few shades darker than your natural skin tone, you don't want a dramatic difference or for it to look orange.

For this reason I like to use Hoola from Benefit. It's a great shade for medium  Olive skin, imparts a good color (no orange), and has no shimmer so remains completely natural if used sparingly. It also seems to get glowing reviews from most people. Hoola comes with a brush with which to apply it, however, I prefer to use Ecotools Recycled Retractable Kabuki instead as it gives a more consistent application, though any kabuki brush you have around will work just as great. Bronzer should be applied after foundation/concealer but before blush or setting powder. Once you've applied bronzer apply a small amount of blush over the bronzer on your cheeks to really get a nice healthy look. Just remember when putting on bronzer for the first time to use a small amount and build from there, it's easy to overdo it the first couple of times and ruin all the work you've done on your make-up. I practiced a lot before going out in public!

If you have dry skin then Hoola would not be the best option for you. Instead, the best bronzer out there for dry skin is Nars Multiple Bronzer, they have several shades some are blushes and some are bronzers, if you follow the link to the left the bronzers should be the last 6 options. What's great about these is that they are multi-purpose, they can be cheek color, lip color, eyeshadow and bronzer all in one.  Cap Vert seems to be a pretty good universal color for Olive skin, but you can also try these are your local Sephora in order to be sure

The same rules apply when applying a stick bronzer, except instead of applying with a brush you should use your fingers for a more even and natural look, first swipe a small amount where you'd like to apply it and blend with you finger tips, if necessary build from there for more color.