Review and Swatch: 2015 Sephora Birthday Gift: NARS lip pencils

I was super excited for the birthday present form Sephora this year. I have never owned anything from NARS until now, but always ogled their lip pencils like Train Bleu. And needless to say, these lip pencils are just as good as they are described. Now, I want to buy some full sized, but we’ll see…

The Sephora 2015 Birthday gift was a little box that included a .06 oz Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Cruella and a .05 oz Satin Lip Pencil in Rikugien.

Cruella is a true red lip pencil if a little on the darker side of a true red. It dried to a super matte finish which I love. It also glides on very creamy, which I was so surprised at when I first tried it. I do not know if I have a creamier matte! The little lip pencil style packaging also makes this easy to carry around, reapply, and apply precisely. This is also super pigmented and a little goes a long way and lasts a very long time.

Rikugen is a light pinky-champagne color.  It looks like a pinky nude on me. This also goes on very smoothly and a little slick, since it is a satin finish, but isn’t that opaque. Since I have medium pigmented lips it takes several swipes (like 5) for the color to build opacity. I still love the slightly glossy look on, but I end up using a lot with how many swipes I need.

These are lip pencil you need to sharpen which frightens me because of product waste. The full size are this way too though, not just the minis. Together, these pencils add up to 0.11 oz of product.  The full sized satin pencils only have .07 oz (so the mini matte is near full weight for a satin pencil!) and a matte is 0.086 so the average weight for a pencil is 0.078 and so you have a little under 1 and a half pencils in the free Sephora kit. A single full pencil costs $26. So you get a good $35+ in this free kit. This is a great deal!

Overall, I love this kit. The products are great and things I have been wanting for a long time. The amount of free product is also really high in monetary terms too, so go and get your gift when you can!