NARS The NARSissist Eyeshadow Palette - Review, swatches and comparisons

NARS has come out with a limited eyeshadow for the spring, the NARSissist palette.

All the colors are from the permanent collection, whether they're usually singles or parts of duos. None of the pans are labeled, but the colors are listed on the back of the box.

The palette seems to be relatively neutral, although there are some muted colors, like purple and navy. They all seem to be rather cool-toned and dusty-looking as well.

 

What seems pretty notable about the selection of colors is that there are a lot of light colors, a lot of dark colors, but only two mid-tone shades. Several of the dark colors also seem to look really similar in swatches--the dark browns, black, and navy look almost identical.

My experience with NARS' color cosmetics has been that they're usually better in singles--when the same color is in a palette, it tends to be much less pigmented and more difficult to work with (like the cheek products). I don't have these NARS eyeshadows in single form, so I can't make that comparison here, but many of these eyeshadows feel a little dry and gritty, and not nearly as nice if you're used to Urban Decay eyeshadows. They do swatch pretty nicely, but you have to make more of an effort to build the color.

When I was swatching this palette, I didn't find the colors to be really unique or exciting. I actually thought a lot of the colors looked really similar to those in Sonia Kashuk's Eye on Matte and Eye on Shimmer palettes (available at Target). I have the limited edition Matte/Shimmer palette, which is just the two palettes combined, but they're available separately in the permanent collection. Here they are side-by-side:

Below, I've swatched some comparable colors from each palette below. Top row is NARS, bottom row is Sonia Kashuk.

I was by no means impressed by the NARSissist palette. I can definitely come up with more dupes from the drugstore, and the texture of the eyeshadows could be better. Plus, even though I compared some of the eyeshadows to Sonia Kashuk--a drugstore brand that isn't considered super cheap--the NARS palette is $79, which I think is incredibly overpriced.