Nars Galapagos Swatches and Thoughts

Hello!! Sorry for the short absence, I haven't had much free time this past week because of end of the year stuff and i'm so happy and excited to say that I graduated from college last Thursday! Yay!!

Back to makeup, here's the beautiful Nars Galapagos that I treated myself to last week. I am absolutely in love...

Nars describes it as:

 "bitter chocolate infused with gold"

These pictures don't do the color justice at all! It's the most beautiful brown! You can sort of see the golden shimmer in the pictures, but it's even prettier in person.

The color is a gorgeous warm brown with gold shimmer. The pigmentation is excellent. It is not as smooth as my nars mekong (which is ridiculously buttery), but it is still incredibly soft, easily blendable, and pigmented. One thing that I was initially worried about with Galapagos was if the gold shimmer would actually show up on the eyes. It definitely does if you apply it correctly: packing it on with a shader brush (like the mac 239) over a good primer yields little fallout and makes the gold shimmer show up. Applying with a fluffy brush will not pack on the shimmer as much. One great thing about the gold shimmer is that it is very fine! You aren't going to see chunks of glitter on the eye, it just gives a nice sparkly effect on the eyes.

So far I've loved wearing this in the crease with lighter browns or shimmery champagnes on the lid. This week I'm going to experiment using galapagos in a REALLY brown smokey eye (and I'll post pictures when I do!) I really have no bad things to say about this shadow, it is so beautiful I think it would flatter any skin or eye color.

And some comparison swatches with my other brown shadows...

As you can see Nars Galapagos doesn't look like any of my other browns. In terms of color it's probably most similar to UD Darkhorse, since they are both deeper warmer browns, but Galapagos is a touch warmer and has the lovely gold shimmer. UD Smog is lighter and more gold, while Handwritten, has some red in it. As for the other Nars shadow, I was initially worried it wouldn't be worth owning both Mekong and Galapagos but they are really quite different. Mekong is much darker and cooler than Galapagos. I also think Mekong would be a little bit overwhelming as a lid color, whereas Galapagos could be pulled off being on the lid! I think they would look gorgeous together!

So overall, if you are a brown/neutral eyeshadow lover, Nars Galapagos should be at the top of your wishlist. I really love Nars eyeshadows, so if brown isn't your thing, don't hesitate to check out the other colors available!