the Blackthorn Orphans
  • B L O G
  • The Blackthorn Orphans: read it onsite
  • The Blackthorn Orphans TRANSLATIONS PAGE
  • Lovely R BLOG
  • PHOTOESSAYS
  • SELECTED RAVINGS: essays & opinion
  • RUBYHUE Lipstick Review
  • blackthorn ROSE REVIEW
  • KITCHEN BITCH: Recipes etc.
  • verse
  • Hostile Witness FILM REVIEW
  • ALOES & SUCCULENTS
  • Blackthorn Perfume Review
  • B I O
  • C O N T A C T

RubyHue Lipstick Review: Nars Janet (Audacious)

6/11/2018

 
Picture
A big magenta carries the same mana as a classic red; assertive, trend-resistant and cross-seasonal.  Few shades are as explicitly beautifying.  It embiggens your eye colour and can even make a shitty dye job look better (I should know).  

​Janet is magenta done right; a rich, vivid and joyous embodiment of all those good things.  
Picture
I know what you're thinking.  But I already have MAC Show Orchid and that's my pinky blue OG!  

​Is it, though?  The various Nars ranges have weaned me off many of my former MAC and UD favourites.  I may be aging out of the latters' target demo but I'm also a lot more fucking discerning these days and all those trashy sentimental favourites seem to have lost much of their charm.  

​It comes down to comprehensive quality.  On the face, Show Orchid and her slew of UD equivalents look so shrieking, greasy and candied beside Janet. SO is more fuchsia, to be sure, but one is strong and the others are just... loud.  I'm reminded of the difference between PJ Harvey and Courtney Love. 
Picture
I didn't realise just how many iterations of this deep magenta I already owned before buying yet another one.  There is no end to my depravity.  ​
Picture
At this point I should caution that it is ubermeta-awesome on the right face.  Just like a bold red, fuchsia-magenta can veer hard into visual nails/chalkboard territory when it's smooshed where it don't belong.  The more strident and less balanced the shade, the greater the potential for horror.  A blue pearl ups the hazard level even further; MAC Violetta on just about anyone is a perfect example of this gruesome phenomenon.
Picture
Quality, bitches.  Quality.
​
I was fortunate to strike an overcast day to photograph this shade as direct sunlight blows it out of gamut.  These pics are pretty accurate, recording the temperature shift away from pink with the change in light.  Note the strong blue cast apparent in the bullet shot to the left there.  

This blue derives almost entirely in the pearl itself which is milled down to the kind of powdery nothingness that eliminates any gritty mouthfeel or impression of glitter, providing a moderate serving of violet duochrome over the true magenta base.  ​It may be hard to imagine, but this is a relatively sophisticated look, rooted in the careful selection of the two adjacent shades- that vital thing other, lesser versions get wrong.
Texturally Janet is a 90% opaque, medium-sheen satin which doesn't bleed, stays put and applies evenly straight from the tube.  There's no caking or drying, two minor blights that knock points off the muddier, stodgier UD After Dark.  My only real technical gripe is the typical Nars Audacious line's consistent skipping on the midst of my turned-out lower lip, but this shade will cover there if you take the time to drag it slowly over that area a couple of times.

We have Nars 
Janet (left) and MAC Flat Out Fabulous (Retro Matte) for comparison in the triptych below.  Trying to get Janet's blue duochrome to show up without the sensor splitting it into glitter is next to impossible.  The pic at far left if probably closest.
​And now for the caveats.  If you can't werq much blue, don't take a punt on Janet hoping your lip colour might bend her in your favour.  It won't.  Also- magenta's ability to blow up one's defects needs consideration.  This colour clashes horribly with my cheek capillaries and I have to correct that shit before we are simpatico.  It's not a casual slap-on shade unless your skin is all dewy perfection and your undertones are unicorn-compatible.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Many of us love magenta but need assistance if we are not to look unwittingly editorial.  I've learnt some tricks.  Most importantly- hide yo problems: go for a medium coverage foundation or at least take your time with a good concealer.  If you really covet that low-information, freshly pissed-on in a fuck tape realness, by all means go hard with the ditchpig contouring and industrial highlighter.  I can only advise against it.  Related: magenta + asphaltic Instagram dirge-brow = mistake.  Stick with a minimal, tightlined, mascara-heavy eye.  If you don't have a truly appropriate blush to hand, don't just slap on a peachy random or you may discover there are worse things than looking a bit monochromatic.  

​Finally, don't succumb to the temptation to pencil a magenta outline, even in the utterly, inconceivably unlikely event your liner matches perfectly.  In fact, wipe a fingertip lightly around the edge of your application or do the same with a transparent primer stick to blur it out a wee bit.  Extra wearability is achieved just by taking down that margin contrast.  

But whatever.  I love Nars Janet.  She can sit on my face any time.
Picture
Picture
L2R all MAC unless stated: Russian Red, Nars Janet, Urban Decay After Dark,
Bite Beauty Beetroot, Girl About Town, Rebel, D for Danger

More Lipstick  Reviews.  Have something better to do?



Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Picture

    Independent Creativity
    Hi-Fi Introversion

    ORIGINAL CONTENT
    HONEST REVIEWS
    VELVETEEN VERBIAGE
    VISUAL LUXURY
    MORBID IDLING
    THE NATURAL WORLD
     
    ​photography  
    film
    flora  fauna  culinary
    ethnography  objet
    ​

    modest living
    ​vintage shit

    A U T H O R
    Picture
    K ✂︎ l l y
    congenital delinquent
    Human Durian
    celebrating
    glorious deviation in the land of
     the long white cloud

    -  New Zealand  -


    - T h e   B o o k -

    Picture
    T H E  
    B L A C K T H O R N
    O R P H A N S


    What is freedom, when it is
    all that remains to you?
    In exile two brothers pursue an anarchist's trajectory,  from an old world into the new, from East to West, subject always to the pleasures & horrors of an enduring flesh, to the ironies of karma & impunity. Love bears thorns, the lost return & the dead are haunted by the living. 
    ​

    E P I C   D A R K   F I C T I O N
    *   R E A D   *
    T H E
    B L A C K T H O R N 
    O R P H A N S
     O N S I T E  

    H e r e



    Picture

    Selected
    ​Ravings

    opinion essays observation private regret public 
    exaltation semicoherent speculation 

    Picture

    Photoessay​

    epic undertakings
    documented

    ​
    Picture

    Hostile Witness FilmReview

    Cruel but fair

    Picture

    RubyHue 
    ​
    Lipstick Review

    Lipstick: love it
    ​

    Picture

    Our Photography​

    we've seen worse
    ​

    Picture

    Port Chalmers​

    Dunedin, New Zealand
    ​

    Picture

    Blackthorn ​
    ​Rose Review

    Garden Hoe Wisdom
    Picture

    Verse​

    Loss, love, truth, beauty everything, everything
    ​
    Picture

    The  Lovely R's Blog​

    Likes photography  Knows a bit about it

    Picture

    We Liked This​

    Amazing things from other people
    ​

    Picture

    Cacti, Aloes
    ​&
     
    Flora​

    Our garden & general vegetal splendours
    ​

    Picture

    KitchenBitch

    Home cooking
    & raw ingredients
    ​
    Picture

    Ethnographic​

    Strange wonderful things from elsewhere
    ​

    Picture

    Jewellery
    ​

    Picture

    Tiny Little 
    Dinosaurs
    - a book for children -


    All images & text property of the authors 
    ​
    unless stated

    © us
    & original sources
    All Rights Reserved



    Picture

    Privacy Policy
    ​This is a noncommercial site.
    No ads. No shady data jacks. 
    No interest in your bizniz.

    ​We don't personally view, utilise or sell your data, apart from occasionally checking totally anonymous + super basic site view stats. We don't even know how to monetise that stuff, so don't worry.  Everyone's privacy is important to us.

    Our platform is probably harvesting your data, though, via their cookies. Look at their privacy page so you can see what they're up to.

    Please use Adblock or something similar.
    ​
    Google et al superimpose ads that we never see a penny from so fuck them.

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013


    Picture

    Categories

    All
    A Thing Of Beauty
    Blackthorn Orphans
    Blackthorn Rose Review
    Cacti & Aloes
    Ethnographica
    Flora
    Hostile Witness Film Reviews
    Jewellery
    Kitchen Bitch
    Make Up Review
    Maximum Respect
    Perfume Reviews
    Photo Du Jour
    Photo Essay
    Places & Things: A Blackthorn Review
    Port Chalmers
    Remembering Dreams
    Roses
    Selected Ravings
    Softcore Rendition
    Sweetmeat
    Textiles
    The Lovely R
    Verse
    We Liked This

    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.