Review+Swatches: NARS Casino/Sin Duo

I absolutely love how NARS do blushes/highlighters/bronzers. The formula is perfect. Very pigmented.  I bought the Sin/Casino Duo ($40 for 0.35oz) last December and being the crazy, very absentminded person that I am...I forgot all about it.  Yeah.

Anyway, I finally took some pics the other day. Sin is a pinkish mauve blush with some gold sparkle in it.  Casino is a reddish dark brown bronzer. I really didn't care much for the SIN blush, but also didn't want to buy Casino alone (so big) so that's why I bought the Duo.

SIN is very pretty to my delightful surprise. I was worried maybe the color was to cool for my NC 37 skin, but it is just fine and blends so well. The gold sparkles are not terrible (I hate huge sparkles). I would love it without the sparkles, but it's okay.

Compared to the NARS  Laguna, CASINO is of course darker but as I mentioned before, more red (redder?). One of the reasons I love Laguna is because it is one of the few bronzers that are brown, not red or orange. So if you have issues with bronzers making you look orange, be careful with Casino. It will def. work on darker skins. I find the texture of Casino 'softer' and more pigmented than the Laguna bronzer and also, I don't think it has as much of the gold sparkles as Laguna. To me, it's perfect for contouring and if applied with a very light hand, it can also work as bronzer all over my face.

And yes, this combo works great together (at first sight, I wasn't that convinced). I like to apply the Sin blush with a brush like the MAC 168 and the Casino bronzer with a big fluffy brush like the MAC 150 (for all over bronzer) or the MAC 109 or MAC 225  for contouring---did MAC discontinued this brush?? It is one of my faves for eyes and face!

RATING: 4.5/5

Here are some swatches:

++Click on all pics for enlarged versions++

Swatches on the back of my arm, maybe NC32 skin (medium, warm skintone)

Hope these swatches are helpful.  =)

¡Vivan, amen y rían!