NARS Velvet Matte Foundation Stick goes on creamy and silky. It blends beautifully with fingers, a Beauty Blender and my favourite Artis Oval 7 brush. Best of all this foundation comes with its own sponge applicator built in meaning it’s great for travel!  

Based on my past experiences, stick foundations and I don't mix. They're thick, cakey, and hard to blend and somehow I always end up looking like I have a pound of makeup on my face. I mean, how many times have you guys tried a stick foundation only to regret it because your pores end up looking huge and every single dry patch on your face is now noticeable? Yup, I’ve been there too. 

When the new NARS Velvet Matte Foundation Stick hit my desk, I was scared. Scared of trying it because I didn’t want cake face and scared because I’m a hardcore NARS fan and I’d want to keep it that way. Finally, after a couple of weeks of playing chicken, I finally decided to see if NARS has finally broken down my stigma with stick foundation. Here's what I found.

I applied the foundation from the stick, straight to my face, on a morning where I had enough time to wash my makeup off and start over in case I hated it. Right away I was surprised to see how creamy and silky the formula is. Any stick foundations I’ve used in the past have had a thick/dry texture so this was a nice change. I blended half of my face with my damp Beauty Blender and reached for my Artis Oval 7 brush for the other half. It all blended like buttah.

It evened out my skin tone right with one swipe. While the formula says matte, my makeup looked like skin, not cakey.

To finish the rest of my makeup I concealed my under eyes using NARS Soft Matte Complete Concealer in Custard (probably my all-time fave concealer !) and set my makeup with a light dusting of Chanel’s Natural Finish Loose Powder in Doré. It’s usually after I powder my skin that it starts to look a bit cakey depending on how heavy my foundation is. With NARS my skin was matte but still looked like skin. Here’s an easy tip- take your foundation from matte to dewy and natural by simply misting your makeup with a bit of mineral water. 

Voila! My makeup game was on point.