Review - NARS Single Eyeshadow in Lhasa

Taupe is my best friend. I've yet to find a variation of the hue that is unflattering on me (for a benchmark, I am around a NW 10-15, or Revlon Ivory with blue eyes). Between my previous success with a shade like this and the praise of this shade from a majority of the beauty blogging community, I decided to pick this little gem up a little after Christmas this year.

To put it lightly..I. Am. In. Love. It doesn't disappoint.

On NARS' official website, this shade is described as a "lavender gray". It does read quite cool toned, and it would be categorized as one of the grayer taupes. 

Compared to the other taupe shades in my collection, this read a bit cooler and more gray.

From left to right, this photo includes NARS Lhasa, MAC Satin Taupe, L'oreal Bronzed Taupe and Urban Decay Mushroom. Satin Taupe had a similar sheen but was much warmer, more brown. Bronzed Taupe was much more cold and not very comparable. Mushroom was the most similar in color, but was much darker and more pigmented. 

It is a shimmer in finish, but it applies as one of the most natural looking shimmers that I've encountered; not very frosty, just a nice sheen to it and literally no fallout. This is the first NARS shadow that I have purchased or used, so I don't  have much of a tangible benchmark to compare it to the rest of the line. If the rest of the shadows from the brand perform as this one does, then NARS definitely has something fantastic on their hands.

NARS packaging is a sturdy, rubberized, matte case with a full size mirror on the inside and the NARS logo on the outer front. It is modern and chic, but it will literally hold every fingerprint or spec of makeup and will never, no matter what you do, come clean. There isn't however, much wasted space. The entire bottom of the compact is taken up by the pot of shadow, and there isn't much extra packaging

My one and only complaint is the steep price. Now...I absolutely HATE it when people review a product and claim "The only con is the price!!!". But I did a bit of math here.

For a NARS eyeshadow single you are paying $24 for 0.07oz. This calculates to $342 dollars per ounce. For comparison's sake a MAC eyeshadow retails for $15 for 0.05oz, which calculates to $300 dollars per ounce. I found myself making the splurge for a superior quality and less than dupeable color, but I'm not 100% sure if that would be a choice I would make nine times out of ten.

Overall - 

Pros:

Classic sheen, not much frost.

Cooler tones, not a very dupeable shade.

Longwearing.

Pigmented with and without primer.

Cons:

Packaging gets dirty easily.

My wallet really doesn't want me to like this formula as much as I do, but I'm finding myself truly lacking complaint about it. Lhasa is definitely finding itself in my makeup rotation quite often, so I won't be surprised if I hit pan within a couple months.

Basically it boils down to 9 on a scale of 10.