POLICE FILES: An afternoon at Rustan’s – Marco Castro, Marky Mark and a lot of NARS

The awesome Cheska Sy invited me to the NARS press event at the NARS boutique in Rustan’s Makati’s Grand Mall last week.

I said yes immediately because one, I love NARS; two, they were bringing in an international makeup artist and I wanted to meet him and three, I wanted to grab the chance to play with NARS’ Fall and Holiday 2011 Collections.

This is NARS’ Fall 2011 Collection, which is out in Rustan’s The Beauty Source now.

This is NARS’ Holiday 2011 Collection which will be released in November.

Seriously, who wouldn’t want to play with these beauties?

I certainly did.

And so I went.

We spent the better part of an hour talking to international NARS makeup artist Marco Castro about the new collections, the brilliance of François Nars, makeup mistakes women make and Color Me Badd and Marky Mark (don’t ask).

The products from the two collections were laid out in front of us, ready for testing and swatching.

Marco gave us tips on using the different products. Like if you think Outremer, the vivid blue eyeshadow from the Fall Collection, is too bright, you can use it instead as an eyeliner.

Or that you can use Rue Bonaparte (the light almond Larger Than Life eyeliner) on your waterline to open up your eyes.

I had fun playing with the products. At the end of our session, my left hand looked like this:

I love love love the Larger Than Life eyeliners. I love eyeliner and I thought it was great that these didn’t smudge no matter how much I tried rubbing them off the back of my hand.

These were my favorites.

Via Veneto and St. Marks Place.

I’ve never used purple eyeliner before and I’m excited to try it. I love purple anything.

I also think it’s awesome that the eyeliners come with their own built-in sharpener. That rocks.

I have a feeling I’m heading back to Rustan’s when the Larger Than Life eyeliners are released – I want the blue one too, Rue Saint-Honoré.

I also want to purchase G-Spot, the new NARS Multiple that will be released with the Holiday Collection. I want to see if it will give me sexy flushed cheeks.

G-Spot will become part of NARS’ permanent line. Marco said, “I think G-Spot is good for everyone. It looks dark but it’s really not that dark. It goes on pretty sheer. It doesn’t matter if you’re Caucasian or Asian, it will look good. It will give you beautiful, sheer, rosy pink cheeks, like you just had a glass of wine.”

Naturally, we also talked polish.

When I picked up the bottle of Space Odyssey and said, “You’re launching this at Fashion Night Out right?”

Marco looked at me and asked, “How do you know that?”

I said, “I’m an addict.”

Marco likes how opaque Space Odyssey is and how it’s such a fun color for the holidays. He said that you can wear it alone but you can also wear it over Galion, which you’ve seen two million times on my blog.

It was like a light bulb went on in my head. Space Odyssey as a top coat? Why didn’t I think of that? Naturally, I wanted to try it.

Space Odyssey is just one of two polish shades to be released with the Holiday Collection.

The other one is Endless Night.

I love this deep deep purple shade too.

I asked Marco, “Which is your best-selling nail polish?”

“Jungle Red,” he said. “Do you know why it’s named Jungle Red?”

He told us about the Joan Crawford film “The Women,” where the nail polish shade called Jungle Red plays a role. “In the movie, the nail salon lady knows everybody and everything about their lives. If you go have your nails done and tell her, “I want Jungle Red,” she will tell you every single gossip she knows. It’s like a secret code. Jungle Red is definitely an iconic color and it’s our number one seller.”

François likes this color so much that the cash registers in his stores are usually hidden behind a glossy Jungle Red box.

I couldn’t leave without buying a bottle of Jungle Red after that. (And now I want to watch the movie too.)

I had the chance to do quick and dirty swatches of the holiday shades on top of my NARS Full Metal Jacket mani.

That’s Full Metal Jacket on my pinky and index finger, one coat of Endless Night over Full Metal Jacket on my middle finger and one coat of Space Odyssey over Full Metal Jacket on my thumb and ring finger.

Full swatches will follow very very soon.

NARS’ Fall Collection is now available at Rustan’s The Beauty Source. The Holiday Collection will be released in November.