The Best of Yves Saint Laurent Beauty
Your Guide To The Cult Products of YSL
When I think of YSL as a brand, I think of a sophisticated woman who sees her makeup as being daring, careless, effortlessly sexy. I’ve raved about YSL to my fellow girls for years but never penned my thoughts to this blog, as I’ve trialled and tested their products for years on the mission for finding the best of whats available. Even though my beauty adventure never quite concludes it does entail a list of cult products I always come back to for a seamlessly thought through beauty shop. I spent a great amount of my time on the YSL website, with sessions clocking up to hours as I fall head over heels for products I’m keen to try out. So todays beauty post entails the current findings and lust of a brand so highly respected I felt incredibly privileged to be continuously gifted by. YSL you’ve got a girl caught up in a tangle of beauty dreams I’ll never want to escape.
Best Yves Saint Laurent Face Products
YSL Touche Éclat Le Cushion
I dabble in foundations so often, and frequently change my mind as quickly as the wind changes, as I receive multiple parcels by the week to try out. But for a soft gentle foundation that gives me a velvet touch, and soft appearance, whilst giving medium to full coverage (depending on how much product is used) I found the YSL Touche Éclat Le Cushion foundation is by far the best by a mile the best of the YSL face range, and in fact can smack out the water a whole bunch of foundations I’ve tried. It’s got a buildable formula, that feels light and airy – contrastive to the cover it gives. Throughout this summer I’ve been embracing my natural freckles so applying full coverage amongst most of my face and minimal coverage around my t-zone. Both areas seamlessly blend into each other to give my cheeks a natural flush of radiance whilst not covering up areas I like to showcase. For a foundation it’s very hydrating, that needs little touchups, I’ve barely felt the need to use powder with it and therefore become the product at arms reach on a daily basis I’ll revert back to.
YSL Touche Éclat Blur Primer
I partially thank the beauty of using a foundation in correlation to the Touche Éclat Blur Primer, as I always believe protection is the key to a good base of makeup. It sets up the skin to allow your products underneath to not be compromised by heavy amounts of makeup. This Blur Primer gives a poreless finish, and create an ideal canvas for whatever you choose to overlay it with. It can be used as a single product for a smooth velvet finish that blurs out natural oils on the face, ideal for oily combination T-Zones that need mattifying. Natural luminosity is encouraged once the product is applied, it’s magical as it knows exactly where you’d like radiance to occur.
YSL Touche Éclat Glow Shot
I love a heavily dewy look in my personal beauty routine, highlight that reflects off walls (almost!) and discovered YSL Touche Éclat Glow Shot very recently in a beauty parcel from YSL – it’s the key to strobing, versatile in it’s formula as it can be used over the top of powder – shock horror, we’re breaking all the beauty rules, but who wants rules when there’s a product that disregards everything any beauty magazine told you to obey. It’s intense, glossy and dewy, but can be blended in for a natural radiance. I personally go full out, as I usually do with all my makeup, I love bold, dramatic and OTT, but on a daily day in the studio turn down the brightness of my highlight to a flush of dewiness.
Best Yves Saint Laurent Eye Products
YSL Eye Duo Smoker Eyeshadow
I’ve always been a huge fan of YSL’s eyeshadow range, they always encourage me to be very experimental with warmer toned hues, I find their glittery eyeshadows to be the best. They’re ideal for night outs, in this look I’ve used the YSL Eye Duo Smoker – Double-ended eyeshadow stick in smokey grey and smoky burgundy. I like to go back in and keep applying it for a heavier application, the vibrancy comes out the more times it’s applied. The texture to the eyeshadow sticks are creamy and don’t dry up easily. If teamed with the YSL eye primer they will last all day and all night. To remove use a waterproof eyemakeup remover, as this product does not budge in the slightest. On each end will be a matte shade, and a highlight shade that shimmers. For best application use the matte first to set the foundation colour underneath and use the shimmery end to build up as you like.
YSL Couture Eye Liner
In my experience of using liquid eyeliners over the years I’ve found very few that keep my eyes looking smooth, matte black and with a fine nib that allows me to be as artistic with flicks. I find the YSL Couture Eye Liner to make my flicks look like they can cut glass. Throughout this look I blurred my eyeshadow with the eyeliner to look soft and smokey. But in my usual routine I use the eyeliner sparingly as it’s a very dramatic look. For softer looks, blend out brown eyeshadow or any colour you desire to get a sharp outline with soft edges.
Best Yves Saint Laurent Lip Products
YSL Rouge Pur Couture Lipstick
YSL have always been rated for their maximum staying power, in my experience always go off the review of others. Being the cult product of the YSL lip range the YSL Rouge Pur Couture Lipstick has been my go-to for date night looks. It’s sexy, romantic and powerful. I see bold as beautiful, and done with the right lipstick shade that suits you it’s a lipstick that can carry you throughout the years. I adore the shade Mauve Nihiliste, as worn in this photoshoot. But I also highly favour Le Rouge as a statement red lipstick that suits all skin tones, and the best nude in the collection being Beige Tribute, giving a bright captivating colour that looks natural but gives a boost to your natural colour. It’s basically your lips but heightened as far as I’m concerned, giving even coverage that is unrecognisable to the eye that you’re wearing a shade. Natural is beautiful, but it’s my mission to keep exploring their Rouge Pur Couture collection throughout their more daring shades, I have however seen staggering photos of Rouge Feu and Le Fuchsia.
YSL Dessin Des Levres
I’ve been swept up in the band wagon that is lip liners, I’ve tested out hundreds in my short two to three years that I’ve been interested in them. I love cult products, but for someone who has more fuller lips I can find myself crossing that fine line between looking too done up for my own face, so I’ve started to invest more and more into invisible lip definers which includes the Design Des Levres Universal Lip Definer. This is a great product for having dinner out, you can rely on your lipstick migrating it’s way around your mouth when sipping your wine or eating spaghetti bolognese – yes it is tried, tested and boasted about. Throughout my experiences I found it’s not a product that needs reapplying, it creates a barrier between your face makeup and lip makeup. Whether used on the edges of your lips or spread across your lips as a lip primer, it’s a go-to product that most forget solves a series of problems. I’ve also discovered, just per chance that the perfect cut crease can be achieved on your eye makeup using Design Des Levres. Think about it, if it separates your lip and face makeup it’ll mask off other areas. I did a glitter cut crease eyeshadow and a twiggy style eyeliner using white eyeliner which masked off where I wanted my eyeliner to go. I’ll just drop the mic here so you can think about how versatile this product really is. Le drop.
Best YSL Fragrance
YSL Black Opium
I might be a tad biased, as I’ve raved about YSL Black Opium through a series of fragrance posts, and can’t recall a conversation that involved womens perfumes that didn’t eventually turn into me banging on about how much I swear by Black Opium. I spoke about it in my Whats In My Travel Bag, Five Scents Of The New Year post and Black Opium Wild special. So lets talk about it once again, just incase clarity on this subject wasn’t specified. So in the new addition of the Black Opium range is the Eau De Toilette rendition, that includes the signature top notes of coffee, mixed with newer additions of green coffee accord with a heart of Jasmine Tea on a base of sensual Patchouli, white woods and musk. I also have hearts in my eyes over the bottle, it’s so rock’n’roll glamorous – dangerous and very sexy as a scent. Their latest version Floral Shock is also a must try for anyone who loves electrifying scents with black coffee shaken with citrus notes.
Best Yves Saint Laurent Brow Products
YSL Brow Marker
Earlier this year I had my eyebrows microbladed, but I have days where I prefer a less natural look, where my eyebrows look striking, bold – some days fluffier or sharper than others. Having a good shape to start off with is insanely helpful in the whole brow process. Also good practice comes into perfecting your brows, YSL make it extremely helpful to brow-novices who haven’t been pencilling them in for years.
The YSL Couture Brow Marker does what it says on the pen, it’s quite literally like using a sharpie on your eyebrow, which give you maximum control of shape and definition. It’s handy having a nib that goes thinner for the tail end of your brow bone to curve off the end of your brows.
YSL Brow Palette
Whenever I fancy a day where I want my brows to look fluffy, or just a natural look, I use the YSL Couture Brow Palette on it’s own as the powder is easily smudgeble, and therefore easy to build for fans of an ombre brow. I’m not usually one to use brushes that come with certain palettes but I do really love the fine needle thick brow brush for exact precision and it’s small enough to carry around in the palette for daily touchups.
YSL Brow Mascara
The brow mascara by YSL is versatile enough to use on either a daily basis for your makeup routine if your brows move around, or if you want to recreate a certain look. This product is fantastic at lengthening the individual hairs if you need to push them over to thicken your brows or you fancy a rogue fluffy brow look.
