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| YSL Le Teint Touche Éclat |
YSL claims: "Illuminating foundation, dimensional radiance, weightless perfection". I've been using it since 26th of June and I am in love! Here's my skinny...
Wow! Am I wearing anything? This is utterly weightless, virtually undetectable on my skin, and gives my skin a beautiful luminescence (without a shimmer), evening everything out but still allowing my own skin to show through. It's a beautiful foundation that makes me look fresh and awake (you will need a concealer if you need to cover some hyper-pigmentation areas or high colouring).
Coverage
Radiant, sheer-to-light coverage. It handles "buildability" nicely however, and can produce light-to-medium coverage with a couple of layers. You're never going to get full coverage out of this (but then again, this is not what it's intended for).
Wear
Lasted me approx six to seven hours before a top-up was needed. This is not a long-wear foundation, but you'll get more or less the same wear as any other average-wear foundation.
Shades
There are twenty two shades divided into three different undertones:
- BD (Beige Dore - aka golden undertone)
- BR (Beige Radiant - aka pink undertone)
- B (Beige - aka neutral undertone)
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| The 22 shades available worldwide |
I've been colour matched to both B50 and BR50 (nothing unusual for me to need more than one foundation as I have hyper-pigmentation, high colouring and a yellow undertone to my skin) and I've also tried out the BD40. Thoughts? The pink-based ones (BR) are definitely a pink beige, the neutral base (B) ones definitely lean slightly more to the pink side of neutral and the golden base (BD) ones have a warm golden (rather than a cold yellow) undertone.
Application
Best applied with a flat (paddle) foundation brush, damp sponge, fingers. I found that a denser brush or buffing brush tended to drink up too much of this and as it's quite sheer, you're just going to waste a lot of product on the brush. Applies very smoothly and blends like a dream. It's best powdered with a very light-handed dusting of a loose powder - in fact YSL's own Semi-loose Natural Radiance Powder is probably the best bet, or anything that's semi-matte (a flat matte powder will just cover up the gorgeousness of the radiance in the foundation).
Base/Formulation
More traditional foundations use opaque powders, alcohol, mother-of-pearl, mica, titanium dioxide and other products to create a glow, and mica, silica and silicones to even out the skin. This formulation instead makes use of an oil-based "soft focus gel" which contains gold pigments to blur imperfections, rather than reflect light back from the face. This gel-oil supposedly is just there to aid application, blending and moisturisation of the skin, and "evaporates after application". Anything oil-based should send up a cautious flag for those with oilier skins, however that doesn't mean it won't work with oily skins, but you should definitely try before you buy. It doesn't contain silicones, silica or talc, any "opaque powers" or fillers, so it won't settle into fine lines or wrinkles.
Comparisons
While this is very much a foundation all out on its own, some thoughts as to other foundations it might compare with...
- MAC F&B has been my go-to sheer foundation. It is equally as lightweight and buildable (as the YSL), you don't notice it on your skin, it but it also has a pronounced dewyness - almost a tackiness if it's not powdered properly. This isn't the case with YSL, in fact more dry skinned ladies may not need to powder to set
- NARS Sheer Glow has a similar luminescent glow but definitely more coverage (this moniker is misleading, it's anything but Sheer)
- Chanel Perfection Lumière (one of my favourite foundations) has the same luminescence and is reasonably lightweight but it has more coverage and is way more matte than the YSL
- Illamasqua Skin Base is a stunning foundation but it's nowhere near as lightweight and has a slight sheen/dewyness to it
- Armani Luminous Silk has a similar soft-focus gel base formulation but is not as sheer or as lightweight, and has more cover than the YSL - perhaps if you mixed Armani Luminous silk with your moisturiser you'd get something vaguely similar as the YSL
Good For
Late spring, summer, early Autumn... younger and older skin types will both welcome this as it doesn't settle into lines and it doesn't highlight pores.
Scent
Reasonably heavily scented, which I really don't like, but the scent does fade after a short while. Tolerable.
SPF? Flashback? Price?
SPF19. No flashback (therefore can be used with flash photography). Priced at €38 in Ireland. Brown Thomas are currently giving out decent sized samples, enough to last about seven days. Get one while they're still available!