YSL Spring Look 2014 - preview

YSL Spring Look 2014 Campaign Visual - is there anything Cara Delevigne doesn't front?  Gorgeous lady...

(Campaign Makeup: Rosy Blush Palette, Dessin du Regard Waterproof N°11 Intense Purple, Mascara Volume Effet Faux Cils Indiscreet Purple, Gloss Volupté N°3 Rose Fusion, La Laque Couture N°49 Rouge Pablo)

So there, I was, gratefully in out of the wet and cold weather on a miserable day in mid October in the gorgeously appointed Room 27 on South William Street, along with a bunch of other bloggers and media lovelies, and being treated to champers (I was driving, damnit) and sushi (I was dieting, damnit) while watching M. Fred Letailleur (YSL's chief makeup artist and brand ambassador for Europe) doing his magic with the iconic Touche Éclat pen (see this post here) and showcasing the makeup from the Spring Collection...

It's a tough life, having to watch a master in action, with next season's makeup, and getting to paw it and play with it afterwards.  With my own two grubby mitts.  I am the ultimate early adopter, so show-and-tells well in advance of commercial release date are right up my alley :-)

I've already posted about the Touche Éclat pen (including how we have all been using it wrongly, yes, that's 21 years of using it incorrectly, all cleared up in one evening), so this post is just about the Spring Look 2014 collection.

Featuring not what you expect from spring (definite colours, no pastels) and with a few interesting twists... I'm just going to get straight to the point:

Drool a haon:

YSL Rosy Blush

- and yes, it photographs every bit as beautifully in real life :-)

YSL Rosy Blush from Spring 2014 collection

Feeding my personal love of all things rosy and gold at the moment, this is a particularly special blusher.  At €49.50, this stuff isn't cheap though, and I'll be saving my shekels for the next item...

Hint hint:
M Letailleur suggsted an alternative method of application for this blush.  Nodding towards all things 80's, this was applied almost like a contour, but instead of applying in a hard line up along the cheekbones, it was applied in downward strokes along the cheekbones with a fluffy blusher brush.  It gave a similar shape as the 80's blush we all know, but with less of a hard look.

agus drool eile...

YSL Babydoll Mascara #04 - Indiscreet Purple

I love YSL's Babydoll Mascara, I have a few of the more interesting colours from the past, and now they've released a shade called Indiscreet Purple - it's really an indigo shade - a dark mid-navy-mid-purple colour (swatch as follows):

YSL Babydoll Mascara #04 Indiscreet Purple - swatch

- this is a gorgeous shade, appearing slightly bluer in direct light and slightly more purple in dimmer light.  I love this - look out for a review post on this sometime soon.  At €31 this is at the higher end of what I'm willing to pay for in a mascara, but then again, I know I already have a huge grá for this mascara, so I'm not purchasing blind.  There's also an indigo waterproof liner, Dessin du Regard #11 Intense Purple available for €21 if you feel like being matchy-matchy (the liner is much lighter but in the same shade family).

The collection also featured a bunch of these:

YSL Gloss Volupté shades...

... featuring a nifty little applicator

and in particular one of these (although technically not part of this collection per se, it bears a quick discussion all of itself as it's ingenious!)

Black Gloss Volupté

This is a great idea (I had one of these from another makeup brand years and years ago but it has long been used up).  It's a black lipgloss - what it does is darken down anything else you're wearing - you could use it with a pink lipstick and wind up with a, well, darker pink glossy lipstick after application of this stuff.  Great idea.  Worn on its own it really just looks like a lipgloss (it doens't appear black on your lips).  Incidentally, that's a new take on the doe-foot applicator above, designed to hug the lips.  I'm not convinced personally, but I like the shades and the black gloss is brilliant.  The glosses are €25 each and the collection features four new shades:

• N°3 Rose Fusion                 dazzling coral
• N°104 Prune Organdi         dramatic black cherry
• N°19 Rose Orfèvre             tender pink
• N°49 Terriblement Fuchsia  vibrant fuchsia

along with these beauties, YSL are also releasing four new shades of Rouge Volupté:

• N°31 Fuchsia Tourbillon      rose
• N°32 Corail Jalouse            coral (see picture below)
• N°33 Rose Neillia               poppy
• N°34 Rose Asarine             red

and joining that lineup, two new shades of Rouge Pur Couture Vernis À Levres at €33 each (apparently a particularly intense pure colour lipstick which I've not yet tried but having heard nothing but amazing things about, must put on my To Buy list):

• n°32 Rouge Avant-Gardiste
• n°33 Bourgogne Artistique

Featuring Rouge Volupté N°32 Corail Jalouse

And last (but not least), where would a makeup collection be without nail polishes, two new La Laque Couture shades at €24 each:

• n°48, Rose Scabiosa
• n°49 Rouge Pablo

This collection has just launched and is available on-counter now.  Look here for more information.