Thursday 26 January 2012

YSL Rouge pur Couture Glossy Stain... The Holy Grail


St Valentines Day... Tuesday the 14th of February... also known as the day you need to swiftly saunter down to your local YSL counter and casually buy ALL of the Glossy Stains they have in stock. Or perhaps if you, like me, don't possess the virtue of patience then you could always hot foot it to Selfridges whereby Glossy Stains remain exclusive until they are released to the masses on Valentines Day...

 #12 - Coral Fauve

Described by YSL as a "true revelation of the decade" (I love it and everything but, reeeally?) Rouge pur Couture Glossy Stain boasts a winning formula which encompasses both long lasting stain colour and a wet look finish - a match not usually made in heaven. Traditionally long lasting colour and gloss have had a pretty tempestuous relationship, and you either had one or the other, not anymore! According to the creators, Glossy Stains have harnessed "pure water soluble pigments to be fused in a transparent texture to provide non sticky, long lasting and high shine gloss". 


 Above: One coat     Below: Two coats

 Technical jargon doesn't really do it for me, for example nothing winds me up more than a product which claims to "work with your skins natural PH levels to provide the perfect colour for your skin tone" Errr... Ok... But the proof is always in the pudding when it comes to cosmetics and reading the claims on the packet another ten times after a dispointing new mascara application isn't going to make your lashes appear 100% longer in one brush stroke as you were promised. If it works, it works, and these Glossy Stains really do work. They're nicely pigmented, the product is easily layered meaning you can choose the intensity of colour, the fading is even and doesn't require panicked checks in the mirror every ten minutes because it manages not to migrate north, west, east and south to the surrounding areas of your upper lip, cheeks and chin. I basically want one for every day of the week... a Glossy Stain for every whimsical mood, what a world that would be.
 In hindsight if I were to leave you with one word of warning it would be to choose your shade wisely, I would recommend buying in store as I got mine online as a result of seeing the colour on another blog and deciding what was a pale coraly-orange on this particular lady would be perfect for what I was after... it actually turned out to be a deep pink and almost red when worn on me. Even the lady on the counter remarked that the colour looked very red indeed whilst I was perusing the shade range in person at my local Selfridges and went on to ask if it was actually number 12 I had purchased and that I wasn't confusing the colours...I wasn't but anyway to conclude, these are the my new make up love... so go and buy one, or at least go and buy me another one.

Oh, and at £22.50 a pop they are rather expensive...