YSL Beauty: Couture Palette

I’m the first to admit that I’m no makeup expert. From choosing colours to applying the stuff, I’m lazy, unadventurous and frankly more than a little bit crap. As I explained in my first attempt at beauty blogging earlier this summer, my routine generally consists of a bit of powder, mascara and possibly a cat eye slick of black liquid eyeliner with a badly drawn bright lip to jazz things up if I’m feeling really wild. I think this fear possibly stems from some highly regrettable teenage experimentation with glittery eyeshadow and industrial quantities of bronzer but seriously, I’m 23, it’s time to get over that. Recently I’ve been trying to experiment with a few more dramatic makeup looks than my usual and a couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and gave the YSL Couture Palette a whirl…

There were a few different factors behind my decision to choose the YSL Couture Palette for my first foray into eyeshadow since I was about 17 years old, wearing American Apparel tube dresses, copious amounts of fake tan and dancing to Nelly Furtado in dubious Portugal holiday resorts. Firstly, YSL Beauty is fantastic. I mean, they gave us the Touche Éclat for Pete’s sake. This particular eyeshadow palette is also rather a special one as it’s been specifically designed to capture the essence of the iconic Maison itself through a modern reinterpretation of Yves Saint Laurent’s timeless codes, in particular the legendary Mondrian dress. Luscious, bold hues separated by graphic black lines and encased in Cassandre logo stamped gold; delectable enough to tempt even someone who still bears the shame of their teenage dalliance with sparkly blue eyeshadow and dream matte mousse (thanks for that Facebook) to indulge in a little eyelid decoration. The Couture Palette comes in 11 different colour variations and I opted for N° 10 Lumières Majorelle because I just can’t resist something that’s shiny and green. Incidentally, it also went perfectly with my current favourite outfit and looks cracking with a tan, or in my case the slight decrease in pastiness I achieved through my Sotogrande holiday and am desperately trying to cling on to. Full disclosure, I didn’t have the foggiest how I should apply the palette and decided to wing it rather than look for an online guide or anything sensible like that. But do you know what? I was pretty pleased with the results. So here, mes amies, is my YSL Couture Palette eyeshadow step by step…

Base

I kicked things off with a simple, clean fresh base. Nothing that ran this risk of looking caked on or unpleasant, just my usual everyday thing with a bit of extra coverage because it looks weird to have dramatic, party ready eyes and exposed blemishes on the same face.

Lemon

Despite not having any expert help to hand, I figured that trying to using all four of the colours in the palette wasn’t a great idea and went for the lemon yellow combined with shimmering peacock blue. Since consulting the press release at a later date I learned that you can in fact use all four but I suspect that had I attempted this I would have looked like I’d been punched. To apply the lemon yellow block colour I literally just used the round end of the applicator that comes in the box, smoothed it across my lid and blended as it moved up towards the brow using little circular movements. I’m sure there is a better method and more professional tools one can use but my distinctly amateur way seemed to do the job.

Peacock

And now for the tricky bit, a shimmering, darker shade just waiting to go horribly wrong. As you can see, it didn’t go that wrong. In fact I gave myself a hearty pat on the back afterwards for a job well done! Basically all I did was use the opposite end of the applicator to carefully apply the shadow in a triangle like shape from the outside corner of my eye. From there you can add and blend to create the desired effect.

Finishing Touches

After deciding that my eyeshadow was just about as good as it was going to get, I finished things off with a slick of black liquid eyeliner, lashings of mascara… Et voila!

All in all the YSL Couture Palette is very easy to use – if I can do it literally anyone can – and the colours are wonderful. You can shop the N° 10 Lumières Majorelle here and all the shades here. If you give it a go tweet me your pics @Ella_LaPetite

Love Ella. X

Images by Michaela Peker
Location: The London EDITION