YSL Nail Laque Polish #43 Wintergreen 2011 Fall vs MAC Deep Sea Nail polish colour swatch/ review

Fall season means all these brands are coming out with dark greens and burgandy and various deep shades of nail polishes.

Here's a change to my usual pink and nudes direction, YSL Nail Laque 2011 Fall collection in #43 Wintergarden.

I was just going to wear the YSL, then I realised it reminded me so much of MAC Deep Sea which was also recently acquired.

Well here they are, MAC deep sea on the left and YSL wintergreen on the right.

MAC Deep Sea looks like an inky, dark forest green in a creme/ opaque finish in the bottle, while YSL wintergreen has a lot more jewel toned shimmer/ flash in a slightly brighter looking forest green base.

Here are swatches below- I'm holding YSL WinterGreen in my hand.

The top 2 nails are MAC Deep Sea, bottom 2 are YSL.

Obviously the YSL shimmer is a lot more visible.

In this swatch below I'm holding MAC Deep Sea in my hand.

The two top nails are still MAC Deep Sea and bottom 2 are YSL wintergarden. I'm not wearing a topcoat in either picture above or below. Both polishes has a superb glossy finish.

I know you must be thinking....they are the same once on the nails! Other than one has shimmer and the other one doesnt. On the nails they are both a very rich , pigmented deep forest green  (YSL seems a tinge more opaque than MAC). The YSL shimmers are beautiful, jewel toned like, and even. It makes the deep green look glowy.

MAC on the other side offers a crisp, clean creme finish. Looks better with short nails while YSL can be sported on both medium length or long nails since the shimmers help with that.

So....verdict? I love YSL 43 wintergreen a bit more I think. I just find it amazing how they are exactly the same shade on the nails, just one shade is missing shimmers. To be honest due to the very dark color base, the YSL shade will NOT be as sparkly/ shimmery in real life under natural light compared to my photos. MAC looks like a pretty nice dark green glossy creme too in natural light.



Overall 5/5 for YSL, and 4/5 for MAC. The YSL shimmer is truly gorgeous particularly with such a deep shade.

YSL Nail Touch Vernis Nail Lacquer Brush Pen #003 Pink Touch swatch/ review

Honestly ever since the success of the YSL touche eclat pens, YSL keeps on trying to replicate that across all the products, There's a pen version of the foundation, a pen version of the lipglosses, now there's even a pen version of their nail lacquer.

I bought this out of pure curiosity, and for once YSL disappoints me. The product is a tiny 4ml in a clicky pen like the YSL touch eclat size, the polish is housed in the plastic tube on the back of the pen- the plastic tube is semi transparent so you can see the color inside.

They RRP for a whopping 26USD- I'm assuming the cost relates to the brush holder itself. I don't think the polish are refillable either.

Here are the total 6 shades available:

I bought #003 Pink Touch

swatch on YSL website is this:

Here's the back of the tube where you can see the color, it's clearly a bit lighter than the website swatch for #003 pink touch:

The brush tip:

After a few clicks, you can see the polish oozing out from the brush tip:

It's a total pain to apply- hard to control the amount on the bristle, hard to control how it applies on the nails.

In addition, it dries quite slowly so when I try to apply the second coat, I find it sort of goops up with the first coat making it look quite uneven.  This was my best effort after 2 coats. I suppose on the nails where it's applied properly, it's a nice french color and makes my nails look quite pretty. It also enhances the white of your nail tip due to the color base. I would really call #003 Pink Touch as a baby ivory pink nude french color.

Overall 1/5. Really unimpressed with the size to price (4ml for $26USD??). While I paid less I still think it's ridiculous pricing and packaging. The color is at best an average ivory pink french shade.

YSL Palette Collection Collector Powder for the Complexion Autumn Winter 2008

I forgot since when, but YSL started releasing a collector's face powder every year usually during autumn/winter collection or Christmas. They feature wonderful prints and are usually a little bit luminous.

This was the one from 2008, yes took me a while to review this...

It comes in 3 color stripes, with the YSL Collection text as a gold overspray on top. One single swipe and the beautiful text is gone.

Comes in the standard YSL shiny gold mirrored compact, with YSL font on top.

There's also a pretty average brush included. It does ok as portable brush but if given any other choices, I'd just go with my regular powder brushes.

The three colors are a soft luminous pink, an ivory with very fine gold shimmers, then a velvet (almost matte) light beige.

Here's a swatch- you can see the color is barely picked up, because this face powder really does have minimal color. On the very right is all the colors mixed together, which is a soft pinky-glowy beige face powder. The golden shimmers are more prominent there because of the YSL golden text overspray. Once that goes, I expect a lot less visible shimmer.

The powders are mostly 'luminous', which works well as an overall face powder after regular foundation just to finish the face off. It doesn't provide any coverage, but just seems to even the skintone out.

I like the very subtle tint, because some foundations can go on a bit mask like or too pale, then this helps to bring some 'natural' color back into my face.

Overall 4/5.

It's definitely not essential and if you actually hunt this down you'd probably be disappointed, because it is a pretty basic simple overall face powder, does not quite double as a highlighter either given the luminousity is so subtle. No way would this work as a blush due to the lack of pigmentation too.

The compact only contains 9g of powder, (most pressed powders or powder foundations 8g (e.g. Burberry powder foundation, to 9g, e.g. Fancl lucent pressed powder). With the powder being so finely milled, I actually do think you need a few extra swipes to get enough quantity, so 9g would probably not last all that long.

However, I do like this, after all half the thing about using makeup is being able to look at pretty things, and this is very pretty indeed.

Spring makeup must see! Armani/Albion/Paul & Joe/Maquillage/Coffret D'or / Aube Couture (February Spring Biteki special edition)

Biteki is one of the top Japanese beauty magazine much like Voce and Maquia (comparable to what Allure is in the US I suppose). Every quarter they release a special pamphlet which features almost EVERY single brand's seasonal collection (not just usual boring promo pictures but literally every item of the actual product), so you can see lipstick shades in actual colors and all the eyeshadows or even eyeliners/ eyebrow pencils all under professional photos!

Along with the pics you also have with a quick description of the product (e.g. this eyeshadow is meant to feature a sheer iridescent finish, or this lipstick line is a pigmented creamy finish), and whether product is Limited Edition (yes the word that makes all women crazy.. =P ) in addition to Japanese RRP prices and color codes/ full names (unfortunately not with English product names too- but I can always figure it out in the end by comparing against official website). Best of all is the main magazine body often uses those products on models, and in this little pamphlet it also notes like 'please refer to page 90 of the main magazine' where a product in the pamphlet featured in spring collection was applied to a model. How neat is that! so you can see great swatch pics on the model. (of course there's some photoshopping but I find the colors quite accurate).

Here are some extracts from magazine on things I want to get, there are so any pages in this supplment, I only took a few pics of the ones I'm interested in, respecting the copyright of the magazine, I highly recommend purchasing the magazine if you could (though this magazine RRP is 550Yen in Japan yet I can only find it for $19AUD in Australia, hello! what a ridiculous markup!)

(Japanese brands below can be purchased from http://www.adambeauty.com/ (cheaper but less choices and slower updates) or http://www.ichibankao.com/ (more expensive but quicker updates)). Not affiliated with either sites.

Maquillage

Suqqu

Suqqu is a Japan exclusive so far I believe (and also UK as a reader pointed out! thanks!), it's quite pricey...

Jill Stuart-

The same pink looks...

Shiseido Integrate

(Which is a drugstore line)

Est and Eprise (both are premium makeup lines)

Kanebo Coffret D'or (I dont find the lipstick swatches too helpful though- neither is the main website, however if you like light to medium shades, most colors are really user-friendly and foolproof, other than a few really dark ones in the swatches you might want to check out first before purchasing sight unseen.

Ayura- again, mostly sold in Japan.

Sofina Aube Couture

Aube Couture is the new line replacing "Aube", it's a bit more pricey, however I think they are also trying to grow into a more mature brand. I'm quite excited about this! purchased a few items already, need to find time to try them.

Giorgio Armani Pink Lights collection- again, super overpriced brand as we all know it...I think the botton left is the 'Blending Cheek Duo' in #4- Rosewood and something..can be seen on official website, RRP60USD (booo)

Shiseido International

Estee Lauder and Clinique

Very interested in that EL palette, I've seen gorgeous pics elsewhere of it!

Clinique ones features 4 Limited Edition eyeshadows in the blossom print (in previous years they've been releasing blushes in that print).

Guerlain Paradis

Guerlain new collection features many single eyeshadows and the Paradis palette #404, unfortunately it's one of those brands that seems to grow in price exponentially...

Paul & Joe Ingenue Collection (reviewed in my blog) and the regular line additions - see my earlier posts for reviews on the Ingenue collection.

RMK Translucence

Lunasol- blossom collection

YSL

hrrrm a tad weaker this year, nice colors but not very exciting, just variations of spring shades really..

Hope you find these helpful! I compared some actual product pics against my photos above and they match quite reasnoably well.