Kiss & Love, huh? When I look at all the products in this collection, well, all but nail polish, I realize Kiss & Love is meant literally here by YSL. Just look at all these kisses. So far the only connection I see to holiday season here is red and gold, which is the signature holiday season combination. Before I draw any further conclusions though, I want to take a closer look at all the products in this collection.
The star product here is definitely Kiss & Love edition complete make-up palette.
All kissy too. The box is all kissy.
And the palette itself.
For once the fact that the packaging is paper with this string thing doesn’t bother me. Looks good.
The palette is small and thin, but guess what… they weren’t kidding when they said ‘complete’ about this palette. Amazing but in this small little space here YSL manage to fit four eye shades, two lip shades and one blush shade. Nice. No base or powder, but I’ll cut them some slack here – this palette is small.
All products in the palette withstand YSL quality test and are up to the luxury market level.
We have three brushes here.
A blush brush – makes sense.
A pointed eyeshadow brush for precise application and eye lining.
A classic eyeshadow sponge applicator.
All three are short stemmed, but workable in case you need to fix your makeup on the run. Now, to apply makeup, of course, you’d be better off using full size brushes.
Eyeshadow first. Four shades.
Medium milk chocolate brown with golden sparkle. Warm and lighter that usual, which I like.
Light yellow gold with a golden sheen.
Very light beige with pink beige sparkle.
Copper, on the lighter side.
There’s nothing new about these eyeshadow colours. It’s holiday classic. All golden sparkle. Copper. Brown. We’ve seen all these shades many many times. So, good old.
Let’s see the lip shades now and how they correspond with the eye shades.
For lips we have two Rouge Volupte shades.
Light rose with golden sparkle.
And then we have raspberry with golden sparkle.
Hm. Now, if eye shades are typically holiday, matching these shades with pink and raspberry lip shades is not typical at all. It’s something new. Not red that we’re used to expect to see with beige and brown and gold on our eyelids. Golden sparkle is still there though, on the lips too 🙂
The blush shade is in the area where almost all luxury brands went this holiday season with blush. It’s natural pink with golden sheen.
I like this shade. It’s fresh and nice and this golden shine adds a holiday feel to it. It’s like natural look dressed up for holidays. This blush shade is an absolute winner.
Please, see more swatches of the palette. Here I have left to right four eye shades, two lip shades and one blush shade.
Touche Eclat Kiss & Love edition Radiant Touch 1 Rose Lumiere
Covered in kisses. This is a truly limited edition of this highlighter.
I like the formula a lot. Given its coverage is not as full as cream highlighter coverage. Still its coverage is good enough.
And I love the button on the bottom that helps to get the highlighter out. I’m so tired of rotating the tips of all other highlighters in the same class. I hate doing it. I think it’s inefficient. It bothers me. The button on YSL highlighter doesn’t bother me at all. Just be patient enough to hit it extra amount of times up front. Then it will be a breeze to use it.
The shade is rosy. And it’s a good thing. Most highlighters are beige or yellowish. Pink is very rare in highlter/concealer world.
I love pink highlighters. So flattering. If there’s any sallow undertone to your skin, you might benefit from it too. It’s not piggy pink, it’s beige with a rosy glow to it.
If this tone of Touche Eclat is not your thing, this limited edition comes in two more shades – more yellow and darker, so they have us all covered here which is great.
Don’t like Rouge Volupte? Prefer more classic creamy lipstick texture? Kissy beauty continues with four shades of Rouge Pur Couture. And they come in Kiss & Love edition too. The golden packaging has kisses all over it.
Speaking about packaging, why on earth is it so hard to open YSL Rouge pur Couture lipstick box??? I mean, c’mon. It’s luxury market. You have to be able to get to the lipstick without ruining the packaging. Especially this limited edition packaging. Seriously. This is ridiculous. I’m no big fan of YSL lipstick, so I keep forgetting about it, and then I have to face it again, when I do buy their lipstick. I have a bunch of YSL Rouge pur Couture at home in torn boxes. Something needs to be done about it.
The golden square tube has one kiss on it too. Awesome. I like detail in limited editions.
YSL Rouge Pur Couture is a good cream lipstick formula. Not too heavy. Full coverage. Satin shine. Not annoying scent. This is not my favourite cream lipstick formula, but it’s quite good.
So, what are the four shades?
Rouge Pur Couture Kiss & Love edition 1 Le Rouge
Le Rouge it is.
Red. Not too light. Doesn’t have much orange in it. Vampy. Sexy classic. Darker sultry red shade. The ultimate lipstick shade. It’s what we mean, when we say ‘womanly’.
And look at these lips on the lipstick itself. Kudos, YSL. It’s such a good job. Love it.
Rouge Pur Couture Kiss & Love edition 13 Le Orange
This is very orange.
Not coral. Bright orange. Lighter orange. Vibrant orange. Might be too orange for me.
A lot of people would prefer more of a coral shade.
The kisses are still here, which makes me very happy.
Rouge Pur Couture Kiss & Love edition 19 Le Fuchsia
This fuchsia has a lot of purple in it.
Fuchsia is a combination of pink and purple. This one is very purple. Bright.
Not sure it’s the most flattering fuchsia out there. If there were more pink in it, it would become more people.
The kisses though, here they are 🙂
Rouge Pur Couture Kiss & Love edition 70 Le Nu
Nu gives us a hint of what this shade will be.
It’s a nude shade. A nice nude shade. A very well balanced and very becoming beige.
Kind of pinkish, but not too pinkish, just a touch. A good option to go with bright eye makeup.
Soft and understated. Well, and the kisses, of course 🙂
Let’s see all four lipstick shades side by side here.
Left to right: Le Rouge, Le Orange, Le Fuchsia, Le Nu.
Getting to the nail polish here. We have three shades – one permanent and two limited editions – and one top coat. Let’s take a look.
Limited edition shades first.
La Laque Couture 67 Rouge d’Or
is a bright vigorous and vibrant red, fiery red with an orange undertone to it.
Why d’Or? When I look at it in the bottle, I see all the golden sheen there.
Here’s the problem though.
Once it’s on the nails, I don’t see this golden sheen.
It’s just red. A nice red. My favourite red shade.
But where’s all the gold?
La Laque Couture 68 Carmin d’Or
is, basically, cherry red.
Red just about to give raspberry a hug, but too shy to do it, really.
Darker, deeper than Rouge d’Or.
Just like Rouge d’Or though, it promises all the glorious golden sheen when in the bottle.
Once on the nails though, all the golden sheen is gone.
It’s just cherry red. That’s all there is to it.
La Laque Couture 1 Rouge Pop Art
is YSL permanent range red shade.
It’s deeper or darker if you want.
It’s a red classic.
I’d probably agree it’s a perfect permanent range red, although, personally, I prefer Rouge d’Or.
It’s my kind of red.
Still, Rouge Pop Art is hot. Very hot.
The top coat now.
La Laque Couture Top Coat 47 Feuille d’Or.
Ok, so it’s transparent and has bigger rougly cut golden glitter in it of different shape and size.
Is it nice? Yes. Christmasy? For sure. Original? Nope. We’ve seen something like that, almost the same thing in holiday collections over and over again. Last year by Dior and Guerlain. This year by Lancome. You know what, I’d like something more imaginative and creative than that. Anyway, here it is.
Well, let’s see all these reds topped with Feuille d’Or.
67 Rouge d’Or
Pretty. Festive.
Christmasy.
My personal favourite.
68 Carmin d’Or
Dark. Sultry.
Womanly.
Cherry.
1 Rouge Pop Art
Somewhere in between the first two.
Red, but deeper. And sexier.
Hot.
Not sure how lipstick shades correspond with eye shades from the palette or nail polish shades. It’s like it’s all pretty separately, but doesn’t come that well together.
I have to say though I do appreciate the effort that went into this design by YSL. This collection is full of truly limited editions. The design is stunning and beautiful. But there is a but.
I’m not saying all this kissy stuff is not pretty and cute and everything, but what does it have to do with Christmas? Holiday season? Winter? Nothing, in my opinion. When I look at it, I see no connection to holiday season whatsoever. It looks like Valentine’s Day collection. I mean, it does. So, I admit that the design is cool, but it seems completely misplaced in terms of timing and season. Where are the holidays? Where’s winter? Where’s snowy chic? Any of that? Where is it, YSL?
