Yves Saint Laurent Couture Palette Review & Swatches - Parisienne & Palette Bleus Lumiere

Yves Saint Laurent recently released a new addition to their eyeshadow collection: the Couture Palette. I have a soft spot for pink eyeshadows so I picked up "Parisienne #7" and of course, the limited edition "Palette Bleus Lumiere" that was released as a part of the 2014 summer collection.

YSL separated its palettes into 5 sections with each section designed for a different purpose:
- top left: base
- top right: highlighter
- bottom left & right & middle: colours

Parisienne #7 (permanent)
Since I am a fan of the Naked 3 palette, it is no surprise that this has become one of my favourite eyeshadow palettes. One downside that I find with the Naked 3 is that most of the colours are quite warm-toned and dark. Because of this, it can look a bit overdone for my casual makeup days. Personally, I find that Parisienne, on the other hand, has softer and more wearable shades.

One aspect that I really like about this palette is that it is very versatile. For a neutral eye, I can just simply disregard the two bottom pinky shades and only use the top neutral colours. For a romantic eye, I use the light pink as my base colour (the YSL makeup artist looked amazing when she used the palette this way).

All five shades are perfectly pigmented and smooth. The four outer colours have a metallic finish, which can look quite sparkly under natural light, and the middle shade is semi matte (has a tiny amount of shimmer in it but nothing very noticeable). With both shimmer and matte finishes, Parisienne does make a very nice complete palette.

Palette Bleus Lumiere (limited edition)
Between the two palettes, I do prefer Parisienne over Bleus Lumiere. The colours in this palette is undoubtedly very pretty and summer appropriate; however, I find that the bottom left and middle shade don't apply as smoothly as the other three shades (a bit patchy in my opinion). This may be because their finishes do lean more on the matte side rather than the metallic side that the other ones have.

Being left with only three metallic, colourful shades that I like, I am not able to create a complete eye look. In my opinion, I would skip this limited edition palette and pick one from the permanent line instead.

Overall

Despite how soft and finely milled these eyeshadows are, I find that I get absolutely no fallout when I apply them onto my lids. They are pigmented, smooth (except for the two bottom ones in the Bleus Lumiere) and the colour range of this Couture Palette line is quite extensive. Lots of thumbs up from me ! :)