Yves Saint Laurent Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils in 3 Noir Bronze/ Bronze Black

Greek/ Ελληνικά

I find that the Christmas holidays are the perfect time to try something a bit shinier, a bit more glamorous than usual. For me that is the Yves Saint Laurent Eyeliner Effet Faux Cils eye liner in 3 Noir Bronze/ Bronze Black. It drew my attention cause I love old gold type of colours and I am glad I got it.

It’s been quite a few years now that I’ve been using exclusively Korean and Japanese eye liners, not only cause of their superb quality, but also because they don’t trigger any of my allergies. There’s only so many times one can try and fail to find an eye liner and mascara in the western market that doesn't trigger any allergies before it all feels like throwing money down the drain.

That’s when I noticed that on the packaging of the YSL eye liner were the magic words: Made in Korea. I have since noticed that the glass jar is exactly the same as my much loved Shu Uemura one(the lids are different of course), they contain the same amount of product(2.8gr) and they are very alike in texture. Given that both brands belong to the same parent company, L’Oreal, chances are they are made in the same factory. It was worth a try!

What’s it like though? It’s a black gel-cream eye liner saturated with bronze shimmer, thus making it look olive green in the jar. If you smudge it out a bit, then the black base becomes more apparent. It is super smooth, it glides on the skin easily, the colour is very opaque so you need only a couple of swipes to get it to look perfect and I’ve worn in for over 10 hours(sans a primer) without experiencing any transfer, smudging, crumbling or anything unpleasant. It almost feels like I have nothing on. On the eye it looks more black than in the jar and the bronze shimmer makes it look so elegant and delightful.

I’ve worn it lots during the holidays and I find it very reliable. It’s a very welcome shimmering addition to my eye liner collection, since most of my other eyeliners are Shu Uemura and their range is all matts. I think I might get the Jade Black next. Emerald green eyeliners are my weak spot!

ΧΧΧ

Elysse

Beauty tips: How to Find Which Colours Suit Your Eye Colour

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One of the most commonly asked questions you hear women ask with regards to eye make up is "what colours suit me". Personally I subscribe to the 'all of the colours could suit you depending on how you use them' school, but some people need to know what the complementary colour to their eyes is. 

According to colour theory the complementary colours are:

• green and red
• blue and orange
• purple and yellow.

The usual response to this information is this: 0_0. Here is a very easy way to figure out the exact complementary colours to your eye colour. Take a picture of your eye, as close as as you can -please, be sensible and don't use flash for this- and invert the colours in the picture. If you're using a photo-processing program then you probably know how to do this, but even if you don't and are using Windows, there's still an easy way to do this.

 1.Right-click on the image and select 'open with Paint'

 2.When the 'Paint' program opens your image select 'Image' on the top bar

 3.Select 'Invert Colours' and you're done!!

Here's an example of my picture

Original

Inverted colour

I have light brown eyes and in my inverted colours image I can see that my complimentary colours are turquoise to dark blue. The easiest way to emphasize the darker shades of brown in my eyes then would be to wear turquoise colours around my eyes and if I want to emphasize the lighter brown shades I should wear dark blue, whether that is eye shadow, eyeliner or even mascara. 

Are the colours you find using this method the only colours that have that effect on your eyes? Most certainly not; lip colour, other colours around the eyes and blusher can be equally effective, but this is only a beginner's method so that you can start understanding colour and the effect it can have.

I hope it helped a little bit! Good luck trying it!

My Perfect Eye Liner: Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black

Happy New Lunar Year everybody!! It's the year of the black dragon, the dragon of water! How exciting does that sound? I thought that the perfect product to feature on such a day is my beloved gel eye liner, Shu Uemura Painting Liner M Black/ M Noir (for the French speaking population). 

There are not enough words of praise for this little miracle. I've had the same jar for 2 years and 2 months, I use it at least 3 times a week and only now has it started to not glide on as easily as when I had first bought it, but even so it's still great! Here's a picture of my jar and yes, I am that OCD with my gel liners.

It's not a glossy black like liquid liners tend to be, but that is to be expected since it's a gel liner. It is easy to blend if you wish to do so, but it won't move around much once it's set. I've had no problems with transfer on the upper lid, which was a major problem for me with other eye liners. It is very smooth to put on as it literally glides on on its own. It has served me right on many long days without smudging, flaking or melting or otherwise making me look like a disaster at the end of a long day.

That said, I have a complaint with Shu Uemura in general these days. Their products all seem to be marked as "Designed in Japan, Made in Korea"(open the picture in a new tab and you should see it clearly, instead of "Made in Japan" like they used to. I have nothing against Korea or Korean cosmetics, but when I buy luxury Japanese cosmetics I expect them to be Japanese. The eye liners were one of the first products they started manufacturing in Korea and nowadays it seems like everything is made there. People at Shu Uemura you are a luxury brand, why treat us this way? You were the ones that got me into Japanese cosmetics and insisted on how their quality is superior to products from all other countries, so why did you become a Korean brand? I do feel cheated somehow and will always wonder what the eye liners were before they moved their manufacturing centres to Korea.

Now that that is out of the way, one small precaution to people living in countries were it gets extremely hot. In temperatures over 38°C it becomes very melty so I don't suggest using it. You can get away with a little bit, but not a proper feline eye. By the end of the day you'll look like you put it on with your fists, kind of like  Taylor Momsen and that's never a good look.

Just to show you how much you can do with this liner, I loaded my brush up (an artist's kolinsky brush size 0) with as much quantity as I could and drew this black dragon without dipping in for more! And bare in mind that my liner is very very old in liner years!

 I did various other lines with a different brush, a no-brand synthetic angled brush. 

Happy New Black Dragon Year Everyone!!