Flashback Beauty Friday 74: YSL Palette Esprit Couture

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Ooh, a bit of a special one today, definitely from the "too pretty to swatch" pile, but first, if you missed last week, I shared the gold gloss from No7's Sundowner collection for Summer 2011.

Today, I have two compacts from the Yves Saint Laurent Autumn 2007 collection, the Palette Esprit Couture. Inspired by the now iconic, puffy, bow-backed gown from the Yves Saint Laurent, Haute Couture collection for Autumn 1983, this is another one of my FBF items where beauty blends with fashion. Not surprising given so many fashion houses have branched out into cosmetics. There were two palettes available, designed for both the face and eyes (often YSL release two LE palettes with one intended for eyes and the other for the face, so this was slightly unusual).

The palettes come in gold mirrored boxes with black velvet pouches inside. There's two small pockets with brushes enclosed; a small flat, wide brush intended for the face and a black double ended sponge applicator for the eyes (with one smaller side to line and the other for applying shadow over the lid). The gold compacts are highly reflective with a large YSL logo frosted to one side. Inside, there's a framed mirror and square powder pan with slightly embossed design.

Palette Esprit Couture No.1, Collector Powder For Eyes And Complexion is the lighter of the two shades.  Each palette contains 4 colours; a base then a trio of colours on the model, bow and dress.  The dress shade is most definitely an eye only colour, in a blackened midnight blue.  The bow is a lemon yellow shade, which could also work as an illuminator on the face.  The base is a pretty, sweetie pink with the model a pale ivory-peach.  Obviously all the colours would work on the eyes, but the pink and ivory are likely the best for the face.  I suppose a larger blush or highlighting brush could be used to swirl the trio of colour in the top portion of the palette (pink, ivory and lemon) for a glowing shade on the face.  All the colours appear to have a frost finish, you can see, not big chunks of glitter, but a subtle shimmer throughout the whole palette, but like I say, I'm guessing as I'll never use these!

Palette Esprit Couture No.2, Collector Powder For Eyes And Complexion is a slightly more bold, darker combination with this bright purple for the dress, again an eye only shade.  The model is a stunning chocolate brown with a beige background (darker than the ivory model shade in the other palette) and the bow on the dress here is white with a gold sheen.  The bow would make a stunning highlight both on the cheeks and the inner corner of the eye.  Again if you swirled all three of the top shades together, you could get a lovely bronzy shade to illuminate or bronze the face depending on your skintone.  Apparently these palettes were designed to work for all skin and eye colours.  

Of all my limited edition YSL palettes, these are probably my favourites and the ones I'm least likely to ever use.  It's a pity as I think I'd actually like the colours (obviously I can't comment on their performance), but I just love looking at them as they are, as a pristine collectors piece.  Do you remember these, do you ever buy makeup you know you'll never use?