Festive Beauty: Day 6

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Day 6 of Festive Beauty takes us to 2012 and the wonderful Northern Lights collection by Yves Saint Laurent. Check the bottom of the post for my little treat and yesterday I shared the No7 Jewelled Eyes palette. My Irregular Choice Festive Footwear post on The Shoe Girl Diaries will follow later.

I'd looked out both of the items I have today without connecting them to the same collection. I should've known really, but the colour of gloss threw me to think it was actually from a summer collection. However, the unique colours and lights of the Aurora Borealis were the inspiration for this collection. “The Aurora Borealis, or northern lights, are incredibly vivid and I have many memories of witnessing this magical spectacle from my childhood. Their lights inspired me to create this collection of intense colours, shot through with violet and midnight blue and sprinkled with slivers of pearl, like a star-filled night” says Lloyd Simmonds, Creative Director of Beauty at YSL. I honestly don't think there's a more inspirational colour palette and finish to draw from than that, the colours are right up my street.

I had to get the La Laque Couture Top Coat in 33 Premiere Neige. I have used this so much over the years, I really wasn't sure how well it would photograph, but it came out beautifully. It's a thin polish, like water and the pearl and shimmer settle to the base, so you need to shake it up a lot to watch the clear varnish turn into what is photographed here. I'd put this polish in my top 10 of all time, it's something I just wear on repeat and rarely with the same colour underneath. It transforms any colour and looks stunning under the light, shifting vivid colours and twinkling, it's really beautiful.

I blogged and swatched it at the time I bought it, but the photos are now missing from that post as I have to manually locate and re-upload every single photo from over 10 years of blogging after I had to move hosting platforms. I don't know when I'll get to it! Trust me though, this polish looks good over anything, light, dark, bright, it perfectly represents the Northern Lights in my opinion.

I also got the Golden Gloss in 55 Arctic Blue, which is another item I've used quite a lot (though not as regularly as the polish), that I expected to look a little worse for wear, but it's fine. I did swatch it, but it didn't really turn out well. It's essentially a clear gloss, but with a blue tint and sporadic glitters. I believe there was a second gloss in this range, more white with a shift if I recall correctly. I do have another couple of similar YSL GG's from another Christmas collection, but at the moment can't recall which came first. The blue was just such a unique lip colour and this whole collection veered away from the red/silver/gold usual trope we see at the end of the year, yet still felt glitzy and special.

My treat today is a free Perfectly Clean Multi-Action Foam Cleanser/Purifying Mask, worth £24.50, when you spend £40 on Estee Lauder (one of my favourite cleansers).  Will automatically add to basket if available, no code required.