Sparkled Beauty

Spring has barely started on Mother's Day around here where the temp went above 15. How about a bright and cheerful collection to help speed that up?

I have for you today Yves Rocher Summer collection, with beautiful art work in Mediterranean Sea theme. Yellow is my favorite colour, so I am naturally drawn to it :) Let's start with the eye products first.

Up top is the eye trio with a blue, a bronze and a shimmery beige/ darker champagne. The yellow smaller tube in the middle is a glitter mascara.

There are also 4 eye pencils in bright colours, not for the neutral gals. They appear to be matte which got me even more excited. I know you would be as curious as I am to see if they are as good as they look :)

The eye trio has 2 smaller sized shades - Smokey Blue and Bronze (0.028oz/ 0.8g each) and a bigger pan of Golden Beige (0.067oz/ 1.9g).

I like the idea of having a larger pan for a brow bone highlight shade in a trio/ quad/ palette, as I would use it more often than the rest. In this trio however, Golden Beige has quite a sheen to it, does not need to be in a big pan.

Not to say that these eyeshadows are not great, as they are, as a matter of fact. I kinda misjudge them from the start and was glad they prove me wrong.

The eyeshadows are said to have botanical based ingredients and rice extract to create a pearl effect. Whatever it is, I want this formula in all my eyeshadows now. Serious!

Here are the swatches of them with a damp brush, in the same order as in the pan. The colours are pigmented and very easy to apply and blend. The neat thing is they are not soft or crumbly under my brush, hence no fallout at all. And they stay till the end of the day on me!

Bronze is just a hint darker than Golden Beige, makes an awesome transition colour for my skin tone in the summer. It and Smokey Blue take turn to be the crease colour for like 4 days straight on my eyes, pairing nicely with Golden Beige.

The trio retails for $9.95. The only thing I wish for is more colours, maybe a palette of some sort :)

The eye pencils, another exciting bunch, are Royal Blue, Mediterranean Blue, Copper Brown and Lemon Yellow.

These are meant to be long lasting, soft, with comfortable texture suitable for sensitive eyes. And they mean it!

I fell in love with the colours first hand, but fell even further in love when I started swatching and wearing them on the eyes. Since the colours are so bright, I wear them mostly as eyeliners, sometimes as eyeshadows, not much as bases.

I was drawn to Royal Blue first but Mediterranean Blue kinda stole the show. Look at it, how could it not? It is awesome for a pop of colour on the lower lash line, I am officially addicted to using it that way.

Copper Brown is a beautiful burnt red shade but a little hard to wear on the eyes.

I secretly wish Lemon Yellow has less white in it, so I can use it more as an eyeshadow. It makes a good base for Golden Beige above.

The eye pencils are amazingly gentle on my lash line, more than most liners, and stay put until I remove them. Awesome quality for just $5.95 each (0.11oz/ 3.25g). I would hate to sharpen them when the time comes :)

Now comes the sad part, the litter mascara. It looks awesome in the tube, with that cool  metallic/ shimmery gold sheen that would be fun on the lashes.

Well, on me, the gold is hardly visible after one coat, either by itself or on top of a regular mascara.With a few coats layering up, it shows up a little better but still not to the intensity I would hope for.

A fun item for the beach it seems, just need more pigmentation. The tube has 0.13oz/ 4ml of product, sells for $4.95.

On to products for the face. First, a bronzing powder. The compact is quite large, still with the same yellow case and clear lid but the plastic does not feel very sturdy.

The bronzer inside is in a gradient format of 3 shades, appear to have a sheen, not fully matte.

The 3 glosses are in skinny tubes with similar print as in the eye trio. However, the print is only on the plastic wrap that goes around the tube which can come off after a few uses. This degrade the appearance of the glosses, unfortunately.

Here is the bronzer up close and swatches of each section with my finger first, then with a brush swirled all together, multiple layers to show the shade.

The bronzer feels hard to the touch of my finger, but goes ok with a brush. Only the darkest shade shows up on me, so I swirl my brush only on the right side of the pan for bronzing effect and save the lightest shade for other areas of the face.

The bronzer is $9.95 for 0.52oz/ 15g.

The 3 glosses from L-R: Golden Beige, Copper Sun and Bright Pink.

The applicator has quite an interesting shape. The tip is slightly round and flares out from the narrower middle section. I don't know if it makes any difference in application.

There is supposed to be raspberry extract in the ingredients and the glosses smell like candy. They go on a little sticky, sometimes give me troubles between the lips where I can really feel the texture. Not my favorite formula.

Here they are, swatched in the same order as above.

2 opposite ends of the colour payoff spectrum. Golden Beige and Copper Sun are definitely on the sheer side, do not show up much on my lips. With the gold shimmers in Golden Beige and copper shimmers in Copper Sun, they have more to offer on top of other lip products than on their own.

Bright Pink looks very close to a berry red, bright and pigmented, good by itself.

The glosses have 0.15oz/ 4.5ml in the tube, retail $4.95 each. I would love them more if they are less sticky.

Check out the FOTD I did to see some colours in action :)

There are 5 mini nail polish in the collection: Royal Blue, Copper Brown, Bright Pink, Gold and Lemon Yellow, and a crackle in matte Mediterranean Blue.

I don't match my nail colour to my makeup, but if you want to, 3 shades in this bunch coordinate with the eye pencils, and one with the gloss. Gold is the only shade in the polish range that does not have a "companion" :)

I am not in the crackle trend anymore but Mediterranean Blue is a nice shade.

I will show you the swatches in following NOTDs. The polishes are 0.1oz/ 3ml, $2.95 each.

A lonely body product from this collection that I wanted to try - the shower gel. I suck at reviewing scents, so I turned down the EDT :)

The nice thing about this shower gel is its 98% natural botanical-based ingredients, with bergamot, mandarin and lemon essential oils, and paraben free. It is also citrusy and fresh, gets the job done.

Ingredients: Water, Ammonium Lauryl Sulphate, Glycerin, Decyl Glucoside, Centaurea Cyanus Flower Water, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Fragrance, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, etc.

The formula is biodegradable and the bottle (6.7oz/ 200ml, beautiful packaging) is fully recyclable, only $3.95, awesome sauce!

All in all a good and fun collection, available in June in stores and online.