A Makeup & Beauty Blog – Lipglossiping

Sorry ladies, I got taup-ally happy with my Yves Rocher ordering didn’t I?  This is the last one… I promise (until the next time).

You’ll be pleased to hear that this one was also the cheapest, and I didn’t have much hopes for it… but I think it’s my favourite!

#71 Gris Taupe is a densely pigmented shade with a satin finish.  So many times, cheaper powder eyeshadows lack any creaminess and feel gritty or hard to the touch.  This one has all the textural qualities you’d expect from a product twice the price.  Packaging is horrible though, this one’s definitely a depotter, though I do like a neat square pan in a depotted palatte, so it’s all good!

You can see in the swatch photo that the taupe definitely leans to the grey and is fairly neutral in tone, the silver highlight is very pretty and gives a nice ethereal sheen to the eye area once applied. Longevity is average, and I prefer to apply this one with my finger for a gentler effect as it is quite deep in pigment otherwise.

Yves Rocher Taupe Gris is priced at £8 on a buy-one-get-one-free offer (YR seem to change their prices more often than I change my knickers).

You can buy Taupe Gris online here.

Sorry if I’m on a bit of an Yves Rocher bore train at the minute but I’m slowly working through the order I made last month and included in my naughtiness were a few taupe eyeshadows that had caught my eye in Prague.  This is one of them…

Taupe Bruyere is in their range of single eyeshadows and has a soft sheen, gentle (but not too sheer) pigment and for a powder… a nice, creamy texture wearing well throughout the day.  If you’re looking to see if you’ve already got something simillar in your collection (of course you have), I’d pitch it as closest to a slightly-more-violet version of NARS Lhasa or a less glittery (much less) version of Chanel Illusoire.  I can’t find an exact dupe in the bits that I’ve already unpacked.

Yves Rocher Taupe Bruyere is available to buy online, priced at £12.00 – the price fluctuates in the sales though and I paid half that only a few weeks ago…

Want it?

Who says you need to spend oodles of money to smell like a goddess in the shower?

Yves Rocher’s Voile d’Ambre Shower Gel defies its (current) sub-£10 price tag and smells more like one of the department store fragrance flankers.  At £7-odd, I don’t use this daily… but it’s perfect for layering under your favourite oriental, woody perfumes and is a great scent choice for ushering in the colder weather.

I’m not going to review it like it’s a perfume… it’s a shower gel after all, and I can only hold a certain amount of excitement for shower gels regardless of how nice they are, but still… the amber in Voile d’Ambre isn’t overpowering but lasts beautifully on my skin.  I’m keen to explore the other shower gels, and perhaps even the perfumes in the Yves Rocher line – I’m glad I added this one to my recent order, it’s so nice to find a new brand (to me) to get my teeth stuck into!

Yves Rocher Voile d’Ambre Shower Gel is currently priced at £7.80 and is available to buy online in the UK from the Yves Rocher website.

When I made my first online Yves Rocher order a couple of weeks ago, they were offering a couple of free gifts and one of them was this mascara: Sexy Pulp, which to be honest makes me think more about Jarvis Cocker busting a Common People move than anything mascara-related.  And yes, I am not ashamed to admit that I had a soft spot for Jarvis growing up… go listen to Babies/Pink Glove/She’s A Lady and tell me they aren’t some of the best tunes of the 90s!

But less about my taste in music and back to the makeup…

Yves Rocher Sexy Pulp mascara has one of those brushes that curves inward in the middle.  I don’t think I’ve ever used one before and they do work quite efficiently, mimicking the natural curve of the lashes to ensure that you can achieve an even distribution of product across the lash-line without bending your arms into awkward angles.

The formula is neither too wet nor too dry but the packaging doesn’t provide much in the way of a seal when you slide the brush in/out of the tube so I don’t expect the formula to remain wet for very long.  The mascara is nicely rich in pigment and has an elastic quality to it that lengthened my lashes considerably, stretching them out to their full reach without weighing them down.

Two coats are shown above.  I didn’t experience any flaking or smudging and removal was easy enough with some warm water and my usual cleanser.  Yves Rocher Sexy Pulp Mascara doesn’t blow me away but it’s better than I expected from a free gift, no complaints here!

Yves Rocher Sexy Pulp Mascara is available to buy online, currently priced at £8.45 (but do look around for free gift codes!)

When it comes to BB Creams, I remain unconvinced of their reinterpretations within the Western market.  In the past year, I’ve experienced attempts ranging from uninspiring tinted moisturisers with little skin protection to re-badged HD foundation to glow-givers with great SPF that wouldn’t cover a tea stain on a teabag.  I’ve found that in the majority of cases, I’ve ended up reviewing them on the basis of their efforts as a foundation which probably says a lot about how much they’ve achieved when it comes down to the skin benefits side of the equation.  Not a lot.

The first thing I really noticed when I applied Yves Rocher’s Peau Parfaite 6in1 BB Cream was the instant boost of hydration.  I mean, I actually looked down at my fingers to check that it was indeed a tinted cream and not just a moisturiser, thinking that perhaps, I’d misread the box.  But no, looking back up at me, were indeed, skin-coloured fingertips with skin-coloured gloop all over them.

The Yves Rocher incarnation of BB Cream loveliness comes in only two shades and the lightest version, imaginatively named light is a spot-on match for a NW15/20 skin-tone.  It’s extremely pink-toned which I have almost no doubt will cause problems for pale ladies with yellow or olive-toned skins.  For the rest of us, it makes a nice change.

Now, before you get all excited – as I did – as far as I’m concerned, the Yves Rocher Peau Parfaite BB Cream is an immediate BB Cream fail on account of having absolutely no sun-protection rating.  None, nada.  The skincare benefits listed are also pretty vague… as you can see for yourself…

It’s very easy to say revives, restores, smooths and unifies without actually saying much at all in terms that can be tangibly judged.

But just because I’m writing it off as a BB Cream, that’s not to say that I’m writing it off completely… my skin felt very comfortable whilst wearing it throughout the day, it caused no aggravations or flakiness and I was pleased with how my skin looked everytime I looked in the mirror.  My nose did need blotting a couple of times throughout the day but I always experience that whenever I wear a moisturising base, which is what I believe this to be and where, I feel, its greatest strength lies.

I do have to laugh at the packaging which claims that from a satisfaction test on 26 women, 85% thought that their skin was visibly more beautiful.  Basically, that’s a bit of a crap claim isn’t it?  Talk about damning oneself with faint praise.

A perfect skin-tone match though eh what?

I’m aware that a lot of my foundation before/afters aren’t the most mind-blowing examples of WOAH, WHAT A DIFFERENCE!  But that’s probably because I favour (and get more excited about) base products that give a natural, flawless finish rather than a mask-like one.  I probably wouldn’t be happy with my nose redness completely obliterated, what can I say… it matches my eyes!

Yves Rocher Peau Parfaite BB Creme is currently priced at £9 (usual price £18) and is available to buy online at YvesRocher.co.uk – please do a quick google search for discount/free gift codes before buying – my latest order came with a lovely bounty of freebies after spending over a certain amount.

* press sample