Beauty Buys of the Week: YSL

This week, I bought a Yves St Laurent Rouge Pur Couture Vernis à Lèvres lip stain in 15 Rose Vinyl. It's hard to know exactly how to describe this product as it ticks three boxes perfectly: lip stain, lip gloss and lip stick. The colour is fantastic - with staying power of well over 5 hours (as my own recent study showed), and the colour stays just as strong as it was when it was put on. The only thing that fades with this product is the gloss, which still lasts close to two hours, making it better than any other lip gloss I've used before. The gloss is light on the lips, non-gloopy (as some glosses tend to be), and the best thing about this product? When it's windy, and my hair's down, I no longer have to worry about my hair sticking to my lipgloss, and later, finding sticky areas in my hair. It's incredible, and there's two ways of wearing the lip stain (see photo two). The first way is to apply a liberal amount of 2-3 coats, creating the top look, which is a strong bold colour (which I highly recommend for a night out), but the bottom look is a single layer of the stain, then after wiping off the excess from the brush, running it along the surface of the lips again. It helps to blend the colour, creating a more natural, freshly kissed look that is really flattering in the day, when too much colour isn't necessarily required. Then, throughout the day, repeating this method every 3-4 hours enables this product to last all day without fading, as it continues to stain your lips even when the shine's faded. This product retails at £22.50, so it isn't cheap, but it's such a versatile product that I don't see myself having another lip gloss until the new year.