French Week 2012 Day 2 - YSL Faux Cils Mascara

Yesterday we looked at how well French women wear an effortless red lip and today we are looking at one of the best mascaras on the market today.  When French women aren't wearing their red lip for day, they often turn up the smolder factor with a great smoky eye and lashes that look as though they could be fake.  Fake eye lashes are more prevelent in the United States than in many other countries so the women in those countries often turn to a top quality mascara that can mimic the effects of the fake lashes.  With much less effort...  I can't ever see Bridget Bardot waking up in the morning with her perfectly smudged black eye makeup and a fake eye lash falling off...

YSL has been one of the top French beauty companies and was originally created over 30 years ago to celebrate the unique beauty of every woman that wears it.  I found the background on the creation of the beauty line on the Sephora website. 

"In 1978, Yves Saint Laurent launched a woman's makeup line.  Quite simply, his goal was to create a 'face' for the woman he dressed.  Just for her, he created a luxurious universe of colors and textures with makeup designed to look like accessories or genuine pieces of designer jewelry.  Today, YSL's celebrated makeup line contains treasures of innovation, textures that delight and perfect, along with an exquisite wardrobe of shades to match the richness of YSL's chosen materials of the season.  For Yves Saint Laurent, the beauty of each woman is unique, and her makeup reveals her personal style.  It adorns the face with a tailor-made radiance that lets beautiful confidence shine through.  Yves Saint Laurent Beaute is an interpretation of a woman, without stereotype: free, daring, always seductive, elegant, sensual, and contemporary."

One of the iconic pieces of the makeup line is the Faux Cils Mascara, one of the best selling mascaras.  This product is the gold standard for mascara and is very appropriate that it contained in a golden tube.  "For a false lash effect with buildable volume, discover the beauty of glamourous lashes with our bestselling Luxurious mascara.  The secret of this mascara?  A brush that has been specially designed to amplify the performance of the formula.  Your eyes look intense and glamourous.  With even one sweep of the wand and its unique formula, this mascara adds intense volume and definition to the appearance of lashes.  Available in a wardrobe of couture colours", states the YSL website.
I bought this mascara in the 9 Noir Radical shade, the deepest, most intense black shade.  This mascara is also available in a more basic black, a purple hue, and a burgundy.  I bought the deepest of the black shades because I haven't been as happy as I could be with the past few mascaras that I have used, mostly for the lack of drama that the formulas have been providing me.  This shade is often sold out my Sephora so I was happy to see that it was back in stock, I have been waiting to buy this product until this shade was available since I want only the most dramatic effects from this formula.
This product builds more volume in one coat then most mascaras build in two of three coats.  One coat is enough for daytime, nighttime drama can push me to put a second coat of this formula on.  One coat provides high volume effects and really thickened my lashes.  I love that my lashes are super-thick with the use of this product but they still remain defined and the formula doesn't clump.  One coat is enough for daytime and two coats creates the perfect nighttime intensity.

My only issue with this mascara is the removal of it.  Eye makeup remover was able to remove about half of the mascara with the first application and I have to use the cotton ball soaked in the product at least twice to get the majority of it off.  Even though it took longer to clean off than many other formulas, I still emerged from the shower with black stremaing down my cheeks, I got more of the product off my face with regular face wash however there was still some product directly under my eyes.  This mascara is a pain to get off since it gets everywhere when I try to remove it.  This is a small price to pay since I finally have found a mascara that gives me the volume and drama that I have been craving for the past few months.

To sum it all up, I simply feel elegant and French applying the mascara from the gold tube and it is an added bonus that the formula is exactly what I have been looking for!

photo courtesy of Sephora