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YSL Parisian Sky Eyeshadow Palette Review, Photos, Swatches

YSL Spring 2010 Palette

Weekend Quickies: YSL Parisian Sky Eyeshadow Palette

YSL’s Spring Look may have offered some pretty lipsticks and glosses, but they really failed on the eyeshadow palette as far as I’m concerned. The whole thing is a sheer, chalky mess. I haven’t been this disappointed in a product since Chanel’s Les Folie Noirs Quad from last fall–which is a good thing, because these really bring me down. So uninspiring!

Parisian Sky ($56.00) consists of a pale sky blue with silver glitter, satin-y navy blue, iridescent lilac, satin-y pale pink, and muted plum-brown with silver glitter. None of the five shades was what I would call pigmented. The more satin/matte shades were chalky, and the light pink was a bit powdery, too. The shimmery shades were dusty and felt a bit loose, like the glitter would easily travel elsewhere on your face if you used it on your eyes.

If you showed me these swatches, I would never have guessed it was a YSL palette. Not in a bajillion years! I think this may be the first true F of a product — I’m at a loss of positive things to say about it. There are sheerer, softer shades, but these just look like they were meant to be more – they required such heavy swatching just to show up. At least with Chanel, half of the shades showed up decently, and it could also be used wet to intensify the shades.

A part me wonders if I somehow got a bad palette, because I can’t believe what swatched. I’ve tried several YSL eyeshadows in the past, and none of them have been even near as poor as these were for me. In fact, I just finished up testing their new single eyeshadows, and those had excellent pigmentation and texture!

If you want to know more about how products are evaluated, read out Rating System FAQ! 🙂

  • Product: 10/30
  • Value: 7/10
  • Ease of Use: 3/5
  • Packaging: 4/5

Recommendation:  I would most definitely not recommend this to anyone.  If you like sheer shades, I would recommend testing this in person first to see if you get better results than I did.

Availability: Nordstrom

YSL Spring 2010 Palette

YSL Spring 2010 Palette

YSL Spring 2010 Palette

YSL Spring 2010 Palette

58 Comments

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rachel Avatar

it sure does LOOK beautiful in the pan. oh well. not to sound surly, but it is good to see a negative review every so often. keeps everything in perspective, and calms down the urges 😉

Brash N Bold Avatar

I have 5 YSL e\s palettes & I would trade them with Inglot or MAC e\s in a second !! even the more pigmented ones have zero lasting power on my oily lids =( was an impulsive buy that I regret till today BUT their singles & dues are much more better & last longer on oily lids

Beauty addict Avatar

I tried these – #04 I think, can’t remember the name right now and I think they show up slightly better than these but still not worth the money. And believe it or not, here in Croatia their price is exactly $100! O_o

Christine Avatar

I’ve definitely tried some other YSL palettes and have had much better experiences, though I’m not a huge fan of their 5-shade palettes. Their duos and the new singles are substantially better. I’ll be reviewing the singles soon, if only to show it’s not all bad at YSL!

Proximity Avatar

How disappointing. On the positive side, though, I think it’s good for us readers to see that when something really is bad, you won’t spare it, and you’ll tell us exactly how crappy it was!

AnGeLwInGz Avatar

You could totally dupe that palette (minus the brown) with the Dior Pearl Glow quint and the color payoff is just delightful.

Vonvon Avatar

That’s a shame! When I first saw the photo, I was so excited as the colors are so me…blues, purples and pinks….

But upon reading your review…sad….

But YSL pulled out of Malaysia…so can’t get it here even if the shadows are of better quality.

Jodi Avatar

Wow Christine, this must be a truly bad product. I don’t think I’ve seen you give a D to a product, let alone an F. The taupe color especially looks weak. What a shame b/c they are pretty in the pan.

Christine Avatar

I’ve given Ds before, but I believe this would be the first F. It’s really, really difficult to end up with a D/F, just because of the 50 points, 20 come from value/price/ease of use, so most products make it through those without dismal scores.

Chantal Avatar

Aww…that’s such a shame. The colors of this palette were screaming “Must Buy” to me; there aren’t many cool palettes with sophisticated shades (at least I have my Guerlain Ombres Perlees!). But thank you so much for your honest review–you’ve saved me money. And when YSL reformulates and releases something like this again, THEN I’ll buy it.

Erin Avatar

WOW. You wouldn’t expect an F on such a “high-end” brand like YSL… but those swatches really are awful (as in the shadows suck, not you, Christine!). How could this product get past the development stage?! “Oh, sure the shadows suck, but the YSL name’s on the package, so we’ll sell it to unsuspecting customers!” Ugh. Thanks for the 100% honest review!

aquarianrabbit Avatar

Aw, poor YSL! They’re my very favorite high end brand. But I must say I only own one of their eyeshadow palettes and probably won’t buy another.

Lorna Avatar

The swatches are hard to see! I like for my eyeshadow swatches to be bold and bright – because it’s easy to use a small amount of eyeshadow and have it toned down. It’s hard to get an eyeshadow that lacks pigment to come up bright when you want it to. :p

Mariah Avatar

Wow, that’s crazy! I saw it and immidiately thought, ooh! PRETTY! But then read what you wrote and saw the swatches… wow.. whatta let down! And from YSL!?!? Sad!

MARTINE Avatar

I bought a YSL duo palette recently (first time buying YSL eyeshadow) and would never go back. It cost £27 and the purple is the worst eyeshadow I have ever bought. Goes on my eyes as a patchy, black. Awful colour and quality. They need to seriously look at re-formulating their eyeshadows.

Amalee Avatar

Wow I’m so shocked YSL came out with something you would rate an F! I think i’ve been reading your blog for about a year and half, and I’ve don’t think I’ve seen you rate anything as an F… oh well. Next time YSL, next time. 🙂

kali Avatar

OMGosh.. this is so ridiculous -especially for that price! Would’ve never guessed it was YSL.. I’ve seen Cover Girl, Wet N Wild, etc. eyeshadows that are way better!

monika-luiza Avatar

actually I’m a big fan of YSL e/s, as I love it when colors a sheer and they last pretty long on my lid.
but like most of the time make-up is a very subjective thing. still thanx for the review

Bridget Avatar

Those look rubbish! And you’d think that since you received them for reviewing purposes that they’d give you their best one! I wouldn’t have bought it anyway though…waaay out of my price range! 🙂
xx

Ferarri Avatar

Damn, my first high end palete was from YSL. I thought it was just me who felt the shadows were a bit low quality from such a high end brand….I finished all of it though…but wont buy another. MAC and BB are good enough for me. I think the YSL palettes are similar in quality to the Estee Lauder BlockBuster Palettes! Both look pretty in the pan but wont show on lids and wont last! At least the blockbuster is so cheap that I won’t mind loading the eyeshadows on! LOL.

Cindy Avatar

Huh. Christine, maybe you got a defect one or something? Michelle Phan did a tutorial with this palette (it’s called Chic Makeup For Glasses) and the colors showed up REALLY beautifully on her.

Alexis Avatar

Wow so not worth the money. Its misleading since they look so nice in the packaging especially the lavender with the gorgeous shimmer. I have the WetnWild palette in Pride and it was only 3.50 on sale and they are way more pigmented than these YSL shadows. Tsk tsk.

Stacia Avatar

We have a differnace of opinion. I love these colors. I am blonde and fair skin. They work really well for me. I am a die hard YSL fan since 1980 and 99% of my make up collection is YLS.

I love your site. Go to it everyday to see your posts. Thanks!

Vale Avatar

No, you didn’t get a bad palette. I went to about 7 different shops to try the samples showed and… none of them is pigmented. Sigh, I am so sad, the colours are gorgeous! :_(
Vale

apo4ka Avatar

i ve also bought this eye shadows and as it was my firt expirience with shadows i thought that problem in me. but now i ve read ur comments and i see that not only i coulnd get this colours(

Bridgette Avatar

This is horrible, an F for a YSL product?! At least I can see why cause it is really a big time F and a waste of 56 bucks. I can’t believe my favorite high end luxury brand has a eyeshadow palette with horrible pigmentation.

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