Pen Light

I guess you could say YSL Touche Éclat is the only luxe beauty product I own. I believe it sells for $55 at Myer and David Jones, but I bought mine from Chemist Warehouse for $30. This "complexion highlighter" barely needs an introduction. It's a cult beauty product touted as "the secret of makeup artist and models", said to work miracles to inject life and light back to tired, dull-looking skin. The cylindrical pen feels sleek and luxurious, a shiny gold bullet inscribed with the elegant YSL logo. Removing the cap, you click the nub at the base to disperse product onto the brush. What I usually do is wipe the product off the brush onto my clean hand and then use my fingers to apply and blend. I have shade #2 (Luminous Ivory). It's significantly lighter than my natural skin tone, but looking at swatches of the other available shades, I think I made the right choice (that, and there weren't that many to choose from at Chemist Warehouse anyway).

l-r: natural skin, same area after applying Touche Éclat

When I first bought this, I was on the fence about it. I tried it mostly around where I have uneven pigmentation on my face (namely the sides of my nose and around my mouth), and I did notice that it brightened up those areas significantly, almost to an unnatural extent. A little goes a long way. Three clicks is sufficient to get quite a bit of product, and you only need a small amount, blended out, for a noticeable effect. However, I found the formula to be slightly on the dry side. It wasn't as emollient and creamy as I expected, though I didn't experience any major issues with blending or having it settle into fine lines.

Recently, I had the random urge to revisit my Touche Éclat, this time to see how it fared as an under eye concealer. As the second last photo shows, it somewhat helped to conceal the darkness under my eyes, but mostly what it did was lighten my overall complexion. I tried to take the side by side photos more or less at the same time with the same lighting and same camera settings, and I was surprised at just how much whiter and lighter my skin looked with the Touche Éclat. It doesn't specifically conceal dark circles, but rather just lightens the face in a powerful way. Even though #2 is much lighter than my skin tone, a thin layer carefully blended helps to perfect my skin by brightening the darker areas of my face, evening out the complexion and counteracting dullness. Having said that, this isn’t a product I reach for on a regular basis. It’s something I’d use on special occasions if I wanted a really flawless, highlighted face, or as a concealer for more laidback days when I still want a bit of coverage but not a full face of foundation.