YSL Beauté Candy Palette from the Spring 2012 Candy Face Collection

YSL Beauté's Candy Palette ($65), the gem of the Candy Face Collection for Spring 2012, offers three rare jewel tones and a flesh color to offset the bright, cheerful colors. It's the first spring look inspired by Lloyd Simmonds, YSL’s International Makeup Artist.

I thought gems when I saw it, but for Simmonds, the limited-edition eye shadow palette drew its inspiration from a sweet treat. It features four shades, each with a different finish, matte, shimmer, satin, and velvet, for a fresh spring look.

The look is bright - too bright for me. In the interests of full disclosure, I didn't purchase the Candy Palette. I took my swatch photo outside Neiman Marcus. While I was there today, for all of 20 minutes, I ran into a BTiB reader (Anup? I'm not sure how to spell her name because I've read that Anup, spelled this way, is a male name) and her adorable daughter who has already developed a fondness for Armani lip gloss. Maybe Anup will stop by and tell us in the comments how to spell her name. That smart little girl with a pacifier in her mouth was already reaching for lip glosses. We have another makeup addict in training!

Back to the subject at hand, YSL suggests that you "apply the darkest shades of the Candy Palette close to the upper lash line to intensify the eye. Place the light shades on the eyelid. Add a final touch of radiance by highlighting the brow bone or inner corner of the eye with the lightest reflective shades." Given that four shades in the palette are bright, I have absolutely no idea what any of that means, especially because the lightest shade in the upper right corner of the compact is not reflective. It's velvet or matte.

I swatched inside the store and then dashed outside the store (it's in the low 30's today) to snap a few photos. I am not entirely pleased with them, but the one shown below is the best. Without my computer, I wasn't able to stage "Take 2."

I swatched heavily with a sponge-tipped applicator, left to right on the top row, followed by the bottom row, left to right. The two shades, lavender and flesh pink in the top row (and at the top of my arm) are perfect shades for spring. The lavender is pretty for those who can wear red-toned lavenders. The flesh pink almost blended into my arm. It would make a great base shades. The red and blue shades on the bottom row surprised me. Even applied lightly, they offer significant, theatrical punch. On the model below (who has my coloring), they look fantastic. On me? I'm afraid I'd draw attention. Also, I remember bright blue eye shadows and, to this day, have a bias against them.

If you are more adventurous than I am, or if you have dark skin, you might want to play with the Candy Palette to achieve a fun look. I'm going to stick to my pieces from the collection, all of which play to my conservative look. I'll show you another one tomorrow. I think Candy Face is going to be a hard sell for YSL reps. Does it intrigue you?

You can purchase the YSL spring collection at the YSL Beauté's Web site and at YSL counters everywhere.

Photos courtesy of YSL Beauté and by Best Things in Beauty