Anyone that thinks a name is just a name may be right when dealing with every day matters, but not when it comes to marketing. A black creme cannot really be unique. Some applications may be better than others, but really, what can you do to differentiate a black creme? Not much. Black mattes might have a bit more variety, but let’s face it, black is not a color that has shades. It’s either black or it’s… well grey.

So why did I buy these when I have a plethora of other black cremes and mattes in my collection – especially since YSL isn’t even one of my gotta-have-or-I’ll-die brands? (although they’ve been kind of surprising me lately) Simple. I couldn’t possibly resist a collection named “Terrible Niors”.

Now, after all that, there’s really not alot to say about these two colors. They’re black. One is matte. One is shiny. Both applied in two coats. That’s pretty much all there is to the two colors.

With that said, let me expound upon another matter. For this particular collection, Yves St. Laurent (hereafter referred to as YSL, because I’m too lazy to type all that out more than once) decided that these two bottles of black polish should sport a very angled brush. I have no idea why. There was no nifty insert to tell me who’s brilliant idea this was and why it would revolutionize the nail polish industry. None of my other YSL colors have this brush. And in fact, unless I’ve been painting my nail incorrectly for 20+ years, this brush is in fact very un-brilliant. It made for a very awkward application. The left side of the nail went on beautifully and the right… well I had a hard time getting near the cuticle. I will be checking all bottles of YSL before I purchase them from now on for brushes that are sharply angled for no apparent reason.

One of the things I did like about the bottles is that the matte black actually has a matte cap. Awww! Gotta love attention to detail.

With the holidays approaching us, this will be my last post of the year. On schedule, my nails have been shattering with the winter weather. So I’ll be back in January with short, but colorful stubs.