Three things crossed the counter this month that we want to write about. We will not be using the language of review in this dispatch; we will use the language of trying-on, because the products were tried on, in the course of ordinary days, by two of our editors and one outside reader. We report what worked.
1. The Maison Vauclin Rouge Incomparable (no. 03)
The Rouge Incomparable, from the small Parisian house Vauclin, has been on our counter for six months and a fresh batch landed in early October. We bought it; we did not get it as a sample.
The bullet is square-cut, which we have always thought is the more honest cut for a luxury lipstick: it signals that the lipstick will be applied with a brush, not directly from the bullet, and the woman holding it has agreed to slow down. The pigment load is high — this is one of the most saturated reds we have ever tested in a tube — and the texture is the kind of creamy-matte that does not actually exist as a category anywhere but in the marketing copy of the products that fail at it. This one does not fail. The colour lasts the working day. The lip is left feeling moisturised, not stripped. The bullet lasts about three weeks of daily use.
Price: €42, available direct from the house. Worth it.
2. The Holmond Cheek Compact in Carriage
Holmond is a small British maker that we have been watching since they released a single pressed-powder compact in 2024. They have, until this autumn, restricted themselves to a tight range of warm tones; the new Carriage is a more saturated decision, almost a stained-glass red, that lands somewhere between a cream blush and a wax crayon.
The compact itself is a piece of work — a heavy brass casing with a single mirror and a soft pile of pigment that you sweep with a brush over the cheek. The pigment is pressed firmly enough that it does not kick up dust; it deposits a thin veil of colour that you can build, with a second pass, into something more dramatic. We have spent a week with it and found that a single-handed mid-day application carries into the afternoon without going patchy. That is, in our experience, unusual for a pressed powder.
Price: £58, available at Liberty London and from the maker. The cost is on the casing; you are paying for the brass, and the brass is worth it.
3. The Ordalie Mascara — Épilation no. 02
We will say this gently: the Ordalie Épilation mascara is not yet a good mascara. The formulation is interesting — it uses a peptide complex that is supposed to behave like a keratin restorer — but the brush is wrong, the reservoir is wrong, and the result on the lashes is clumpier than the campaign photography suggests. Two of our three testers returned to their regular mascaras within the week.
We are listing it here because the Ordalie house has, in the past, taken feedback seriously. They reformulated their foundation three times over eighteen months before it became the product it is now. We will look at the mascara again in the spring, when a revised brush is rumoured to be in the works. Until then: keep your €28 in your pocket.
How we test
We are publishing this dispatch under the editorial disclosure on the privacy page. Products in italic were sent as press samples by the maker. Products in roman we bought at retail. The Rouge Incomparable and the Holmond compact fall into the second category. We received a sample of the Ordalie mascara as a press loan. We will say so here. We will say so again if we write about them again.