Feeling winter-weary? Freshen up with our edit of the new seasons’ mightiest new makeup picks.
The Best New Highlighters For Spring
Spring’s most covetable palettes may look too pretty to touch but please do - their silky, soft and super finely milled powders lend skin the most marvellous glow. Subtly enhance your features by sweeping them across cheekbones, down the centre of the nose and onto the Cupid’s bow. We rate these beauties: Bobbi Brown Highlighting Powder in Bronze Glow, £42. Dior Diorskin Nude Glowing Gardens, £40, Giorgio Armani Chinese New Year Highlighting Palette, £65 and Hourglass Ambient Strobe Lighting Powder Brilliant Strobe Light, £34.
How To Upgrade Your Manicure For Spring
OPI’s latest launch has us feeling all nostalgic. Kitsch cuteness aside, the 12-part Hello Kitty Nail Lacquer collection has a shade to please absolutely every paw and claw, but our fave has to be the cotton-candy coloured Let’s Be Friends, £12.50.
Glowing, Radiant Tinted Moisturisers For Spring
One need only look to the runways of Balmain, Dior and Versace to see that fresh, flawless faces are on the agenda for spring. Luckily the latest bases make achieving this effect easier than ever. For a dewy, fresh-faced finish scoop up Stila Aqua Glow Serum Foundation, £34.50. Prefer something more matte? Try NARS Velvet Matte Skin Tint or Maybelline Dream Velvet Soft-Matte Hydrating Foundation.
Bright Spring Lipsticks
Victoria Beckham, Zac Posen, DNKY and Oscar de la Renta avoided choosing whether to send models down the runway with red or nude lips at the summer shows by giving half the girls one look and half the other. If you, like us, sometimes find red a bit full-on, try Avon’s Ultra Colour Matte Lipsticks in Posh Petal, Au Naturale and Perfectly Nude, £8 each. They stay put for hours with zero dryness. (Hurrah!)
Or, go for a palette. The MAC Kinda Sexy Lip Palette, £35, houses not one, not two, but six of the brands best-selling (and most flattering) shades including cult classics Ruby Woo and Lady Danger. Due to its limited edition status we suggest acting fast to avoid disappointment. See you at the checkout.
Don't forget liner - we’re suckers for excellent packaging and the chic bubblegum pink form of Dior Addict Lip Glow Liner, £20.50 certainly had us at ‘hello’. The fact that it lends lips the juiciest of sheens comes as an added bonus.
Give Your Lashes Some Va-Va-Voom
Bid adieu to the no-mascara trend (at least for now) because the spring catwalks celebrated big, bold, high-impact eyes. Embrace the trend with Rimmel’s Volume Colourist Mascara, £7.99, which not only pumps up lashes to almost indecent proportions, but also gradually tints them to leave even the fairest peepers perfectly defined.
YSL's Touch Eclat Gets A Makeover
One of the most famous products of all time, YSL Beauty’s inimitable Touche Eclat has extended its clicky-pen family with three new siblings. Where the original is primarily a highlighter, this trio focus on colour correcting which, as make-up artist Lloyd Simmonds explains, ‘creates a three-dimensional effect to eliminating unwelcome colours and enhance others.’ The Touche Eclat Neutralizer Colour Corrector, £25, is our pick for erasing the sallow tones found under eyes.
Spring’s Hot Flush
For a foolproof complexion-reviver take a tip from the backstage pros and add a ruddy blusher like Dolce & Gabbana The Blush in Bacio, £33, to your make-up repertoire. Not only does this pink-meets-red shade suit all skin tones, but when placed low on the cheekbone it mimics the natural outdoorsy flush brought on by exercise (minus the gym membership).
Originally printed in Grazia by Joely Walker