make-up

Business of beauty: Hermès is launching skincare and make-up (updated)



Hermès launching skincare and make-up

Not sure why I never saw this coming. Hermès is building out its beauty offer with skincare and make-up due to launch in 2020. It already has a great line of ancillary scented bath products – soaps, shower gels, body balms – which are so beautifully giftable and serve as perfect entry portals to one of the last true luxury fashion brands.

‘Obviously, we hope to have the biggest scope possible. We are trying to do it humbly and cautiously, because it’s a big market that’s already full of strong players, and therefore we have to find our place in it,” said Hermès chief executive officer, Axel Dumas. It’s certainly a crowded place but Hermès is planning a slowly-slowly strategy with limited availability to start with, mostly in its own stores. (more…)



Perfect pairing: matte meets shine at Chanel beauty SS19



Chanel beauty SS19 Baume Essentiel Multi-Use Glow Stick

What do we think is going to be the overriding beauty aesthetic when we look back over the 2010s? Will it be the contoured-to-the-hilt perfection of the Huda Beauty woman, or the ‘natural’ no make-up vibe of Glossier? They’ve risen in parallel but I feel the hyper-filtered, beauty shtick has reached its nadir making it the decade-defining look that we’ll remember. Which leaves the more sympathetic ‘real skin’ aesthetic to continue into the 2020s.

Certainly it’s nice to see the beauty look from Chanel SS19 putting some emphasis on shine and luminosity than the unforgiving uber-mattes that were everywhere last year. In particular, Chanel is pushing its Baume Essentiel Multi-Use Glow Stick (£33), an all purpose ‘wet glow’ solid balm in a clear (‘Transparent’) or an oyster (‘Sculpting’) shade to dew-ify eyelids, lips, cheekbones and brow bones. I’m definitely up for some ‘wet glow’ lid shine. (more…)



Bobbi Brown newness: Extra Lip Tint



Bobbi Brown Extra Lip Tint new colours

Despite the deluge of new makeup brands, the likes of Huda Beauty, Kat Von D and Kylie Cosmetics just don’t appeal to me. Either there’s something about the founders that puts me off (I simply don’t get Huda Kattan and that Youtuber make-up look), the marketing is too aggressive or the products themselves are too much for my liking. I really prefer less is more makeup with the odd push in a more adventurous direction. So I guess that’s why I always return to Bobbi Brown and Chanel. (Newness-wise I guess I’m more of a Westman Atelier girl, when is it coming to the UK?!)

These new additions to the OG Bobbi Brown Extra Lip Tint are perfect (more…)



Chanel beauty in the red



 Chanel Creation La Palette Caractere lip palette

Red is a key colour for Chanel global creative make-up and colour designer, Lucia Pica. It was the focus of her first makeup collection for them; she considers it the colour of life and it’s also the colour of the delicious new limited edition Chanel no 5 bottle (which makes the classic scent seem suddenly seductive and animalic).

The Chanel Christmas makeup collection is also big on full-bodied reds. The standout is a car paint-esque crimson nail polish called ‘Flamboyance’, perfect on short nails to elevate a tuxedo-pant-and-silk-shirt look. (I’m thinking Isabelle Huppert at a Christmas eve supper). (more…)