There’s concise beauty directive for
autumn/winter that’s as simple as it is beautiful.
1. Eye color show
Who would have thought it? After seasons
where eyes played second fiddle to amped-up lips, The experimental techniques
and flourishes of color that we have come to expect from nail art have moved
upwards, and we’re delighted. Think bright blue, red, crimson, purple and green
singing from the eye socket – more often than not, all at the same time. Take
Prabal Gurung, where make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury applied what seemed like
the entire blue and green contents of her kit on to models’ eyes, inspired by the
film Avatar and beetles’ wings. At Dries Van Noten, Peter Philips simply
color-blocked eyes in a sunburnt orange that somehow looked as alluring as it
was unexpected. So don’t put away your favorite summer colors now that autumn
is upon us, because this season rainbow hues reign.
Try this now: Estée Lauder’s palette is the
beauty equivalent of a Rubik’s Cube, Layer up different shades and the color
possibilities abound.
“For
me, this season is about a strong look: wishy-washy is out. It’s a multiple-choice
season, not one for fence-sitters” Sam McKnight, Pantene global ambassador
2. Keeping it real
Say hello to real-girl beauty, a “taking
what you have got and enhancing it” approach to make-up. It was seen in the
form of a flush of blush at Chloé and Michael Kors, via the invisible
contouring at Karen Walker and Alexander Wang, or through the notable lack of
the usual theatrics at Dior and Vivienne Westwood. Either way, this trend
served as a compelling competitor to other strong make-up looks and resulted in
a beautiful state of nothingness. Jenna Menard, Clinique’s global color artist,
championed this honed approach: “To undetectably enhance the structure of the
face is simple but effective, purely because it’s totally believable – who
doesn’t want to look like this?”
Try this now: Mac’s Contouring
Creams have been trialled backstage for the past four seasons and, due to
popular demand, are now finally available to buy. Work into cheekbones with
fingers, et voilà – it’s Contouring made easy.
Mac cosmetics pro-sculpting cream in pure sculpture, $26
Chanel illusion
d’ombre in vision, $35
3. Graphic design
Invisible, floating, graphic...Just a few
of the adjectives bandied backstage for describing the season’s eyeliner
techniques. More noteworthy still, though, was the term “non-retro”, as lining
of lashes took a steer way from Sixties feline and into the geometric. Take
liner-queen make-up artist Val Garland, for example, who declared backstage:
“Long live liner! This season it was all about the eyes – liner is more
architectural, less Fifties or Sixties. It’s immediately more modern.” Look to
Erdem’s tiny thorn of liner that somehow had a miraculous face-lifting effect,
or even the broken-up calligraphy on the eyes at Mary Katrantzou that rewrote
the classic sihouette of the eye.
Try this now: Clarins’s 3-Dot Liner, $30,
was disigned to fill the gaps between lashes, but its three-pronged tip means
you can get creative on sockets, too.
4. Going straight
Those of us with finer – yes, perhaps even
limper – hair can collectively rejoice in the fact that straight (to the point
of flat) hair played a leading role in hairdressers’ style repertoires. The key
element? It needed to be very, very shiny, with an almost glass-like finish, if
only to emphasise just how perfected it was. A popular accent to the straight
hair was “the pullback’, as showcased by Guido Palau at Prada. “Without a
parting, this hair steps away from being too grungy. It makes it look more
considered and turns it into a style,” he says. “Dishevelled hair has been in
fashion for so long, it’s refreshing to see straight hair again.” Agreed.
Try this now: Products are key to changing
the composition and texture of hair. Keep it on the straight and narrow with
Redken’s Sheer Straight 06, $23, which will keep kinds at bay.
5. Dark romance
If even you’ve toyed with the idea of
embracing your inner goth, this is the season to do it. Autumn’s traditional
red tips and smoky eye have been reworked in favor of chocolate-brown
lipsticks, soft washes haloing the eyes, and chalky, alabaster skin. Tim
Burton, Edward Scissorhands, the Addams Family and paintings by Rossetti were
the references – just add kohl pencil and an air of mystery.
“There
was a dark mood for a/w beauty. What made it modern was that it was gothic but
not theatrical – it had an ethereal lightness to it.” Guido Palau, Redken
creative consultant
Sheer genius
It’s a strange paradox that the products we
need most in our lives are the ones we lavish least attention upon. You might
spend hours trailing around after the perfect gold sandal or neon polish, but
it’s the plain, well-cut T-shirt and understated lip glosses that pay the
greatest dividends. By rights then, Aerin Lauder’s eponymous new beauty line
should have slipped by unnoticed, because every product in the tightly edited
line-up is a future classic. “They are mistake-proof,” says the beauty heiress
and granddaughter of Estee, whose own life hovers somewhere between frantic and
fabulous, and requires make-up to match. The result is neutral washes of color
in a palette of bronzes and picks that somehow imbue a sheen of glossy good
grooming to an otherwise nude complexion. Unsurprisingly, the two standouts are
the products Aerin was most keen to include: the gently sun-kissed bronzer and
a glossy lip balm. Even the packaging emanates good taste, with its pale pink
and gold inspired by the color of Aerin’s bathroom in her Upper East Side
apartment. Looks like beauty essentials might just be headline-worthy after
all. NM At Harrods and Brown Thomas, Dublin, from September 3.
