GOLD-TONE MAKE-UP GLITTERS
Sparkling products for the holidays
If there’s ever a time to gild the lily, the holiday season is it. No wonder that luxury make-up companies are unveiling a trove of gold products for nails, lips, eyes and the face. And while they are surely festive, most are not too extreme for day, in finishes that lean more toward a shimmery flourish than a bold statement.
“It’s one of those universal tones that looks really gorgeous on dark skin as well as on light skin,” make-up artist Polly Osmond said. “A gold eyeliner and gold eyeshadow works across the board.”
This new batch of gilded products is already proving popular. Gold 001, a deeply saturated make-up pigment created by make-up artist Pat McGrath, sold all 1,000 of its numbered packages in just over six minutes when it was introduced online last month. Although McGrath applied it to intense effect on the models’ lips at the Prada show in September, it can be worn more sheerly and elsewhere on the face.
Lancôme’s newly released selection of gold make-up is highly wearable, including an eyeshadow palette of co-ordinated metallic shades, two glistening liquid eyeliners and a clear topcoat for nails filled with chunky shards of glitter. There is also a mascara, Hypnôse Stardust Golden Top Coat, that looks like liquid tinsel in the tube but is surprisingly subtle. It is designed for the ends of lashes.
The golden tint of Tom Ford Lash Tips Mascara is paler and thus more pronounced on dark lashes, but the shade flatters most eye colours. Introduced this month, it has a tiny brush that takes the challenge out of application, even on tiny hairs along the lower lashes.
Dior Beauty’s State of Gold holiday makeup collection includes Blazing, a shimmery eyeshadow, and a softly gilt lip gloss called, appropriately enough, Sparkle.
Chanel’s seasonal collection also has gold items, like Le Top Coat in Lamé Rouge Noir, an unusual product for nails that combines glitter, clear polish and Chanel’s distinctive deep red, also known as Vamp, in a single bottle. (A quick shake mixes the components; when applied, nails get a hint of both colour and golden shine.)
An especially versatile option comes from Hourglass. Its Ambient Lighting Edit compact has six contouring powders, including a gilded highlighter that will be available on its own in January, when the holiday season is but a memory.