Hannah Betts Better...not younger
Good news! You can fake a natural look this summer
SUMMER strikes slap fans one of two ways. Either we go completely crazy for coruscating, day-glo colour — often during holidays when I always crave a spot of totally tropical brightness, even if I’m in Inverness.
Or we long to pare everything back to some sort of bare-faced, if artfully augmented, guise.
This summer, the natural mode appears to be winning out, with fauxbare beauty at the forefront, especially when it comes to lip and nail trends.
As ever with the ‘natural look’, this is nothing of the sort. However, it is pleasingly spring chickenish. My postman put my age at 32 this morning, and I may yet marry him.
We older birds often tell ourselves that we ‘need’ lipstick given that colour drains from our features with age; and it does provide an easy way of looking pulled together.
However, texture, as much as tint, can lend focus and create the optical illusion of enlarging a time-withered pout. It can also be a lot kinder when you and your complexion are looking and feeling exhausted.
The hashtag gymlips has been trending on TikTok after make-up artist Kelli Anne Sewell showcased the no-lip lip she dons when exercising or doing chores; namely, mouth overlined with a natural-looking liner, plus a treatment or shine on top.
‘It looks like you’re wearing no make-up, but you just have plump, juicy lips,’ says our glossy trendsetter.
And she’s not alone. The British Beauty Council last week confirmed that consumers are switching from lipsticks to more hydrating and plumping alternatives such as lip gloss, which saw a 20 per cent increase in sales in April 2022 compared with three years ago.
If you haven’t considered shine since your Lancôme Juicy Tubes addiction back in the noughties, now is very much the time.
Every beauty company worth its salt has some state-of-the-art new lip treatment. U Beauty’s The Plasma Lip Compound (£60, theubeauty.co.uk) caused a stir among high-maintenance types when it launched this spring, promising to visibly plump and re-shape the mouth in just four weeks, remodelling without any injections via the formation of new fat cells. Fans claim to see increased volume by morning when wearing it overnight.
My favourite nourishing shine is organic specialist Ipsum’s awardwinning Lip Oil Balm (£19, ipsum skinuk.com), launching today in tube form, and rich in macadamia and pomegranate seed oil.
I have a penchant, too, for Rihanna’s altogether more OTT
Fenty Cherry Treat Conditioning Lip Oil (£15.20, boots.com) with its pinky tinge and uber-glossy formula, applied in generous swipes with a doe-foot wand. And I also recently snapped up a positively glassy Technidaze Jelly Lip Oil in Cherry (£5, beautybay. com) because too much is never enough for this disco dolly. nail-wise, Google searches for ‘light pink nails’ and ‘natural nail ideas’ are up 300 per cent. The trend may be for extreme minimalism, or the ‘nonicure’, as it’s being called. However, this doesn’t mean no work. Heaven forfend.
nail guru Lynn Mason counsels that moisture is crucial, with nightly oil massage of nail beds key. Her choice is Mavala’s Cuticle Oil (£14.35, lookfantastic. com); mine is whatever I can find in pen-with-a-brush form, meaning I actually use it. Otherwise, just apply leftover skincare.
Then, you need a base coat, followed by a single layer of Mavala’s Riga (£5.50), a sugary pink ‘just sheer enough for the whites of your tips to show through,’ or its natural (£5.50), an off-clear, finished with Cnd Super Shiney Top Coat (£5.50, amazon.co.uk).
dior has its best-selling sheer nail Glow for insouciant, Frenchgirl chic (£21, dior.com).
While nails Inc’s hard-wearing Glow naturale Glowing nail Polish duo (£12, feelunique.com) is also designed to (forgive me) nail that no-manicure manicure gleam, being a sheer plus a pearlescent pink that you can play about with to create a bespoke super-natural shimmer.
Then it’s lashings of hand cream and it’s Thunderbirds are go on minimal magic.