Want to try barely there makeup? Start with these light tints
I’d never name names, but last month a senior executive of a global makeup brand told me that while she and her company were focusing their marketing efforts on the desirability of sheer, barely there, glowy makeup, she refused to enter the office without a faceful.
I meet lots of women like this. Foundation is a bit like denim: trends can dictate whatever they like, but if you’re someone who feels best in full coverage base and/or skinny jeans, there’s a good chance you always will. Even if you’re curious about the bare-ish makeup trend, unless you’re like Pamela Anderson and look glorious either way, the thought of a make-under can be alarming. If you fall into the former camp, you do you without apology. If you’re in the latter, there are products to make the process less drastic.
My favourite launch of the year so far is Chanel’s Les Beiges Healthy Winter Glow Primer (£48). This is, in effect, a light-reflecting skin laminator. It instantly creates a smoother, plumper-looking complexion with the glow of good health. It can be worn alone, but any makeup applied thereafter benefits from a standing start.
Weighed down by winter lurgy, I’ve spent much of the past week using this (in the Icy Beige shade – there are three) to fake better times, and it works.
Sculpted By Aimee is an accessible, more affordable brand with ambitions to make makeup less intimidating. Its HydraTint Moisturising Tinted Serum (£23) is a great place for the barefaced to scale up and for a full-face to pare back. This fluid squeeze-itout-and-slap-it-on is foolproof and one of my favourite products in recent months. For a skincare-makeup hybrid with a fraction of a foundation’s coverage, it still packs a punch, unifying mildly patchy, uneven skin tone and perking up grey, central heatingparched skin. It doesn’t replace your skincare, but its extra layer of ungreasy moisture is particularly welcome in this frequently foul weather.
Makeup By Mario’s Soft Sculpt Transforming Skin Enhancer (£35) is uniquely brilliant and beloved across genders. This solid moisturising balm (in six ultra-sheer shades, all designed to be worn slightly darker than your natural skin tone) can be swept hastily with a fat brush all over the face. It does a fantastic job of making skin appear flawlessly naked when it is really nothing of the sort.
Skin can appear flawlessly naked when it is really nothing of the sort