Like all good English roses, we adore the cooler months. Tis the season for deepest plums, rich ruby reds and glistening golds that lift your spirits as the nights draw in. We’ve pored over the catwalk trends and chosen our favourites for this season, showing you how they can be adapted for everyday wear.
One step shy of festive glitter is the metallic trend – a great way to add warm colour and sheen to your face that works on all skin tones and ages. For gentle contouring try highlighting cheekbones, eyebrow arches and your Cupid’s bow to add definition to your face. Adding a little bronzer in the hollows of your cheeks – in a line from your lower ear, to mouth corner – will further sculpt. Go for a matte finish like Too Faced Milk Chocolate Soleil (£25, Debenhams).
We love Benefit’s Watt’s Up (£24.50, Boots) for adding a soft focus glow to our visages, or for more those more advanced at contouring the Sleek MakeUP Face Form includes bronzer, highlighter and blusher in one handy kit (£9.99, Superdrug). Popping a dab of pearlescent eyeshadow on the inner corner of your eyes will open them up – think Gossip Girl’s Serena.
Bronzes and golds work marvellously on lids in autumn, and are exceptionally easy to apply when in cream form. For a daytime metallic look, try this Pure Colour Envy Sculpting Palette from Estée Lauder (£40, Debenhams) – the two lighter tones work perfectly for subtle shadowing with a sheen – or these crème eyeshadows from Benefit which come in the cutest packaging and last for ages (£15.50, Boots)
Dramatic
This look is all about big eyes and dark lips. Dark lips need a liner for perfect edging: we like Always Sharp, by Smashbox in Ruby (£15, Boots). Try using just a lip liner to colour in your entire lip and cover it with a balm for a finish that lasts all day long. To turn up the drama, top your red lips with a strategically placed dark plum shade like Smashbox’s Be Legendary lipstick in Plum Scene (£16, Boots) to add contour, with a pop of coral to the centre for an ombre look – try Estée Lauder’s Pure Colour Envy lipstick in Fierce (£24, John Lewis).
False lashes come in handy for a shortcut to a seductive autumn look. We like The Kiss range (£4.49, Superdrug), or Benefit’s Big Spender false eyelashes for extra flutter (£12, Boots). If you need to tone down the drama for the day job, try a dark cat eye style liner with a dusting of metallic bronze on top for come-hither eyes that won’t scare off your co-workers.
We like Barry M’s Dazzle dust in Chocolate (£4.49, Superdrug). For those who can’t face fiddling with falsies, lashings of mascara will get you similar results. Try an aubergine shade for a subtler finish or deepest black for night. We love Too Faced Lash Injection mascara for thick lashes in an instant (£18, Debenhams). If you find yourself at the airport seeking last-minute sun, we’ve found some exclusive deals from worlddutyfree.com like this Yves Saint Laurent palette (£40.95) to help you glow on the go, or these travel- sized OPI polishes in this season’s colours (£15.95).
To perfect that flick, you can find the eyeliner everyone’s been talking about – Benefit’s They’re Real Push-up liner, available as a super-duo with mascara for £28.90.
Dare to Bare
While your body might be concealed under cosy clothes, your face should be polished and radiant with power brows and perfectly moisturised lips to turn heads. The trick here is a solid foundation: we love the traditional approach of a liquid paired with a powder. Estée Lauder’s new Perfectionist Youth-Infusing foundation (£37, Boots) includes SPF25 and glides on beautifully, and to finish, we love Green People’s Pressed Mineral Powder for a talc-free approach with SPF15 (£20.95).
For a one-step cheat, try Pur Minerals’ hard- working 4-in-1 Mineral Make-up (£24, M&S) in a compact; when used with their brush it offers impressive coverage. Once your face is finished, get to work on those brows. Not many who survived the tweezer-obsessed 90s have the full, thick brow on trend right now, but you can fake it.
There are plenty of brow kits on the market, like Too Faced Brow Envy (£35, Debenhams) with two powder shades, setting wax and highlighter as well as stencils. Or, you could choose a non-metallic eyeshadow in a shade somewhere between your hair colour and brow colour and use an angled brush to fill in between the hairs and accentuate what you’ve already got.
