Cheek glow for cloudy days

Who doesn’t want to be a Bronze Goddess? Estee Lauder are brilliant marketeers and know only too well the allure of a name. Their Bronze Goddess Collection is updated every summer with product picks and colourways that are inspired by blue skies, long sandy beaches and end-of-the-day sunsets. It’s a long awaited holiday captured in a product!

My go-to in the collection this season has to be their Limited Edition Bronze Goddess Cheek Glow. Flip open the chic tortoiseshell mini compact and you have the transformer shade to give Vitamin D starved cheeks a natural, healthy and sun-kissed touch. Suiting all skin tones, this luxury blush has a skin-loving moisturizing formula that is gorgeously creamy and sits on the cheeks without having to over blend. A real beautifier, it effortlessly lifts the complexion and adds a radiant glow to help sidestep one of our good old British cloudy days!

Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess Cheek Glow, £25.
Available at counters from this month and online at www.esteelauder.co.uk from May.

Aerin's perfect palette

Taking a nosey at Aerin Lauder’s Instagram account I can’t help but notice the founder and creative director of her own make-up line has an unrivaled attention to detail. From the way a table is laid, to the position of a chair through to the vases she chooses to display her flowers, it’s well thought out and aspirational. This finely tuned eye is carried through into her cosmetic collection which, although modest in terms of range is very desirable.

My favourite this season has to be Aerin’s Kaleidolight Palette, £40. An over sized palette of five scrummy skin-loving and light enhancing shades, it’s got the mix just right. You can either swirl over a soft brush and let the colours dance over the whole face, or you can individually pick out and apply. Use the lavender for instance to highlight the eye, or the bronze or pink shades to bring a sea breeze glow to the cheeks. It delivers joined up thinking too. The more wearable colours take up more space, whereas lavender is downsized knowing less is more.  However you play it, it’s a perfect palette.

Aerin Kaleidolight Palette available from Harrods, Selfridges and John Lewis.

www.esteelauder.co.uk

For luxury lip lovers

If you’re looking for luxury lips, then this is it in a bullet. Estee Lauder’s new Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipsticks give lips the VIP treatment. From the slick deep navy packaging, to the seductive magnetic closure that clicks the case perfectly into place, you know from the very first opening your lips are gonna love it! 20 high couture shades are for the picking and in just one slick, lips are treated with high drama colour that is said to stay for six hours. The texture is silky and comfortable to wear - just like expensive lingerie,  and includes go-to skincare ingredient hyaluronic acid to boost lips ability to seal in continuous hydration. From stick to lip your pout will look achingly hip.

Estee Lauder New Limited Edition Pure Color Envy Sculpting Lipsticks retail at £24.

Available this month

Estee Lauder's undercover agent

This may not look overly exciting, it’s just a concealer after all, but it’s an essential if you suffer breakouts or blemishes. Its coverage and the ability not to go AWOL half way through the day is commendable. Estee Lauder’s Double Wear Stay-in-Place High Cover Concealer SPF35 – yep, it’s a mouthful, is new to the Double Wear tribe and the mother of all concealers. Creamy in texture, yet lightweight upon application, it boasts a built-in setting powder and immediately covers any flaws minus the cakey-ness. And without endless layering. There's nothing worse than concealer grabbing more attention than the spot! Going beyond the odd breakout, it also helps with scars and diminishing the appearance of tattoos. Water, sweat and humidity resistant it’s available in nine shades. Blemishes be scared. Very scared.

Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place High Cover Concealer SPF35 costs £21.

www.esteelauder.co.uk

A thoroughly Modern Muse

A fabulous new coat, an edgy pair of boots, the chicest of sweaters…the beginning of autumn feels less harsh after a summer of pretty, flippy dresses and sand tickling sandals with a handful of new wardrobe pleasers. The same goes for fragrance. Autumn calls for something a little more grown-up, a little more sophisticated and if not serious, then certainly confident and strong.

Modern Muse, the new fragrance by Estee Lauder makes for a fabulous addition to your AW13 scent wardrobe. Just like the layering of a cashmere sweater over the finest of cotton tees, this is a juice that also reveals layers of softness and strength. Karyn Khoury, Senior Vice President, Corporate Fragrance Development Worldwide explains that Modern Muse was ‘built’ by carefully selecting every ingredient to reflect the personality, style and distinctive femininity of today’s woman.

Bottling creativity, its innovative ‘dual-impression’ structure invites you to connect with the scent through two contrasting aspects: sparkling jasmine accord – this facet of the fragrance holds the energy and magnetic femininity of a modern muse with notes of honeysuckle nectar and dewy petals, whereas the sleek woods accord taps into her sleek style and sensuality through patchouli essence and the creaminess of amber wood and soft musk. Spritz, adore and become your own Modern Muse!

Modern Muse Eau de Parfum Spray retails from £44 for 30ml.

Available from Estee Lauder counters nationwide from the 18^th September.

    

The getaway colour shots

If you pack one cosmetic in your getaway from-it-all make-up bag this summer, make sure it’s Estee Lauder’s Pure Color Cello Shots for cheeks and lips. Dinky and adorable, at first glance the colours look overly techno to pull off, but the soft gels and water-light finishes belie the fact they’re incredibly easy to wear.

CHEEK POP - BUT REALLY NOT THAT BRIGHT!

Dubbed ‘acqua colour’ by their Creative Make Up Director, Tom Pecheux, the line up includes Pure Color Cheek Rush, an innovative, transparent gel that gives just the right amount of pop for radiant freshness. For a pretty girl flush, quickly blend a tiny drop of this silky liquid gel in small rotations on the apples of the cheeks. I’ve been using this, and it lifts cheeks gorgeously when skin is lightly tanned.

Lips are given that just bitten look with the Pure Color Sheer Rush Gloss, slicking onto the lips super quick, it gives a modern transparent shiny colour. Perfect for a light weight summer lip and no mirror required.

Available in store from July, Pure Color Cheek Rush retails for £24 and Pure Color Sheer Rush Gloss for £19.50.

Your new luxury essentials

PRETTY BRONZE ILLUMINATING POWDER

I’ve been aware of the Aerin Essentials Collection since it launched last year, but haven’t experienced it up close and personal until recently. Let’s just say, there’s something to be said about delayed gratification! The granddaughter of make-up royalty, Estee Lauder, Aerin has been working in the family ‘firm’ since 1992 and has used her knowledge and experience of luxury cosmetics to create her very own self penned brand, Aerin.

ROSE HAND AND BODY CREAM

Aerin’s Essentials Collection maybe a capsule range, but looks and performs anything but limited. Designed to be the products we just can’t do without, the skillfully edited range includes a Pretty bronze Illuminating Powder, £34 that whips up an Aerin like just-been-weekending-at-the Hamptons beach blush look, Multi Color for Lips and Cheeks in Natural £30 that breezily washes both with radiant colour, Fresh Skin Compact Makeup £37, that masquerades not only as a buildable foundation, but a concealer too, and the delightful Rose Hand and Body Cream £36. For the make-up pros amongst you, there’s the five Brush Essentials for spot-on application too.

CREATOR, AERIN LAUDER

Aerin definitely has the ‘ooh’ factor. Compacts come in soft pink suede, drawstring pouches, the compacts themselves are dressing table desirable, and the hand cream is now a permanent fixture on my desk. No tucking away in the drawer for this tube as the pink floral design deserves to be admired.  These Essentials are to stay in the range, but look out for her additional seasonal launches for more cosmetic collectables this spring. 

Aerin Essentials Collection available from selected John Lewis, Harrods and Selfridges

Pretty naughty, pretty nice!

HOLIDAY HAPPY COLOURS

I know we haven’t celebrated Christmas yet, but after being saturated with copious amounts of glitter, gold and sparkle leading up to the festive week, it was a breath of fresh beauty air when something caught my eye that looked light and sweet, reminding me of warmer and fun times ahead.

Estee Lauder’s Pure Color Pretty Naughty collection, is not hitting the stores until February, but I thought I’d shout about it now to build up a little bit of excitement for what really is a dullsville month. Usually a month of dull skies and no celebration - except if it's your birthday, so a little bit of pretty certainly wouldn't go a miss!

Tom Pecheux, creative make-up director for Lauder has really tapped into the sunny side of his nature for his uplifting trend collection for spring. Yes, these watercolour pastels could be classed as pretty naughty, or in my eyes just plain pretty – without being insipid. Shades take inspiration from an English garden, but far from twee, they're given an urban twist and described as youthful and rebellious. Find your inner rebel by playing up the fanciful soft hues in the eye palette, and then slightly taming with the dark pigments for emphasis. The double ended Kajal EyeLiner in black and sky blue can be used to give a youthful flicker or bold definition at the corner of the eye. Nail the look with Insatiable, the light weight lilac nail polish that’s a tad off-beat. The whole collection may have grown from the creative seeds of an English garden, but to me the colours just sum up the joy of travel – blue skies and happy minds.

Pure Color Five Color Eyeshadow Palette in Pretty Naughty, £35

Pure Color Intense Kajal Eyeliner Duo in black/blue, £18

Pure Color Nail Lacquer in Insatiable, £14.50

www.esteelauder.co.uk

Very delicious. Very Estee.

Holey Moley! The scent-ometer is beginning to climb sky high leading up to Christmas. Fragrance barons are hoping to tempt our pulse points with their latest perfumed potions. Far from being over ambitious with their bottle and packaging, I very much like the olfactory message from Estee Lauder’s Very Estee. This all new, contemporary floral woody musk is both stylish, simple and confident in its approach. Lauder puts the wearer as a trendsetter, but definitely playing to her own rules.

 

Sometimes its hard to move a classic brand forward, both in mindset and spirit, but Very Estee has creatively managed it by still capturing the heritage of the brand – after all who would want to hide such a rich dynasty? whilst introducing a more modern take for the sophisticated perfume wearer. As for the fragrance, top notes of lotus and freesia along with the sparkle of juicy cassis meet middle notes of Bulgarian rose oil, jasmine petal, with a  sensual dry-down of sandalwood and cashmere wood accord.

SUPERMODEL, HILARY RHODA

 

As for the advertising hook, model Hilary Rhoda smoulders sexy and warm. Somehow, this fragrance smells like a brunette. Sophisticated and  sexy with a grown-up dark side!

 

Very Estee available from November from £40 for 30ml.
www.esteelauder.co.uk

Estee Lauder's Seductive Side

NOUVEAU RICHE AND BLACK PLUM

My heart always skips a beat when new polishes land from planet beauty. Like precious jewels they bestow fingertips and toenails with a smash of excitement and glamour. One creative makeup director that certainly understands glamourama is Estee Lauder’s Tom Pecheux. He has newly introduced two Pure Color Nail Lacquer collections called Beyond Black and Mental Mania.

OH LA LA!

A LITTLE BIT OF PARIS

Like their names suggests, they are dramatic, bold and seductive in their delivery. Colours are suited to women, rather than girls. Full bodied in their approach with names such as Dark Plum, Fiery Hot and Viper, the city of Paris was his calling for inspiration. But forget Paris in the spring time. “I wanted to capture the intensity and naughty side of Paris when it truly comes alive…at night,” says Tom. Each collection has five knock 'em dead shades under their umbrella. Beyond Black is rich and sexy, capturing the allure of the Parisian Femme Fatale, whilst Metal Mania is modern and daring, slicking on a metallic finish. A strong, highly polished collection that’s truly a la mode, with a little bit of oh la la on the side!   

New Pure Color Nail Lacquer are £14.50 each and available nationwide from August

www.esteelauder.co.uk