Category Archives: beauty look

Bargain little skirt to see you through the last of the summer days; it’s bold enough to hold its own against whatever you decide to wear with it, including bright orange shirts and neon-yellow vest tops. (I have tried both.) I like it because the white is still very summery, but the strong floral print means that you can wear it with deeper-toned autumnal colours for a more striking look. The fabric is soft and stretchy, really very comfortable and the length is just right, I think. Sitting on or slightly above the knee, it looks a little bit sexy, but is just about demure enough to pass as daywear! A great piece for those work-to-party days, too, as it looks good with ballet flats but even better when you stick some heels on.

(You can see this outfit and others in my new “Back to Work” lookbook on Youtube.)

As with most unstructured pencil skirts, you have to watch what you wear underneath – they tend to show up every lump and bump! I go for those smoothing knickers that don’t have any seams, kind of like a “boy short” style. Saying that, this floral skirt isn’t one of those shiny, clingy numbers; the fabric is textured, making things altogether a little more flattering and forgiving. It runs true to size – I chose a 10 and it fits perfectly. Find all sizes here.

Pencil Skirt in Floral Print, £25 at ASOS.com – the orange utility shirt is from M&S here.

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If you use your Chanel Les Beiges powders on a near-daily basis (I do) then you will most likely want to snap up one of the new, limited edition Marinière versions. They give the same perfected glow as the standard Les Beiges powders but with a bit of extra – very subtle – colour, and the tones are versatile, buildable and believable.

If you haven’t yet been initiated into the wonderful world of Les Beiges then let me warn you: beauty people are divided. Many (myself included) swear by it as a kind of foundation top coat that gives an undetectable veil of healthiness and radiance. It’s like a glow powder without any kind of highlighter pigment whatsoever – I’m not sure how it produces such a radiant finish, but it does. As a face powder it takes away shine without dulling the skin or making it look dry, as a complexion enhancer it simply adds the tiniest degree of healthy “outdoorsy” warmth.

There are those who would say “why bother?” and there are others who feel as though a natural daytime makeup look is unfinished without a quick sweep of Les Beiges to perfect and blur and add glow. For the “why bother?” people, Marinière could actually be the version you’ve been waiting for – 01 gives a pinkish, sun-flushed tinge:

(apologies for lack of eye makeup here – I was in proper testing mode and hadn’t yet got to the mascara stage!) and shade 02, below is really a lovely fair-to-medium bronzer. But one with the softest finish – it’s utterly foolproof.

I haven’t really gone to town with it but you can see how it adds a warmth to the skin without looking too orange. Die-hard Les Beiges users might argue that you could simply use a darker shade of the standard powder (I use shade 30 as a kind of contouring bronzer, shade 10 as my skin-match powder) but there’s a multi-tonal quality to the Marinière edition that I really like. If you “really like” too then get in there quick – I can imagine that these will fly from the shelves.

You can find Chanel Les Beiges Marinière Powders online here – they are £44 each. Standard Les Beiges powders are £39 here.

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A few weeks ago I filmed the new NARS Christopher Kane collection for my video section on The Telegraph. I was pleasantly surprised that the entire range, so scarily neon and crazy at first glance, was actually very wearable – even the metallic lilac Multiple, which gave a kind of space-age illumination to cheekbones and arches of the brows.

My top pick, though, was the Silent Nude blush (pictured above, top right); brilliant as a matte bronzer for those with very fair skin and excellent for building up a bit of a subtle contour if you tend to be heavy-handed with the powder brush. You can see me applying Silent Nude in the Telegraph video here, along with a couple of the jelly baby lipglosses and both of the eyeshadow offerings, but I’ve also done some “before and afters” for you on a plain background, just so you can see the general effect.

Here I am wearing primer and base (primer is Laura Mercier’s Radiance Primer, base is L’Oreal Infallible which has an in-depth review here):

And here I am after application. The results are very subtle, admittedly, but where the natural face shadows are present in the “before” picture, there’s more of a warmth and a glow to the same areas in the “after”.

Silent Nude is a clever shade; it looks quite flat and deathly compared to a traditional bronzer, but it actually contains more warmth than you’d expect. Most importantly it’s the kind of warmth you can wear without turning your face orange, which is important for the very fair. I don’t have very fair skin by any stretch of the imagination – more fair-medium, maybe even medium-toned in the height of summer – but I’ve built up the blush in a couple of layers to give you an idea of depth and hue. It’s kind of a honeyed, pale bronze – slightly cooler than Guerlain’s Joli Teint and actually very similar indeed to Burberry’s Earthy Blush. I’ll do a “fair bronzer” roundup soon – I’ve done the photos, just need to write some words!

If you fancy giving NARS Silent Nude Blush a try, you can find it at Selfridges here – £23.

The post The Silent Nude Blush (NARS x Christopher Kane) appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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