I’ve been working for Burberry* for the past couple of days, following the behind-the-scenes “journey” of the makeup look for the AW15 show. You’ll notice, if you scan back through previous Fashion Week posts, that it’s the Burberry show that always grabs my attention; I think partly because the brand is so successful at creating a huge buzz around it, but also because the understated and easy-to-wear looks are always very relatable and real. It’s hard to write about some of the crazier beauty looks during the shows because they simply don’t translate well for everyday wear; nobody in the real world is going to stick feathers on their eyelids or draw big red flags on their faces or make their eyebrows disappear. Well a few, maybe, but it’s not ever going to be very mainstream!

And so it’s always a bit of a salve on my eyes, beauty wise, when it gets to Burberry. The makeup looks are usually very natural, modern, undone and the hair is always that perfect kind of scruffy – piecey, a bit ruffled at the roots, but otherwise not too much going on. Easily achieved with a bit of dry shampoo in the roots and a tiny bit of serum or hair oil to break up the ends!

I felt very privileged to be able to see the Burberry AW15 makeup look in action mere minutes after it had been finalised; on Sunday afternoon Burberry’s makeup artist and designer, Wendy Rowe, talked through the look and demonstrated it on the very gorgeous model Amber Anderson. The focus was on the eyes – a sexy, smouldering but wearable smokey eye that concentrated on defining the lashlines and not piling shadow onto the lids. Wendy had loads of really good tips when it comes to smokey eyes – the main one being that if you overload the lid with dense, heavy colour, you end up looking as though you have holes in your face. (P*ss-holes in the snow, as my Mum’s friend Jackie always says! Excuse the profanity.) If you concentrate on really defining the eye, pushing the liner right into the lashline, but keep the lid nice and sheer and light then you get a more wearable look.

Wendy used the new cream shadow from Burberry Beauty, but you’ll see in my video that the product wasn’t available to use yet – she had a kind of pre-release prototype. But she demonstrated the most brilliant trick; mixing matte powder shadow with some of illuminating primer – the Fresh Glow in “Warm Radiance” – to create the same semi-sheer texture. That worked a treat for my vid, though I think that a proper cream formula would have better staying power (my made-up version creased slightly!) and would be more convenient. Watch this space – I’ll update you when the cream shadows are due to launch. Also out later this year, the AW15 nail polish in Cadet Green  – I wear it in the video and Amber also has it on in the photo below…

Very military – if Mr AMR, who is obsessed with army green, wore makeup then this would be his kind of collection! Look at the eye palette:

I digress. Back to the makeup look. To balance out the sultry eye, Wendy kept the skin warm and glowing and finished it off with a nude lip. All very do-able, nothing that’s too much of a shock to the system. I very much enjoyed recreating the look for my video – when it went out yesterday, it was the most exclusive of exclusives – I previewed it two hours before the show had even started, which is quite unheard of, really. As I said before – a true privilege.

You can watch the video below – the look is just so effortless and cool, it’s definitely one to follow. Even if you don’t usually go in for all of these makeup tutorials take a little look, because the smokey eye tips from Wendy are great ones to keep in mind. All of the products used are listed underneath, you can get most of them (apart from cream shadow and lipstick) at Net-a-Porter here. I’d like to say a huge thank you to Burberry for letting me preview the look and to Wendy Rowe for her top tips – Wendy has a brilliant blog here if you want to have a browse: wendyrowe.com

The post The Burberry AW15 Makeup Look – Effortless and Cool. appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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Ah, good old Nuxe Rêve de Miel. One of my first “backstage” beauty discoveries – and possibly one of my first French Pharmacie purchases too. Rêve de Miel, Nuxe’s Ultra-Nourishing Lip Balm, has quite an odd texture in comparison to most lip balms; it doesn’t have that oily slip or bouncy, shiny texture that we’ve come to expect. It’s really quite matte, making it a brilliant lipstick base, and it has an almost grainy feel to it. Think of set honey, when it’s cool in the jar; it’s not smooth and silky, but opaque and sort of gritty looking.

Whatever the texture, Nuxe’s lip balm is something of a beauty hero. I’ve seen it in more makeup artists’ kits than perhaps any other balm (though there was a phase when everyone used Elizabeth Arden’s 8 Hour Cream) and it’s always a very comfortable, non-sticky product to wear. Really moisturising, great to slather on in a big layer when it’s cold and windy, because your hair won’t stick to it and annoy you, and it comes in a little glass pot. Very chic. It’s the 20th Anniversary of Rêve de Miel this year, which goes to show just how much of a beauty staple it has become. Très bien, Nuxe!

You can find Nuxe Ultra-Nourishing Lip Balm at Escentual.com here – it’s £9.50.

The post Nuxe Reve de Miel: Non-Sticky Weather-Proof Lip Balm. appeared first on A Model Recommends.

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A new and rather exciting launch from Lancome; a mascara that promises to solve all of our mascara-applying woes! My particular mascara grievances are: wands that are too long and uncontrollable and bristles that are just ridiculously chunky. With too-long wands I inevitably poke the wrong part of my lid and trigger some kind of crazy eye-muscle reflex and then get mascara all over my face; with too-chunky bristles I end up coating the very edge of my eyelid and have to either remove the excess after my lashes have dried or go over with a big eyeliner pen to try and hide it. It’s probably why I’m a sucker for those little mini mascaras that you always get with free gifts – I find them so easy to use and I always end up with properly painted lashes, root to tip. I even get those fine, weedy little peskers that flounder about near to the inner corner of the eye; invisible to all but those with the most superhuman of vision, I hardly even know they’re there until I use one of my freebie miniatures!

Enter Lancome with their new Grandiose mascara. It has a relatively small and compact brush head with bristles that pick up the most evasive of fine lashes; but it’s the wand that’s really something different. It’s shaped like a swan’s neck. “Pah!” I hear you say. ‘What new gimmick has the beauty industry come up with now?” And I was totally in agreement with you, until I had a try and painted my lashes perfectly in about a third of the time it usually takes me. Aided, no doubt, by the fact that the Grandiose was brand new (therefore nice and liquidy and easy to glide on), but I am adamant that it is the weird bent wand that really made the difference.

The bend has the effect of making the wand feel a lot sturdier and more controllable; it seems to bring the bristles closer to your eyes without the handle of the wand getting in the way. Does that make sense? I will absolutely show you this on video when I next do a filming session – I think that it needs to be demonstrated to see what I’m on about. The wand has been designed with the swan-neck because it makes it easier to apply mascara to each “type” of lash – with a little turn of the stem, you can reach the inner lashes more easily, or you can change the angle slightly and reach the lower lashes. The wand is also supposed to make it simpler to do your “other eye” (the one that’s not on the same side as the hand you’re using) and to cross the wand over your nose, if you use this very precarious application technique, without getting massive splotches of tar all over your visage.

And may I just have a little beauty coo over the packaging? It reminds me of Sleeping Beauty; the rose embalmed in the transparent lid like some kind of evil fairy’s trophy. I love it! Very different. Of all the more…novel…mascara inventions I’ve tried, this one is by far the best. Apart from perhaps the cannon-ball mascara from Givenchy, though that one is really an acquired taste. I can imagine pretty much everyone liking the Grandiose. I wonder if the swan-neck will catch on?

I asked Alex Babsky to give a few tips on how best to use the Grandiose mascara – he did my makeup last year in Paris and is the UK’s ambassador for Lancome. (You can see him doing my makeup here in a funky little video I made.) Alex said,

“The swan neck wand of Grandiose enables full control over application, as it gives you the perfect angle for all lashes, top and bottom.

Start from the outer corner and work your way in, wriggling the brush all the way to the tips for length and separation.

Work the mascara right into the base of the lashes too, as it’s a blacker than black formula it will give extra definition, mimicking fuller lashes.”

Lancome’s Grandiose launches at Selfridges on the 15th July – I’ll give you a little nudge when it goes live! To read more mascara reviews, have a click over here.

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