More charm, less makeup

A new year; a new flurry of hair/beauty/fashion predictions. It's refreshing and fun to spring-clean the beauty regime and experiment with the raft of new products and ideas hitting the shelves. However, it sometimes feels that this new year predictiveness quickly turns into new year prescriptiveness. It's suddenly irresponsible to leave the house without primer, your newfangled eyelash curler or that new eye serum. We're trading gloss for matte - wait, no now it's tangerine lips for red - and pining for things we never knew we needed.

Source: awelltraveledwoman.tumblr.com

I was therefore delighted to read the refreshing New York Times article on 2012's new trend for 'imperfection' and restraint in makeup. Hurrah!! (It bodes very well for my workday look, or lack thereof!)
As Terry Barber quotes in the article, the look is "coming home from the party" not "going to the party". Slightly smudged, a little bit naughty and completely individual. No expensive new beauty tools required - only fingers.

This is not, by any means, a new idea - but I love that it relies less on the product and more on the personality to achieve it. It's not necessarily a colour or a texture or anything that you have to get. Ultimately, all you need is your own lovely face, maybe a bit of vaseline and concealer, a cheeky smudge of kohl and a colourful story about the night before. Charming.

French fashion insider and former model Inés de la Fressange seems to encapsulate this spirit of relaxed and individual beauty. In her recently-published interview with Into the Gloss, she mused:

"I have tried everything. I understood very late that after a while, you have to be a bit comfortable and that people are not looking at you precisely—it’s a general feeling. But it took me years to understand that they are not looking at how your eyelashes are…except maybe if they are a professional makeup artist...


...I think that sometimes women do too much—they put earrings, and color, and necklace, and the lipstick, and fake eyelashes, and fake hair—it’s a nightmare. And I think it’s better to keep a bit of wrinkle here and there..."

Vive la amour propre!!

Finally, if you still need some pointers on the 'un-done' look, Lisa Eldridge has provided a video with some great basic tips, here. (Yes, it's a tutorial on a 'non-makeup' makeup look, but the way she does the 'lived-in' eye at about 2:14 is just too good to pass up).

Now, go and mess your hair up or something. It's so hot right now.