There’s nothing like the relaxed ease of long summer days, and hot steamy nights.
It’s a season when having a good time is often top of the agenda, and stressing about what to wear, or makeup that has to be touched-up to look flawless, is far from desirable.
It’s an idea that has spawned the low-maintenance luxe beauty trend: easy, breezy beauty solutions that look as good hours later as when they are freshly applied.
It’s also about services and treatments – think fake tans, lash tints and gel polish – that mean you don’t have to do much day to day, especially if you’re on holiday. They also mean you’ll still feel put together when the temperature is rising.
There’s a low-key vibe to beauty in general right now. More blurred-out tints and swipe-on stick colour than laboured-over, contoured application.
Here are the trends to get into now for that perfect insouciant chic we’re all looking for, for summer.
Try these: Maybelline Superstay Teddy Matte Lip Tint; Tower 28 SunnyDays SPF 30 Tinted Sunscreen Foundation; Nude by Nature Hydra Stick Lip and Cheek Colour; Crown Affair The Texturizing Air Dry Mousse; Ginger & Me Shower Body Oil
SPF makeup hybrids
We love the elevation of SPF from mundane, beach-only bore, to must-have skincare icon. Making application easier is the bronzing drops and foundation hybrids complete with high SPF coverage.
These products even our skin tone and blur pores while protecting skin. While their coverage varies, they tend to feel like a serum, perform like a base and have skincare benefits. The best part? they never look dry and cakey, just like real skin, but better.
Often coming with a dropper they can quicky be applied with fingertips and sometimes have a radiant bronzy finish.
Brands to try: Aleph beauty, RMS, Tower 28, Ultra Violette
View this post on Instagram
Dewy blush
We keep talking about blush but that’s because the trend just doesn’t stop. There’s nothing else that can quickly deliver a healthy glow.
For summer it’s all about the dewy liquid versions that you tap into cheeks with your fingers, either from a cream stick or a tiny bottle of ultra-pigmented liquid.
For the advanced, it’s about layering colours and textures of blush to get a gorgeous, realistic – and fresh from a tropical island – finish.
Brands to try: Hourglass; Rare Beauty; Glossier; Westman Atelier
Air-dried hair balms
Rather than battling with heat tools that make us sweat down to our roots, embracing natural hair texture is a no brainer in summer.
Making it more manageable? Hair creams that nourish and protect hair, giving it hold and shape and smoothing without transforming it’s natural shape.
Brands to try: Joico; Crown Affair; JVN
Blurred-out cosmetic colour
If you’re applying any makeup right now, it should have a creamy texture, with soft edges and only consist of one or two colours.
The ideal? Using a convertible colour stick you can apply to eyes, cheeks and lips. Or you can blend a swipe of an eyeshadow stick over eyelids, before dabbing on a lipstick tint and using that same tube to dab a bit of the same colour on cheeks.
Tinted lip oils and balms are also the perfect option for summer, smoothing and hydrating and adding just a little bit of colour but nothing you’ll need a mirror to apply.
The overall result is sheer, low-key colour that makes you look fresh and healthy
Brands to try: Nude by Nature, Clarins, MECCA MAX, Clinique
Chic body care
We’re no longer content with a jumbo tub of basic supermarket moisturiser for our body from the neck down to our toes. No, we’re demanding the advanced performance from the active skincare ingredients that we are familiar with in our body care.
From lush, whipped body creams that sink in quickly, to smoothing body oils that help minimise dryness, stretchmarks and scarring these are serious feel-good products.
A fresh, modern fragrance that lingers so you don’t need any perfume is an upside too.
Brands to try: Ginger & Me; Tronque; Aesop; Dior; Osea;
