In our monthly Let’s Make-Up round-up, we bring you a selection of the tried and tested, freshest, and buzziest beauty launches that are worth adding to your basket.
All types of lotions and potions across makeup, skincare, haircare and more cross our desks and we take it upon ourselves to review them all so you don’t have to. If we include it below, then you know it’s a good ‘un.
For April 2023, new brand on the block MERIT is solidifying its sought-after status with a juicy lip product, Anine Bing is giving us the spring feels with a fragrance drop that takes inspiration from new beginnings and Milk Makeup has redesigned its packaging for more user-friendly application and less waste. Fake tan lovers are in for a treat with Skinny Tan and Tan-Luxe giving us the opportunity to look like we’ve stepped off the beach even in the depths of this ‘Arctic April’.
For all this and more besides, see our edit of the hottest beauty drops you need on your radar.
MERIT Beauty Shade Slick Gelées
Minimalistic makeup label MERIT made a splash on UK last month and is already expanding its collection. The Shade Slick Gelées is your first stop for juicy lips. The gloss brings a sheer finish without any of the stickiness typically associated with 90s iterations of this product type. Ingredients like squalane and quinoa seed oil show the brand’s skin-first approach and inject parched pouts with moisture, while protecting against external aggressors that can disrupt the barrier function. There are four shades; Jeté, Le Deux, Maraschino and Mapleton that offer a very subtle wash of colour.
Buy now £26.00, MERIT Beauty
ANINE BING Rose Wood
To get our olfactories ready for the warmer weather, Anine Bing has a new fragrance in its line up. The LA-based fashion label has ushered in the spring season with Rose Wood that combines the vibrant note of smoked rose with raw amber, a heady concocotions that takes inspiration from new beginnings.
The eponymous founder explains, “The long-awaited start of spring in Scandinavia is a memory I have cherished since childhood. It’s the exact moment when the city reawakens with the start of a new season, and the renewed sense of self that follows. For me, Rose Wood captures this nostalgic sentiment.”
Also available in candle form.
Buy now £185.00, ANINE BING
Fenty Beauty Hella Thicc Mascara
If you’re anything like us and an enduring search for the perfect mascara has sent you on a lifelong hunt, you’ll be as chuffed as we are to learn that Rihanna has brought a new formulation to the fold. With her Fenty Beauty line, you may be changing up your dessert island product forever as this Hella Thicc mascara does what it says on the tin - thicken and lifts the lashes without weighing them down. It’s a creamy texture that is applied with a precision brush to ensure just the right amount of the pigment coats the individual lashes - no clumps or flaking here. It also stays firmly in place, remaining sweat, humidity and transfer resistant.
Buy now £19.00, Boots
MILK MAKEUP Sculpt Stick 6g
MILK MAKEUP has gone back to the drawing board with its signature sticks. After listening to customer feedback that there was a lot of product wastage due to expiry dates looming before any real progress has been made in the larger size, the brand has scaled down the operation, giving them a more travel-ready update at the same time.
This is the Sculpt Stick that is a creamy contour product that is applied directly onto the skin. Use a brush or fingers to blend it out to take a effortless approach to sculpting. There are four shades to suit all skin tones and the formula is enriched with apricot oil and mango butter that give a buttery soft texture.
Buy now £22.00, Sephora
Tan-Luxe Express Mousse
You may take a quick glance at this fake tan from Tan-Luxe and wonder how the see-through formula can 1) be a mousse texture and 2) have any dyes within the formula. Both justifiable questions but that’s part of the brand’s raison d’etre. Tired of thick paint-like tan textures, founder Marc Elrick wanted to turn the formulations of faux glow products on its head with a skin-first approach. This is why you’ll find their products with ingredients you’ll recognise from your bathroom cabinet. For a quick bronzing fix, the new addition to the collection will give you a natural radiance in just 30 minutes.
The foaming texture is free from that traditional fake tan aroma (in fact, it’s actually particularly pleasant) and contains hyaluronic acid and vitamin C for moisturising and brightening respectively. It continues to deepen the longer you leave it before washing it off but stops at around the four hour mark to suit your busy lifestyle.
Buy now £37.00, Cult Beauty
The INKEY List Polyglutamic Acid Dewy Sunscreen SPF30
Daily sunscreen application is something we all know we should be doing but so many of us are still reluctant and that may be due to the thick, unpleasant textures that are drying and laborious to rub in. That’s where The INKEY List has come in with its new innovation. The brand is making the morning task a breeze by packing SPF30 UVA and UVB protection with anti-ageing polyglutamic acid, glycerin and squalane to hydrate as you shield from damaging environmental stressors. It also leaves a dewy finish so you skin is prep, primed and ready for your makeup routine that follows.
Buy now £14.99, The INKEY List
Glossier You Rollerball
Glossier’s You fragrance is cult for a reason. The perfume adapts to the wearer to create a personal scent that was designed to smell like... you. Get it?
You can already shop in traditional spray form as well as in a solid variation but now the hyped label has added a rollerball to its line-up.
Fans of the brand will remember this format from the Holiday collection and due to the popularity, it’s now a permanent fixture.
Slip into your bag for travel or on-the-go and get your fix of the ambrette seed and ambrox combination that is creamy, woody, warm, sweet and salty all at one. These notes envelop with notes of pink pepper and iris.
Buy now £23.00, Glossier
111SKIN Repair Serum NAC Y²
The 111SKIN Repair Serum NAC Y² is one of the best selling products in the brand’s offering but not content on resting on its laurels, the co-founder Dr Yannis Alexandrides has reformulated the hero product and the signature complex to incorporate new technology that makes it more efficacious than ever.
Originally known as the Dramatic Healing Serum, the patented component at its heart - the NACY2 - is used intravenously in hospitals to treat paracetamol overdoses and to protect liver damage. In this combination of ingredients, it has a healing effect that restores the skin’s barrier and leaves it healthy.
So popular is the original that stacked on top of each other, the brand has sold enough serums to make up three Empire State Buildings and it counts the likes of Priyanka Chopra, Sara Sampaio and Olivia Culpo among its extensive celebrity fan base.
Buy now £240.00, 111SKIN
Grace de Monaco
In honour of the legacy of Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco aka Grace Kelly, this fragrance house breaks from the norm. It’s the first luxury-for-good label where the entirety of its profits are donated to the Princess Grace Foundation to support emerging artists in theatre, dance and film.
The maison uses the highest quality sustainable materials to create timeless and elegant fragrances and home accessories that are an expression of glamour in line with its muse. The signature scent is the Promenade Sur Le Rocher, a white floral that has notes of bergamot and rose centifolia that develops into something more exotic with ylang-ylang and jasmine and a woody base of freesia, amber, woods, musk, and vanilla.
The Princess Grace Awards have supported artists like Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu, Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac and Hamilton’s Leslie Odom Jr.
Buy now £220.00, Harrods
Beauty Pie Youth Bomb Body 360 Repair Concentrate
You likely play close attention to the lotions and potions that you apply on your face but does the same apply to your bodycare? Beauty Pie is ensuring that the skin on the rest of your body gets the TLC that it deserves with the Youth Bomb Body 360 Repair Concentrate.
It was formulated with the brand’s Consultant Dermatologist Dr Andrew Markey and stars retinol as the main active in a trademarked, bioavailable form to maximise its smoothing, firming and brightening benefits. Apply the targeted treatment on areas that have accelerated signs of ageing like the neck, chest and hands or to counteract the effects of sun damage. It has a subtle orangey aroma.
In a user trial, 91 per cent agreed their skin felt smoother after their first use, 83 per cent said it was plumper in two weeks, 80 per cent said firmer in four weeks and the majority confirmed Beauty Pie’s claims that skin was more elastic, even and fine lines and wrinkles were reduced.
Buy now £125.00, Beauty Pie
Weleda Stretch Mark Body Butter
If you’re looking to treat the expecting soon-to-be parent in your life, Weleda is making the gifting process that much easier by incorporating its expertise in hydrating body products (the Skin Food Body Butter will always be one of our favourites) to tackling stretch marks.
Not just during pregnancy but also caused by hormones, skin type or genetics, this can affect confidence so the natural skincare label has formulated this product to nourish the skin with intensely moisturising ingredients like shea and cocoa butter and sunflower and jojoba oils.
The formula is designed to be quickly absorbing and to keep the skin’s connective tissues elastic to defend against the formation of stretch marks. This is also enhanced by the massaging process of the application.
Buy now £20.95, Boots
CHANEL LES 4 ROUGES YEUX ET JOUES
For Chanel’s spring/summer collection, the luxury fashion and beauty house has placed the colour red as its focal point. Not only set on bold lipstick shades, the vibrant colourway comes as a mascara, liner, nail polish and in two eyeshadow quads of varying tones. The shade has been chosen for its connotations to creativity, beauty and style, harking back to Gabrielle Chanel’s intentions for the beauty line in the unveiling of her first lipstick in 1924.
Both eyeshadow palettes combine four matte and satin shades across the myriad of the red spectrum to add intensity to day or night looks. They’re multitasking powders that can be applied onto cheeks like a blush as well as their original purpose: for the creation of dramatic eye looks.
Buy now £69.00, Boots
Saie Glowy Super Skin
Saie’s collection of makeup heroes put clean, skincare-like formulas into your cosmetics bag. It’s known for its glow-giving properties and this latest unveiling follows suit. The ultra-wearable foundation brings luminosity with every swipe of your brush. It is powered by a trademarked Hybrobounce formula that is predominantly made from a serum that combines hyaluronic acid and niacinamide, treating your skin to the hydrating, soothing benefits, while imparting the tint. For this reason, it feels lightweight on the skin but only provides a medium coverage - although this is buildable.
Buy now £34.00, Cult Beauty
Skinny Tan Self-Tanning Whip
Putting the fun into your tanning practices is Skinny Tan, known for its peach mousses and coconut water products. The latest unveiling is no different. It’s a whipped texture that will remind you of your favourite cream-based topping during application.
Squirt onto the skin and it glides over your body with ease whether you’re using a mitt or a brush. The tan develops in six to eight hours with a choice of medium or dark available. The formula is enriched with hydrating hyaluronic acid, nourishing vitamin E, and antioxidant rich extracts of chia seed oil, kale and blueberry.
Buy now £21.99, Boots
Westman Atelier Skin Activator
Gucci Westman may have only founded her eponymous makeup brand in 2018, but it has since earned official cult status, solving everyday concerns with easy to use and creamy textures. Westman Atelier has expanded its offering to include skincare, a first for the brand and following five years of research and development.
The Skin Activator is a serum with restorative, corrective and protecting properties. It injects moisture into the skin’s barrier to make it feel hydrating, dewy and soothed, while minimising the appearance of pores and fine lines. There’s antioxidant-rich ingredients that shield against further damage. The product has a smart specialised delivery system that minimcs what is found naturally for better absorption.
Buy now £138.00, Liberty
