One of the simpler joys of life these days is a full face of makeup.
Whether you’re wearing it to the shop, the post box, or just to sit in front of Zoom in your sitting room for a few hours, it’s nice to feel like you’ve made a little effort. Interrupting the cycle of tracksuit, messy bun and runners is important, because all too quickly, those habits become just a little too comfortable.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a total advocate of wearing whatever you feel comfortable in - I don't think I've worn heels on a night out since 2016 - but it’s easy to get bogged down these days. With every day feeling like Groundhog day, one week morphs into another. It’s important to make space for variety in our lives, and one of the ways I love to do that is by dressing up a little a few days a week, and doing my makeup.
Anyone who’s been following along with my retinol journey knows my skin struggle – pigmentation, oiliness and breakouts to name but a few. Because of this, I’m always on the lookout for quality coverage foundations. Sheer, oily ‘glowy’ foundations just don’t work for my kind of skin, as much as I love their effect on others. Due to my skin type, my foundation often ends up in clumps around my face at the end of the day, even if I have set it properly. The key is finding the right foundation for your skin type.
Which is why I was so excited when I saw Clarin’s new Everlasting foundation & Everlasting concealer. I’ve always been a fan of the Clarin's brand, especially their foundations, because they really work to encompass every skin type and tone. Plus, they have 65 years of experience backing them up, so they really have seen it all!
But what is great about a foundation like this for someone with my kind of skin – skin that needs full and lasting coverage – is that has a matte finish with 24-hour wear. That means no discovering half my make-up has slicked off my face at the 4pm tea-break mark. Or worse, that the concealer has oxidised and turned my under eyes orange again.
This skin duo boasts a natural looking finish, which is important when you need full coverage – there’s nothing worse than doing your full face of makeup and then stepping into better light and looking like you’ve just smashed your face into your palette and blended.
And apparently ‘Everlasting’ isn’t just a clever branding technique. The Clarins' Laboratories have worked with a special 'hold' polymer in this formula and combined it with some of their signature natural ingredients to increase the adherence of colour pigments on the skin, meaning we get a foundation and concealer that lasts all day – even your most active day. Alongside the combination of bamboo powder and naturally sourced silica that has a mattifying property, Clarins have created a skin tone optimising complex to their formula, by combining pink pearls and soft-focus powders for luminous colour and an even skin tone.
This is the foundation and concealer duo for the one-more-rep sporty spice, the all-night-dancefloor party girl, the boss lady working those extra hours – and your go-to for when we can go out again. Long-wearing and enhanced with escin from horse chestnuts which helps reduce the appearance of puffiness, its smoothing texture instantly covering dark circles and illuminating tired eyes. ‘Life-proof’ your makeup case with these lightweight, cover-all skin hacks.
My favourite feature, however, is that this range meets the needs of all skin tones, something that’s hard to find when you have the awkward pale, rosy Irish skin like mine. The Everlasting duo has got everyone covered from the lightest to the darkest of complexions.
With 35 shades are available for the foundation and 8 for the concealer, each person can find their perfect match. Especially now that they’ve added an awesome new feature, developing a new colour classification system following 5 intensities: very light, light, medium, deep and very deep, as well as classifying your skin tone to match you with your perfect colour:
Cool (C) +
For pink, red and blue undertones. Your skin rarely tans and silver jewellery suits you better.
Warm (W) +
For yellow, golden or peach undertones. Your skin tans easily and gold jewellery suits you best.
Neutral (N) +
For a mix of the two previous undertones. Your skin tans easily enough and you can wear both gold and silver jewellery and equally pull them off.
Natural ingredients in the formula include:
Oats:
In traditional medicine, oats are said to have fortifying and softening properties. Oat traditionally helps to fight skin dryness and soothe sensitive skin. In cosmetics, the sugars from its seed provide exceptional tightening benefits and also have the ability to form on the skin a sort of “mesh” which enhances make-up wear.
Bamboo:
Bamboo is very rich in silica and used in traditional medicine for its beneficial action on the joints and its toning and fortifying properties. Bamboo tears extract is commonly used to help promote firmer skin. Bamboo tears can also be dried and ground into a powder which has mattifying properties when the particles are fine and an exfoliating action when the particles are large.
Horse Chestnut:
In cosmetics, escin from horse chestnut helps enhance micronutrition. The combination of escin with sunflower phospholipids helps to optimise the bioavailability of caffeine and therefore encourages the release of fats. In cosmetics, horse chestnut flower extract helps activate the skin's micronutrition network.
Quinoa:
In cosmetics, quinoa seed extract helps to reinforce the skin barrier. As for quinoa extract, rich in sugars, it offers an exceptional skin-tightening ability.
