I have recently fallen for a number of new products, which is pretty unusual at this time of year, when brands are tiresomely preoccupied with pastel eye shadow and fake tan. The first is M&S Autograph Fibre Sculpting Brow Gel (£9.50), which I’d now like never to be without. For years I took the view that brow fix was simply hair gel in a mascara wand (it was), so any 99p job would do, especially since they all became disgustingly cloudy with makeup and dirt within weeks and needed binning. Then came the fashion for thicker brows, regardless of how thin yours really were, and with it the advent of fibre-filled tinted brow gels that not only tamed the hairs, but simultaneously darkened and bulked. Cheapo brow gels simply no longer cut it, while good fibre gels (with the exception of L’Oréal Paris’s Brow Artiste Plumper; £6.99) cost a fortune.
But now good old Marks & Sparks is offering a halfway house. I doubt I could love this product more: it has the perfect brush, with deep bristles that go right into the roots, lifting and separating each hair to make the entire brow appear fuller all day without depositing a load of muddy gel on to the skin beneath (the colour is pleasingly murky and cold here, as it should be). This is a woefully rare feat.
Bobbi Brown, which could fairly call itself a concealer specialist, has been surprisingly late to launch a full-coverage concealer, especially when the selfie generation apparently desires no other kind. Instant Full Cover Concealer (£23) is its take. It’s thicker than you might expect from something in this sort of wand packaging, and initially you may worry it’s dried out; but on the skin it blends very well, and the dense pigment camouflages dark circles, discolouration and even dark blemishes. (Bobbi Brown is marketing this as an under-eye concealer, and I’m not sure why, unless it’s to protect its existing concealer lineup. This goes very happily anywhere on the face.)
Finally, Chanel’s new Pinceau Duos (£38 for two) have lightened my load considerably. These are four retractable travel eye shadow brushes in lidded tubes that allow me to do any eye look on the go. They lay down colour, blend and softly smudge liner adeptly, and all without picking up lint and other bag crap, or dusting shadow all over my lipsticks.
