Like a kid in a sweetshop

It feels like I’ve been waiting FOREVER for Topshops (badly kept) secret line of slap to come out but the three main ‘need to know’ points are: It’s finally hit the shops this week, it’s hyper affordable (starting at around £4 and hitting £10 for its most expensive piece) and the packaging is AMAZING!





I mean – LOOK!




It’s a colourful, spirited collection of fashion brights, in luxxy professional finishes.
Because, if like me, you’re old enough to remember Topshop’s first ‘attempt’ at makeup in the mid nineties – before it became the Topshop it is today - then you may have had reservations. Will it be a jumble sale of talc-y eye shadows, few shades of waxy lipsticks and horrific gloopy foundation?

Put all that to one side, this time around, they’ve thrown everything at it and ‘completely started from scratch’, according to Topshop Managing Director, Mary Homer.
Shades like The Big Smoke – a putty-coloured nail polish, not dissimilar to Chanel’s sell-out Particuliere, and Thistle – a pretty purple kohl pencil, are inspired by fashion, not makeup trends. And whilst the makeup finish on all products is professional standard, there’s not a huge focus on foundations and bases. Skin Tint, a second-skin tinted moisturiser and Skin Glow, a face brightener (I’d mix the two products together for a dewy, glossy base) are the only bases in the range. ‘We want girls to look real and their makeup to look lived-in,’ says makeup artist Hannah Murray. ‘There are no rules anymore. We would expect and encourage our customers to play and experiment with this range, and make it their own.’ And I can see Topshop’s core customer doing that with this range, especially over the festival season; a little lip gloss on the eyelids, cream blush and glitter on lips. Yep.

Lizzie Dawson (Topshop’s key designer) travelled from Paris to Tokyo to research how girls get ready for festivals. ‘Usually you’ve got to go to specialist shops to find the kind of makeup girls wear at festivals, like glitter, face art crayons and false lashes for starters. We wanted to offer fun, adventurous products on the high street at an affordable price,’ she adds. I wanted to use a picture to illustrate the undone & polished grunge look at work, and could think of anything better than the Topshop Unique fashion show, where Murray created a ‘woodland Brownies’: Skin Tint to warm skin, Tint on cheeks for a weathered effect, and applied gold paint on the inner corner of the eye and down the bridge of the nose, according to WWD