beauty

We review celebrity makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury's makeup line.

She’s worked backstage for just about every designer at every Fashion Week, is attributed with creating Kate Moss‘ signature rock ‘n’ roll look and did the wedding makeup for Amal Clooney, so it’s safe to say Charlotte Tilbury knows what she’s talking about when it comes to makeup.

After 20 years in the industry, she launched her own makeup line, Charlotte Tilbury, which has quickly earned cult status.

Now finally available in Australia, we’ve rounded up our pick of the five best products to invest in – as well as picked her brain for her ultimate tips and tricks.

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1. Light Wonder Youth Boosting Perfect Skin Foundation

Available in nine shades (including three different fair shades!) this foundation ($70) is all about making your skin look glowing and natural, without the cakey look or feel.

“Lots of women use an ultra thick foundation to cover up imperfections, but in reality it just looks cakey and dry and sits in your pores and lines,” explains Tilbury.

“I believe that no matter your age, your skin needs to breathe through.”

 

Sitting halfway between a BB cream and a foundation, it provides light to medium coverage that is easy to build up and layer if you're after more flawless coverage.

Looking "enhanced" but still yourself is something that's important to Tilbury."I think that everyone wants to be the most beautiful, mesmerising version of themselves and I love that," she says.

The formula blends seamlessly and doesn't have that typical foundation smell, which I like. It's a perfect everyday foundation but I think for evenings I'd want something with greater coverage. (Post continues after gallery.)

Charlotte Tilbury's celebrity clients

2. Full Fat Lashes

"I'm a mascara obsessive, so my Full Fat Lashes ($46) is definitely a product I'm most proud of," says Tilbury.

She created it to replace "the cocktail of five mascaras" that she used to use to get a product that curled, lengthened, separated and added volume and drama to lashes.

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"I literally went through thousands of brushes and formulas during the product development phase to create it!" she says.

The result is a "film-star flutter" look, creating big bold lashes inspired by Elizabeth Taylor, Veronica Lake and Jessica Rabbit. It's a dramatic look perfect for nighttime teamed with kohl-lined eyes and is not clumpy as other "dramatic" mascaras are prone to being.

3. Rock 'N' Kohl Iconic Liquid Eye Pencil

Considering Tilbury wouldn;t be seen without her eyeliner-lined eyes (she even wears it to bed!), it's natural that the kohl eye pencils would be standouts from the collection, and they really don't disappoint. Rich and creamy, they're extremely long-lasting and perfect for smudging.

My personal pick? "Eye cheat" ($43)  - a creamy nude beige colour that's perfect for making your eyes look wider, brighter and more importantly, faking awake.

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"Lining your waterline with it will make you look wide awake when you've only had an hours' sleep," Tilbury advises.

The dark, smokey colours are also great for doing Tilbury's ultimate makeup hack to make you look younger - the cat eye.

"A feline flick can really youth-boost the eyes," she says. "It's been my signature look since I was a teen and it lifts, defines and elongates the eyes."

4. Colour-Coded Eye Shadow Palette in The Golden Goddess

Most of Tilbury's products were created to work together to create a particular look - my favourite is The Golden Goddess.

The Golden Goddess Luxury Palette ($78) comes with four shadows in highly-pigmented earthy brown colours, which are numbered to make it even easier to apply as Tilbury would.

 

The perfect size to carry around with you, it's a versatile collection of colours that work for both day and night - and has fast become by most-used product.

The quad also comes with a mirror - something that is seriously underrated.

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Tilbury also lists it as an essential product for "minute makeup" - easy to use, no fuss products perfect for when you have less than five minutes to do everything in your car rearview mirror.

5. Magic Cream

It's not a traditional foundation or primer, but Magic Cream ($125) is one face product that far too easy to fall in love with - and the perfect moisturising base for your makeup.

 

"I never found a foundation that I fell in love with so I used concealers mixed with creams known as Magic cream for the past 20 years," explains Tilbury.

"Magic cream became a legend backstage and was used to turn around models' tired, dry and dull skin backstage before a show. Soon models, photographers, editors and designers were asking after it, so of course it had to be included.'

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"It’s packed with active ingredients including BioNymph Peptide Complex and mix of essential oils to flood the skin with moisture."

Perfect for faking awake, simply apply as you would primer, extending to your neck as well. The good news? A little bit goes a long way.

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Have you used Charlotte Tilbury's range before? What's your favourite product?

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