Spring makeup trends and releases: the lazy girl’s guide

You’ve entered the danger zone of pastel eyeshadows and floral patterns. Beware!

I present you: Spring makeup trends and releases you can buy now (or, now-ish).

As I’ve mentioned in last year’s Holiday round-up, no makeup addict buys high-end makeup because of its quality. The price point nearly never justifies the quality, but maybe it justifies the allure, the name, the aura. Cosmetic innovation? Sadly lacking.

With that established, we can now enjoy what’s sold to us: Promo images! Packaging! Luxury! So let’s dive right into the spring offerings of the luxury and high-end brands.

Spring makeup trends

Floral packaging

Let’s admit it: we WILL buy products simply for their packaging, and this season is good for that. If you’re craving some flowers on your lipstick packaging, look no further: Guerlain’s Rouge G packaging now comes with cherry blossoms (see below) that manage the feat to look cheap while costing you an arm and maybe a kidney. Givenchy goes florally dark with a better result (pics at makeit_editors). (Both lipstick formulas are perfectly fine. I like Guerlain’s a tad better.)

Embossed patterns

Part 1: lips

Not only your lipstick bullet will be bedazzled, but the lipstick itself will be. Lisa Eldridge made hers look like velvet, Ciate poured glitter of them, and everyone else was like ‘hold my beer’! Now there’re hearts (Kiko), stars (on many a Holiday collection), also, yes indeed, cherry blossoms (Guerlain – swatches at makeit_editors) and good ol’ glitter (Givenchy, above).

Part 2: powders

While embossed lipsticks are the new big thing, nobody cares about embossed powders any more. Chanel’s highlighter doesn’t even try with what’s basically three lines, and the less we speak of Dior’s and YSL’s uninspired offerings, the better.

Cool (and uncool) packaging

Cool: Mac

MAC finally crawls out of its hole and manages a neither twee nor tacky collection: both their new Glow Play blushes (pics at beautystat) (finally, new blushes, even if it’s a cream formula Maybelline did 10 years ago and didn’t catch on) and the Loud & Clear collection sport a sleek translucent packaging that is in pleasing contrast to the nude-ish/pink colour scheme. It looks fresh and modern, and I want to try out the blushes, and get a skinfinish for old times sake. I’m in (pics/swatches at beautyallure).

Uncool: Estée Lauder

The less we talk about Estée Lauder’s attempt to appeal to the millennial crowd, the better. This time it’s one of Estée’s great-granddaughters who gets to dabble in makeup. The packaging of the pared-down collection is the most basic rose-gold and marble I’ve seen in a while.

If the products would be good that wouldn’t be so bad, but they aren’t: chalky eyeshadows and lipsticks straight out of 1970 (think coral and pink with silver glitter. Basically, your grandma’s lipsticks – swatches at Reallyree). No.

Spring makeup trends: PINK

We’re just some roses and heart-shaped confetti away from Valentine’s Day, so no surprise that brands put out everything pink. Will eyeshadow palettes in a range of pinks EVER go out of style?!

Natasha Denona’s Love eyeshadow palette goes all out with its pinks and purples and an accompanying blush palette (first impression vid at Michelle Wang’s), while NARS tries to straddle the line and gives you a range of nudes with two pink shades thrown in for good measure in their Afterglow palette (swatches at Bubblymichelle).

Nudes

Speaking of nudes: Like Urban Decay with their Naked line, Charlotte Tilbury has clearly seen that she’s onto a good thing with her Pillow Talk. First, the nude-pink lipstick. Then there’re eyeshadows, blushes, lip glosses and, freshly released, two Pillow Talk lipsticks tailored for deeper skin colours (pics/swatches of the whole collection at glam-junkies). Thumbs up.

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For some restrained elegance-slash-snoozefest look no further than Chanel’s Desert Dream collection, full of sand, gold and bronze shades (swatches at Temptalia). The glossy bronze cheek stick looks dreamy, and surprisingly, the liquid eyeshadows seem to reference the superb Armani eye tints successfully. Forget the eyeshadow quads.

Pastels

Dior has the most pastel Spring collection that ever pastelled, and look, I’m just not into it. I believe that the window of people successfully wearing pastel colours on their faces closed after the 60s, and will oppose it just for the principle of the thing.

So, Dior’s Glow Vibes collection falls flat for me (reviewers mentioned the quality of the eyeshadow quints fell flat, too – swatches at Temptalia), their insistence to release their cheek lumizers in every collection is tiring and the only faintly exiting thing is the new shades (coral & warm pink) of their beloved pink ‘Rosy Glow’ blush (swatches at Leesunminnn).

Spring makeup trends and releases: glossy lips

Slowly, sloooooowly, it’s happening: we’ve reached peak matte lip and the pendulum swings in the opposite direction. This Spring, brands released a lot of shiny, glossy, sparkly and creamy lip products. Dior released 8 (!) tinted lip oils (swatches at happysloths), Nars 8 (6 new shades, 2 permanent ones) tinted lip balms.

Fenty releases three new shades of their beloved Gloss Bomb lipgloss and Natasha Denona has three nude and pink lipglosses that accompany the Love palettes. Nearly every other brand resorted back to traditional creamy lipsticks in their Spring collections (Guerlain, Givenchy, YSL, MAC).

Shine on, you crazy diamonds.