Illamasqua Once
The latest autumn collection to land on my desk recently was the Illamasqua Once collection – and how pretty is Once?! The idea behind the collection is the beauty of old and new. Decadent and lavish, dabbling with rich textures and autumnal, delicate colours.
“Once is the beauty of the burnished, eroded and erudite,” says Creative Director for Illamasqua, Alex Box. “A palette inspired by the gentle and exquiste point when a flower starts to fade and becomes impossibly beautiful in its complex decline. Combined with the subtle opulence of faded gilt layers that reveal themselves the more your blend and search. She is in an incandescent moment, a poem alive and a light within a palette of decaying decadence.“
Wow. So, essentially it’s a bit like beautiful, fading flowers, mixed with passion and strength. It’s a stunningly simple collection, which really has very few products in it – it’s all about how you apply it.
The collection includes Vintage Metallix Eye Shadow (£16.50) in three lovely shades, Courtier, a dusky rose, Embellish, a rich cocoa, and Bibelot, a rustic golden teal. The shadow formula is a long-lasting, metallic cream-gel texture, with a smudge resistant finish. It provides an intense shimmer finish and can be applied evenly using your index finger. Perfect.
There are two shades of Sheer Lipgloss (£16.50) – Exquisite, a pink oyster, and Opulent, a rainbow beige. Powder Blusher in Naked Rose (£21.50) gives that soft, subtle flush of colour to the cheeks, and the new Nail Varnish in Melange (£14.50), a lovely antique teal shade.
The new Illamasqua Once collection landed on counters on August 29, so get it now! And, if you want to learn how to apply your Illamasqua makeup properly, then you may want to book yourself into a class at the Illamasqua School of Make-Up Art, in London for one of the NEW courses – Skin Realism Course, where you learn how to create the perfect canvas, or the Skin Sculpting Course.
There are loads of other courses to choose from, from two hour courses, to one to four day courses. Visit Illamasqua.com for more info on products and the makeup school.
