Get the Look: Here are November's best beauty launches

Second Skin: Beauty influencer Huda Kattan poses with her new foundation. Image by Huda Beauty.

Picking new makeup without being able to test anything can be fruitless. 

I have a handbag full of perfume mouillettes scribbled with the names of makeup shades that shop assistants think would suit me but trusting our eyes under store lighting seems only slightly less of a gamble than swatching on my hands. I’d put more stock in a shade-matching site like findation.com. That really is a shame because I much prefer the traditional retail environment to online shopping, not least because it involves sporadic conversation.

With over forty million Instagram followers behind Huda Kattan, it’s likely that someone’s talking about her new foundation as I write. The Iraqi-American beauty mogul has just launched #FauxFilter Skin Finish Buildable Coverage Foundation Stick, €38.95, a creamy base that gives medium to full coverage. “Skin finish” is such a common label these days that you’d think it would have its own makeup category but the term covers a wide variety products. Beyond foundations there are highlighters, powders, concealers and setting sprays, so we can understand “skin finish” not as a single product type but anything that feels so second-skin light and makes such a difference that you don’t need anything on top.

The #Fauxfilter stick definitely doesn’t need much help. It is sweat, cake and waterproof, it doubles as concealer and you can use deeper shades as bronzer. If you’ve tried Huda’s original liquid foundation, it’s worth noting that this product’s shade range is slightly different. Search huda beauty.com to adjust for your complexion.

The better your skin looks, the less it needs:

Singaporean clean-beauty brand Allies of Skin is famous for sophisticated multi-tasking products like the Promise Keeper Blemish Sleeping Facial, €135 at spacenk.com . Their pitch is that customers are time-poor and need a lot from a single product. Prices start from €44.30 for 100 ml of their popular Molecular Silk Amino Hydrating Cleanser. They’ve just launch a fun sister brand called PSA at asos.com 

PSA stands for Purposeful Skincare by Allies. All six PSA products are multi- faceted but also more purse friendly than Allies originals. Goals Night Multi Acids & Probiotics Perfecting Night Serum, €43 at asos.com, for example, aims to minimise breakouts, reduce inflammation and improve overall tone. It is formulated with 12% glycolic, lactic, and pyruvic acid to exfoliate the face overnight while increasing the skin’s moisture content. Probiotics work to strengthen the skin's barrier and reduce redness.

Niacinamide works to increase skin’s ability to retain moisture and reduce dullness, while white and green tea extracts protect against free radical damage. I also like The Most, €39, a moisturising and smoothing serum with hyaluronic acid, kombucha and acai berry.

BROWS:

Brow gel is a relatively boring product that’s enjoyed cult status in recent years, thanks to fashion’s embrace of fuller brows and launches like Glossier Boy Brow, €15, and Benefit’s Gimme Brow!, €27.05. Gel often needs support from a pen or pencil, as even tinted formulas don’t quite conceal gaps caused by excessive plucking or natural asymmetry. 

Bare Minerals Strength & Length Serum-Infused Eye Gel

Bare Minerals brings something interesting to the table this month with the launch of Strength & Length Serum-Infused Eye Gel, €21.64 at brownthomas.com, on November 10th. The formula includes red clover flower extract, tetraacetyl peptide-3 and the binding and dispersal agent Dextran, the combination of which has been found to reduce hair loss and encourage hair growth by the Institut Européen de Biologie Cellulaire in Toulouse. The results of the Institute’s study, published in 2011, also found that the blend encouraged eyelash growth.

The brand’s own survey of thirty women found that 27 felt their brows looked fuller without any makeup on after eight weeks of using Strength & Length. This is perhaps less scientific information but I do like that Bare Minerals is not patronising women with promises of coconut oil, CBD or some other trending antioxidant boosting your brow size.

You can’t help but appreciate the instantly fuller, non-shiny look the gel gives brows, even if natural volume is not your goal.

LASHES:

 KVD Vegan Beauty Epic Curl Vegan Lash Primer

KVD Vegan Beauty is out to replace your eyelash curler with a product that won’t tug lashes or pinch your lids. The new KVD Vegan Beauty Epic Curl Vegan Lash Primer, €24.00, gives you lift and curl without clamping. The formula uses bamboo powder for a voluminous, pushed-up look. Jojoba, olive and sunflower-seed oils condition lashes. The slate-blue pigment is easier to conceal with mascara than other primers, as these tend to be white. Epic Curl has a fat, hourglass-shaped brush that catches the short lashes that eyelash curlers tend to miss. 

Pro tip: apply your mascara when the primer is still wet for improved hold.