Product Watch: Get a dewy glow fast with these easy-to-use summer launches

Una Healy is the new face of IsaDora

The dewy complexions and naturally flattering colours trending this summer may be a reaction to health concerns — certainly we’ve never found good health more desirable — but also to the way so many of us enjoyed a low-effort, no-makeup look at home. I cannot be the only person that sees those before-and-after-split images of women with and without makeup and thinks there is nothing wrong with bare faces. The colour and light in these new launches just let beauty shine.

IsaDora Twist Up Gloss in Milk n Chocolate €10.95 Isadora

IsaDora X Una Healy

Una Healy is the first Irish face of IsaDora and has created a busy-mum friendly capsule collection with the Swedish brand. Una will represent the brand for three seasonal campaigns and her collection includes a mix of new launches and selected existent products from the IsaDora range. The campaign visuals were shot earlier this year at Luttrellstown Castle with full Covid safety protocols in place. “I like to look and feel my best, but my makeup routine needs to fit around my family, career and lifestyle. IsaDora is perfect for me as I am always looking for products that are easy to use, with long-lasting results I feel good about. I live a pretty busy life and I need to know that the products I choose will look as good at 8pm as they did at 8am,” said the Tipperary native, who counts the brand’s Isa Dora Twist Up Gloss Stick in 16 Milk and Chocolate, €10.95 at leading pharmacies, among her favourites. The suit-everyone nude can be pencilled on fast and treats your lips to a mix of pro-collagen peptides and hyaluronic acid.

KVD ModCon Liquid Gel-Blush, €27 at boots.ie

Vegan jellies

Vegan makeup pioneers KVD Beauty offer a whole new way to glow with their ModCon Liquid Gel-Blush, €27 at boots.ie The name refers to the blush’s minimal, flexible formula. Patchy drying patterns are always something to watch for when testing gel-based makeup but ModCon blends smoothly over normal to dry skin. The finish is dewy and shimmer-free. Liquid blush can be applied in multiple ways. Depending on the shade and desired look you can drape it, apply it all over the face, use it to contour your face or give the apples of your cheeks a classic flush. To keep the colour balanced when applying it in this last and most popular way, try dotting your formula two fingers away from your nose and two fingers away from the bottom of your eye and then blending outwards.

Bright like a diamond

Fenty Beauty Bright Fix Eye Brightener €24 at boots.ie

A full face of foundation and concealer can look natural, and there’s nothing wrong with wearing both every day. As makeup artist, Trish McEvoy, once told US Vogue: “People are always so proud to tell me they don’t wear foundation and I always think, ‘If you did, you would look better!’’

The key is to avoid masking the skin. The closer your chosen foundation and concealer are to your skin colour, the less obvious it is you’re wearing them. Fenty Beauty has inclusivity in its brand DNA and is famous for its broad shade ranges. Fenty Eaze Drop Blurring Skin Tint, a product designed to effect flawless bare skin, comes in 25 shades. The new Fenty Beauty Bright Fix Eye Brightener, €24 at boots.ie, is almost as nuanced and an excellent camouflage for dark circles. Each of the 16 shades has a serum-like texture that instantly brightens skin and blurs imperfections. The crease-resistant formula contains jojoba oil to help condition delicate under-eye skin.

Plump and glow

Bigger lips are not always better but if you are after a plumping product you cannot do better than something non-irritating that treats and protects the areas vulnerable skin while it works. Glossier Ultralip Hydrating Shine + Colour, €17, has four different molecular weights of hyaluronic acid (to maximise ingredient penetration and hydration time), meadowfoam seed oil, watermelon seed oil and jojoba seed. It comes in nine shades and has a sheer, buildable texture.

Natural illumination

Contouring with a bronzer that is not completely matte never looks natural but a dewy liquid bronze can look good on the cheeks or worn all over the face. Pai Skincare The Impossible Glow Hyaluronic Acid & Sea Kelp Bronzing Drops, from €19 at cultbeauty.com, look like your skin and make that skin better. Most of us are hyaluronic acid devotees at this point and sea kelp has antioxidant chops. These drops can be mixed with moisturiser for a gradual glow, or used straight from the bottle for more ethereal glamour. The formula is infused with light-scattering pigments to help you look lit-from-within and lemon-derived vitamin C fends off damaging radicals.