01
Warm, cool, neutral
Warm undertones run golden, peach and olive. Cool undertones run pink, red and blue. Neutral sits between the two and takes either. Every one of the three occurs at every depth, which is why depth alone tells you nothing.
Beauty School
The technique behind the finish.
A course in eight chapters: how colour works on skin, the order a face goes on in, how to place a base, what finish and coverage actually mean, what the tools are for, what a cosmetic is made of, where to place it for your own face, and how one look becomes another after dark.
Start the courseChapter one
Colour is a relationship, not a number.
Almost every foundation that looks wrong is the right depth and the wrong undertone. Depth is how light or deep a shade is. Undertone is the colour underneath it, and it does not change when you tan.
02
How to read your own
Look at the skin on the inside of your wrist in daylight, not under a bulb. Compare a gold ring and a silver one against it and see which disappears. Then check which of a stark white shirt and a cream one flatters you. Two of the three agreeing is your answer.
03
The wheel, in one line
Opposite colours cancel. That is the whole of colour correcting: peach and orange sit opposite blue, so they neutralise a blue cast, and green sits opposite red. It is also why a lip that fights your undertone reads louder than you meant it to.
04
Depth on deeper skin
Deeper skin carries the widest undertone range of all, which is exactly why matching by depth alone fails hardest there, and why depth-only shade ladders run out. Start from undertone and work to depth, not the other way round. Foundation.
05
Test on the jaw
Not the wrist and not the back of the hand, which are rarely the colour of your face. Draw a stripe along the jaw, let it sit for ten minutes, then look in daylight. The right shade stops looking like makeup.
06
Now match it
This chapter is the theory. The matching itself lives in the Shade and Finish Guide, which walks undertone, finish and coverage and returns real shades from the range.
Chapter two
The order a face goes on in.
Order is not fussiness. Each step changes the surface the next one has to sit on, so working out of sequence is most of what makes a face look heavy.
1
Prime
Primer is a surface, not a product you should be able to see. It gives everything above it something even to hold on to. Primer.
2
Base
Foundation, tinted moisturiser or BB cream, whichever coverage the day asks for. Thin first, then build. Foundation.
3
Conceal
After base, never before. Once the base is down you can see what actually still needs concealing, which is usually far less. Concealer.
4
5
Brow
Brows frame everything above and set how strong the rest can be. Shape to the face you have rather than to a trend. Brow.
6
Cheek
Blush and bronzer put the blood and the light back, which is what a base takes away. Blush and Bronzer.
7
8
Set
Set only where you need to hold, which on most faces is the centre panel. Setting everything is what turns a skin finish flat. Finishing Powder.
Built as a sequence you can shop: the 7 Step Makeup Routine, or the full Complete Makeup Routine.
Chapter three
How to place foundation so it wears like skin
The difference between foundation that sits on a face and foundation that becomes it is almost entirely in how it is put down.
1
Prep and match
Start on skin that is clean and already moisturised, and give it a minute to settle. Match along the jaw in daylight, never on the back of the hand.
2
Place, do not spread
Put small amounts where you want the most coverage, then press outward. Spreading a single blob thins it everywhere and covers nothing.
3
Build only where needed
A second thin pass on the centre of the face beats one thick pass everywhere. Edges stay sheer, which is what keeps a jawline invisible.
4
Set to the finish
Set where you shine and leave the rest. Powdering a whole face is the fastest way to lose the finish you chose the foundation for.
Ready to put it into practice? Shop foundation, browse powder foundation, or see the full cosmetics collections.
Chapter four
The vocabulary of finish and coverage
Two words do most of the work when you choose a base. Finish is how light behaves on the surface. Coverage is how much of the skin below still shows.
Finish
- Matte
- A flat, shine-free surface. Flatters skin that tends to look shiny by midday and anyone who prefers a still, even face.
- Satin
- A soft, natural sheen between matte and luminous. The most forgiving middle ground, and flattering on most skin.
- Luminous
- A lit-from-within glow. Flatters drier or more mature skin, where light on the surface reads as vitality.
Coverage
- Sheer
- A veil of colour that evens tone while your own skin shows through. For a bare, undone look.
- Medium
- Buildable coverage that softens redness and marks while still reading like skin. The everyday choice.
- Full
- An even, opaque finish that covers tone completely. For occasions, photography, or wherever you want it flawless.
Know the words and want the shade? The Shade and Finish Guide walks undertone, finish and coverage and returns real shades from the range.
Chapter five
What the tools are actually for.
A tool does not apply a product, it decides how much of it lands and how hard the edge is. Changing the brush changes the result more than changing the shade.
01
The sponge
Damp, it dilutes and presses. Use it to sheer a base out and to knock back anything that went on too heavy. Dry, it does the opposite and takes coverage up.
02
Dense against loose
A dense head deposits colour and gives you a hard edge. A loose, longer head blends and gives you a soft one. Most mistakes are a dense brush used for a job that needed a loose one.
03
The packing brush
Short, flat and firm. It presses pigment onto the lid rather than sweeping it, which is how you get colour that reads as strongly as it did in the pan. Brushes.
04
The powder puff
Press and roll, do not drag. A puff sets into the base rather than sitting on it, which is why it holds longer than a brushed layer.
05
Angled and precision heads
An angled head follows a line you already have: the brow, the lash root, the lip edge. It is a tool for accuracy, not coverage. Brushes and tools.
06
Cleaning them
Wash with the head pointing down so water never runs into the ferrule, reshape while damp, and dry flat. Water sitting in the ferrule is what loosens the glue and sheds bristles. Beauty accessories.
Chapter six
What a cosmetic is actually made of.
Nine jobs, and every ingredient in the range is doing one of them. Each name below opens our own entry for it, with what it is, where it sits in the formula, and how many products in the range it appears in.
Colour, what carries the shade
17 ingredientsEvery shade in the range starts here. The iron oxides and titanium dioxide do the work on skin, and the certified lakes carry the brighter reds, oranges and blues that a lip needs and an earth pigment cannot reach.
- Red Iron Oxide (CI 77491)
- Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891)
- Black Iron Oxide (CI 77499)
- Yellow Iron Oxide (CI 77492)
- Yellow 5 Lake (CI 19140)
- Blue 1 Lake (CI 42090)
- Red 40 Lake (CI 16035)
- Red 6 / Red 7 Lake (CI 15850)
- Yellow 6 Lake (CI 15985)
- Red 27 / Red 28 Lake (CI 45410)
- Chromium Oxide Green (CI 77288)
- Manganese Violet (CI 77742)
- Ultramarines (CI 77007)
- Carmine (CI 75470)
- Iron Blue (CI 77510)
- Red 30 Lake (CI 73360)
- Orange 5 (CI 45370)
Finish, what bends the light
6 ingredientsFinish is not a pigment. These are effect materials, in the formula to change how light leaves the surface. They are the difference between a powder that goes flat and one that gives back a glow.
Body, what holds a shape
6 ingredientsThe structuring waxes. They are why a lipstick can live in a pocket and still draw a clean line, and why a gloss has weight instead of running.
Feel, what a texture is made of
9 ingredientsThe powders that decide how something feels going on: slip across the skin, cling once it lands, and whether a pressed pan gives its colour up evenly to a brush.
Slip, what carries colour across skin
13 ingredientsEmollients. Pigment on its own is a dry powder. These are what let it move, blend and stop at an edge you chose rather than one it chose.
- Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride
- Bis-Diglyceryl Polyacyladipate-2
- Isododecane
- Hydrogenated Polyisobutene
- Dicaprylyl Carbonate
- Tridecyl Trimellitate
- Hydrogenated Polydecene
- Octyldodecanol
- Ethylhexyl Palmitate
- Ricinus Communis (Castor) Seed Oil
- Octyldodecyl Stearoyl Stearate
- Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil
- Polyisobutene
Wear, what keeps it where you put it
12 ingredientsThe silicone system. An even film that holds pigment in place through a day, and the emulsifiers that keep that film and the water phase from parting company in the bottle.
Suspension, what stops it separating
7 ingredientsLeft alone, a liquid formula settles into a clear layer and a heavy one. These hold the pigment in suspension so the last use is the same colour as the first.
The water phase and what is dissolved in it
8 ingredientsWater, the humectants that hold moisture in the formula, and the conditioning agents that sit alongside the colour rather than doing the colouring.
Protection, what keeps it safe and stable
10 ingredientsThe preservation system and the stabilisers. The least glamorous chapter in any formula, and the reason a product opened in January is still fine to use in June.
All 88 entries live in the ingredient glossary.
Chapter seven
Where it goes, on your face.
Light brings forward, shadow sends back. That single rule is the whole of contouring, and everything below is an application of it. None of this is correction in the sense of fixing something. It is placement.
By face shape
- Round
- Light down the centre line and along the top of the cheekbone. Shadow at the outer cheek, which draws the eye vertically rather than across.
- Square
- Shadow softened at the corners of the jaw and the temple. Light on the centre of the chin and under the eye to round the middle of the face.
- Long
- Shadow along the hairline and under the chin to shorten. Blush placed horizontally across the cheek rather than swept up toward the temple.
- Heart
- Shadow at the outer forehead, light along the jaw. Blush low and outward, so weight moves down toward the narrower half.
- Oval
- Needs the least. Light on the high points you already have, and stop. Over-sculpting an oval is the commonest way to make a face look older than it is.
By lip shape
- Thin upper lip
- Line just outside the natural edge at the bow only, never all the way round, then bring the colour to meet it. Gloss at the centre of the upper lip does the rest.
- Full lips
- Line on the natural edge, not inside it. A matte or a stain holds the shape where a heavy gloss will spread it.
- Uneven lips
- Build the smaller side up to the larger one with the liner, in short strokes rather than one line, then blend the two edges together before any colour goes on.
- Downturned corners
- Stop the liner a fraction short of the corner and lift the final stroke very slightly. Dark shades read heavier here, so keep the corners lighter than the centre.
- Any shape, made to last
- Liner across the whole lip before colour, colour, blot, colour again. The blot is the step everyone skips and the one that does the work. Liner.
Chapter eight
The same face, after dark.
An evening look is not a different routine. It is the day routine with three decisions changed, and knowing which three is what stops it becoming a costume.
01
Pick one thing to be loud
Eye or lip, not both. Two focal points compete and the face reads busy rather than dramatic. Everything that is not the focus gets quieter, not louder.
02
Depth, not more product
Evening wants more depth in the crease and a firmer edge, not another layer of base. A heavier base under low light looks like a mask, not like glamour.
03
Light behaves differently at night
Warm indoor light eats the top of a shade, so what reads bold in daylight reads muted after dark. Go one step deeper than feels right in the mirror at home.
04
Shimmer where the bone is
On the top of the cheekbone, the brow bone and the centre of the lip. Shimmer anywhere there is texture rather than bone will find that texture and show it.
05
Set harder, but only where
A longer night needs the centre panel held and the outside left alone. Setting the whole face for longevity trades the finish you built for it.
06
The whole look, assembled
Built out as a set rather than a list of steps: Full Glam Look.
Put it to work
From lesson to shade.
Three ways to turn the course into something you can actually wear.
Shade and Finish Guide
Walks undertone, finish and coverage and returns real shades from the range. The practical half of chapter one.
The ingredient glossary
Every material in chapter five, in full: what it is, what it does, and how many products in the range it appears in.
The whole range
Every cosmetics collection in one place, from base and brow through to brushes and tools.
One more thing
Have your look built for you.
You do not have to hold all of this at once. Answer a few questions and we will match the shade, the finish and the coverage to you.
Open the Shade and Finish Guide
