Glow, but make it effortless

There was a time when glow meant glitter, stripes of highlight you could spot from across the room, and a slightly overzealous commitment to ‘more is more’. Thankfully, we’ve grown up.

Glow now is quieter, smarter, and infinitely chicer. Which is good news for me at 47!

I often struggle to keep up with trends that don’t suit my age or face shape.

At the centre of this shift is Hourglass Cosmetics, who, quite frankly, have never put a foot wrong when it comes to complexion.

Their Unreal Liquid Highlighter is exactly what modern skin demands: weightless, refined and just the right side of radiant.

No sparkle, no fuss, just finely milled pearls suspended in a sheer base that catch the light in a way that looks expensive rather than obvious.

Founder Carisa Janes said she wanted something effortless and versatile and that’s exactly what this is. It’s the product you throw on when you want to look like you’ve been drinking water, getting facials and minding your business.

Alone, it’s fresh and polished. Layered, it gives that subtle dimension that makes people ask what you’ve ‘done’ when really, you’ve done very little.

Which brings me neatly to blush, because blush is having a moment, but not as we once knew it. Enter Glow Recipe and their Watermelon Glow Niacinamide Dewy Flush essentially skincare masquerading as makeup. This is not your heavy, overly pigmented blush. It’s sheer, it’s buildable, and it gives that soft, hydrated flush that looks like you’ve just come back from a brisk walk rather than a full glam session.

With niacinamide to refine, watermelon extract to hydrate and jojoba oil to keep everything looking juicy, it’s doing far more than just sitting on the skin. It’s improving it.

And that’s really the point of where beauty is heading products that work with your skin, not on top of it.

And then, of course, the lip. Because no matter how minimal the face, the lip still matters.

Fenty Beauty has taken their cult Rose Amber, a go-to for Rihanna and expanded it into a gloss stick and liner combination that is, frankly, foolproof.

The shade itself is that perfect rose-brown hybrid that somehow suits everyone. The Gloss Bomb Stix gives you shine without stickiness (a small miracle), while the liner defines without ever looking harsh or dry. Together, they create that ‘my lips but better, but richer’ finish that pulls everything together.

What I love about all of this is the direction it signals. We are no longer painting faces we are enhancing skin. It’s lighter, it’s fresher, and it’s far more forgiving.

So, if you’re updating your makeup for summer, take this as your cue: less coverage, more skin, and glow that looks like it belongs to you.