Trinny Woodall’s new makeup range: the lowdown

As a makeover expert, if you’re going to launch your own line of makeup, it best be transformative. Image consultant of What Not To Wear fame Trinny Woodall has never shied away from addressing what she sees as contemporary issues in fashion and beauty, and her new makeup range, Trinny London, addresses two particular quandaries that many of us find frustrating within our beauty routines: time and faff. Here’s how…

All of the products are stackable

We deserve something more streamlined and portable than lugging around mismatched bottles, compacts and jars, and as such every item of Trinny London makeup is packaged in sleek ‘stackable’ pots that click together. Coined the ‘T Pot’ (v British), you can click together as many products as you like, whether you’re just going out for the evening or travelling the world, and they’ll forever be organised in a sleek tower of essentials that handily comply with airline hand baggage rules. The dream for gym bags too. Also, really satisfying.

The entire range is cream based

From foundation to bronzer to eye colour, the idea is that every product in the range is blendable, buildable and believable, plus you can apply everything and anything with your fingers should brushes just be too much today.

It’s only available online

On the surface this could appear to be a detractor, seeing as buying base in particular on the Internet can clearly be quite the minefield, but a Match2Me® service aims to tailor the range to your unique colouring. It takes five clicks to come up with a combo that should suit you. Obviously totally bespoke beauty is a fine art that no algorithm is going to completely nail, but it’s a key tool for making online beauty accessible and minimising the risk of you wasting your cash.

It’s universal

From mattifying to more moisturising formulas, it’s not just the products that adapt to different women’s needs, but the faces of the brand too. There’s no models showcasing the range, but instead “real women” (TERRIBLE term but you get my meaning) ranging in age from 15 to 80 and from a large cross section of ethnicities. Foundation and concealer wise it’s no Fenty  in terms of shade range, but there are 13 hues to kick off with, ranging from relatively fair to dark. All of the women wearing the makeup on the Trinny London website were selected from amongst Trinny’s wide circle of Instagram followers (316.9k at present), but don’t think that implies filters and Facetuning- all of the campaign imagery is airbrush-free. The cream-based glow is that good.

It’s multipurpose

From the eye colour as liner to cheekbone contour as eyeshadow, much of the makeup delivers on more than one job, which when teamed with the stackable element possibly makes it some of the most efficient makeup around. The cream texture also apparently allows for more seamless touch-ups. The line only launched yesterday, so we’ll get back to you on the longevity element…

The verdict

I’ve been road-testing the range, and here’s what I rate from what the ‘Match 2 Me’ function came up with (I have hazel eyes, brown ‘warm brunette’ hair and lightest skin with ‘pale pink tones’’). The auto-generator will come up with an edit personalised to your colouring, but you can totally disregard that if all you really want is a bloody good highlighter or aubergine eyeshadow. Your call. Fingers at the ready (genuinely no brushes required here). Here are the standouts...

The Right Light Highlighter, £25

A pot of sheer gold at the end of the strobing rainbow, the glossy translucent highlighter melts into skin and lights up cheekbones and the inner eye area without looking in any way Kardashi-fake or alien-like. It creates the illusion of healthy, glowy skin of a Sunday morning when previously you were grey and a teeny tiny tad hungover (see my #nofilter pre refreshing walk in the park pic above). Delicious.

Flush Blush in Electra, £20

I struggle with cream blusher- many are too slippy-offy to fit my demanding blusher criteria (if you don’t know by now blusher is this makeup maniac’s cosmetic weakness ). I cannot tell you how much I love Trinny’s take, however. Okay well I can that’s kind of why I’m here- it’s seamlessly blendable with only your fingers, a perfect warm pink that makes you look well-rested rather than clowny, and it STAYS ON which is some kind of rouged miracle if you’ve got a tendency towards oily skin as I do. I can’t vouch for the other shades, but on pale skintones such as mine, this is a handy face-enlivener that takes seconds to apply. I actually prefer it to buffing on my usual powder blusher with a brush, which is quite the revelation.

Eye2Eye in Magician, £18

Another cream formulation (pattern here) that has serious longevity, this mauvey shadow glides on quickly via a ring finger and brings out the green in hazel eyes while also providing some much needed earthy definition when I look like a pale egg first thing. The main newsflash is that it doesn’t disappear or crease, which are often too rather disappointing downers of cream products. No downers here. Just speedy makeup joy.

Lip2Cheek in Freddie, £25

A very soft matte lipstick/ blusher hybrid, the bolder pigment here is too much for my cheeks (even for this blush nut), but it makes for a beautifully tonal terracotta lipstick that looks polished whether you apply it with your fingers or a lip brush. It’s lightweight yet packs a colour punch, and while you’ll need to touch it up throughout the day, it lasts for a good few hours and the dinky pot makes topping up faff-free. As Trinny promises, a little does indeed go a long way- a few dabs and your lips are plump and rosy.

Shop for Trinny London makeup online from today - prices start at £16

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