In a world where your handbag might cost £1,500, your dress £1,000, your shoes £400 and your face cream £300, surely it is not such a shock to find face powder that costs £100, foundation that costs £60 and lipstick that costs £32. New ranges by La Prairie, By Terry, Serge Lutens, Suqqu and Tom Ford for Estée Lauder are upping the ante — this is make-up, but more advanced, more desirable and, most of all, more luxurious than ever before.
What customers get for their money is treatment. “We put the most advanced research and technology into developing our products and sourcing only the best ingredients,” says Holly Parton-Genovese, La Prairie’s international vice president of training. La Prairie make-up is texturally sublime, and it suffuses the skin with nutrients: its Cellular Radiance Cream Blush (£46) includes the antioxidant vitamins A, C and E, soothing camomile extract and silica, to mop up excess oil; caviar extracts, triple-vitamin complex, plumping complex, polymers and optical diffusers, to make lines less noticeable, are found in Cellular Luxe Lip Colour (£32).
Crème de la Mer has just launched Skincolor — fluid foundation (£55) and powder (£50) — a range with treatment benefits. “We have formulated our latest skincare advances to provide both visible lifting and skin-clarifying benefits in our foundations,” says Loretta Miraglia, the senior vice president of product development. The key ingredient is tourmaline, a gemstone that captures light and transfers energy to the skin. Suqqu, a Japanese brand that is a subsidiary of Kanebo, boasts a plethora of patents in its make-up. Its foundations and powders, for example, contain molecules 100 times larger than those found in other cosmetics lines, to prevent the make-up sinking into the skin and clogging the pores.
The thrill of these products is down to texture as well as science. De Gunzburg is the queen of light — she created Touche Eclat and, ever since, has been striving to make cosmetics that slip onto the skin as comfortably as silk camiknickers. “My customers don’t have to feel the heaviness of technology,” she says. Her Rouge Delectation lipsticks (£22) include no greasy waxes: “The base colour comes from raspberry butter, cherry-seed precious oil and plum precious oil.”
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What Tom Ford (who will launch his own-brand make-up in 2007) is selling is old-fashioned glamour. With the Tom Ford for Estée Lauder capsule collections, you are not only buying beautiful heavy-metal and glass packaging — some of the only brass lipsticks left on counters — you are buying into an aspirational fantasy. “The Tom Ford Estée Lauder Collection woman is urbane and sophisticated,” the company claims. “When she’s putting on make-up is the time she’s at her most glamorous.” And glamour, after all, is what the new status make-up is resolutely all about.
TOP 5 STATUS MAKE-UP ITEMS
1. SK-II Power Signs Treatment Foundation, £65; 0800 072 1771 Gives a beautiful veil of moist base colour
2. By Terry Eclat de Teint in Rose, £48; 020 8740 2085 This luminous corrective light enhancer has an illuminating effect on skin under foundation. Contains active skincare ingredients such as soy protein
3. La Prairie Cellular Treatment Powder Blush, £32; 020 7730 1234 A beautiful muted rose tint to sweep over cheeks and contour the face. Incredibly fine texture; very, very subtle
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4. Tom Ford Estée Lauder Collection The Eye Gloss, £30; 0870 034 2566 Perfect over smoky eyes, creating a sexy shine. The gold-effect casing is great for pulling out of a handbag and impressing all around
5. Serge Lutens lipstick, £49; 020 7730 1234 The lightest lipstick known to man. Really, really silky