Foundation Care: Our favourite three foundations to mask Autumn dryness

Perhaps the most essential beauty product of all – foundation – is the miracle liquid that most ladies need to even out their skin tones, mask blemishes and top off a natural look. With the options of beauty products seemingly never-ending, it can be difficult to narrow down which product is the right fit for you and your skin, but don’t fret – here at Gafencu we’ve carefully selected our three favourite foundations of the season, which provide 24-hour coverage, SPF protection and more!

With some help from natural honey extracts, Swiss-based Valmont is looking to make skin silky this season with its Teint Majestueux foundation. Functioning almost like a second skin, this supersmooth make-up restores brightness to the skin and delivers a wholly natural look.

Taking a more golden approach to skincare is Guerlain, the French cosmetics marque, with its new Parure Gold – Gold Radiance Foundation. Infused with 24K gold, the foundation promises to add a little light, while also offering SPF 30-PA+++ protection.

The Ultra Le Teint Flawless Finish Foundation from Chanel is now said to be the marque’s go-to product for flawless and long-wear foundation. With a 24-hour matte finish guaranteed, it’s also instilled with natural glycerin, leaving the skin soft and supple throughout the day

Related: Get the Look: The Autumn Almaknack

Taking the Fall: Own the coming season with these autumn beauty products

Even as we bid a fond farewell to the fading weeks of summer, autumn is surely waiting in the wings, with its briefer days and cooler temperatures necessitating a different beauty regime. It is, indeed, time to trade in those light summertime creams in favour of weightier, more rejuvenating treatments. Fortunately, there is no shortage of skincare brands only too willing to help you make the required transformation.

With a promise to replenish and revive come the reformulated Intensive Fortifying Emulsion and Intensive Fortifying Cream from Clé de Peau Beauté. Designed to work in harmony, the duo have been formulated for night-time usage, allowing them to nocturnally activate the epidermis’ natural defences, ensuring you wake up with smoother and healthier-looking skin.

Clé de Peau Beauté Intensive Fortifying Cream and Intensive Fortifying Emulsion

Also focussing its attention on dispelling the telltale signs of ageing is Guerlain, with oily and multi-problem complexions particularly in its sights. Using only natural ingredients, the brand’s new Abeille Royale Mattifying Day Cream boosts the skin’s self-regeneration capacity, allowing for a more comprehensive takedown of the visible signs of wrinkles.

Guerlain Abeille Royale Mattifying Day Cream

Meanwhile, the fine folks over at Helena Rubinstein have ventured into decidedly organic territory with the Powercell Skinmunity range, which boasts a high native vegetal cell content. The real miracle products in this range are the Powercell Skinmunity The Serum, with its smoothening properties, and the Powercell Skinmunity The Emulsion, with its hydrating qualities.

Helena Rubinstein Powercell Skinmunity The Serum and Powercell Skinmunity The Emulsion

Last – but certainly not least – is Japan’s Shiseido, with its all-new Legendary Enmei Ultimate Luminance Serum, the crowning glory of its Future Solution LX collection. Incorporating both enmei herbs and green treasured silk, the serum derives its raw regenerative power from nature and smoothly delivers this onto the skin’s defence system, helping to restore your youthful tones and banish wrinkles.

Shiseido Legendary Enmei Ultimate Luminance Serum

Get the Look: The Autumn Almaknack

Get the Look

In the darkest times, it’s still possible to shine and let all around see your inner light. Start with the lightweight Airbrush Flawless Foundation from Charlotte Tilbury, then enhance your cheekbones with Lancôme‘s Blush Subtil. Moving up to the eye region, apply Giorgio Armani Beauty’s Eyes to Kill Designer Eyeliner for an ultra-slim effect, then reach for the High-Pigment Longwear Eyeliner from NARS for a smokey touch below the eyes. Focussing on the lashes, opt for the Climax Mascara, again courtesy of NARS, before treating your eyes to a little shine from Givenchy’s Prismissime – Nine-colour eyeshadow palette. Next, add a dab of Tom Ford’s Fiber Brow Gel to the brows. Give a shine to your lips courtesy of Hourglass’ Unreal High Shine Volumizing Lip Gloss and, finally, enhance your overall glow with Guerlain’s new Parure Gold Mist.

Luxury Hydration Creams to See you Through Summer

With summertime wholly synonymous with sticky days and even stickier nights, it can be a real battle to keep facial skin properly moisturised and hydrated. With that in mind, now is the ideal time to restock your beauty cabinet with all the latest cosmetic technology geared to ensure optimum sun survival.

As fresh to the market as it will be to any suffering skin, Paris-based Guerlain’s new Super Aqua-Serum and Super Aqua-Lotion have both been developed with ensuring the ultimate in skin sensuality very much in mind. Thanks to its apt deployment of advanced aqua complex technology, your skin’s natural water flow is optimised, resulting in instant and persistent rehydration.

Another brand on a mission to help you through the summer is Dior, with its Hydra Life Fresh Reviver Sorbet Water Mist and Fresh Hydration Sorbet Crème taking centre stage. The mist keeps your skin hydrated throughout the day, with its array of active ingredients stimulating the intra-cellular water reserve while energising your epidermis.

Just as its name suggests, Fresh is looking to ensure that your skin is ably moisturised, courtesy of its Rose Deep Hydration Sleeping Mask. The night-time application consists of a cooling gel essence and calming rosewater, which work together to smoothe out and strengthen the skin’s natural barriers.

Meanwhile, Derm Institute is set on reducing your unwanted blemishes and warding off the worst effects of ageing with its new Anti-Oxidant Hydration Blemish Rescue. Featuring such key ingredients as 3D hydra APS, vitamin B3 and nanogold, this is very much an anti-inflammatory, anti-blemish all-star squad.

Last but not least is the new Moisture Cream from Eve Lom. Promising to keep your skin hydrated for up to 72 hours, the cream is said to detoxify cells while strengthening the skin’s own barriers.

Go for the Glow: Four new foundations to try this season

French luxury skincare brand Clarins is seemingly on a mission to persuade its keen adherents to turn over a new leaf this year, at least dermatologically, with its all-new Skin Illusion foundation being touted as the first veil foundation with a silky serum texture and a bare skin finish.

Hot on its heels is another haute French beauty brand – Guerlain – that has just reinvented its L’Essentiel Natural Glow Foundation. Promising everything from a 16-hour glow to guaranteeing an au naturel complexion, it’s apparently a 30ml miracle that’ll transform your skin forever, at least according to the company.

However, if it’s the most futuristic form of skincare that you seek, perhaps you should try out US-based cosmetics brand Hourglass’ hero product – Vanish Seamless Finish Liquid Foundation. A highly concentrated liquid, only a tiny drop of this foundation is said to be enough to give you full coverage. As an added bonus, it’s vegan and cruelty-free.

Meanwhile, for some extra radiance, why not seek out the Sheer Glow Foundation from French beauty marque NARS? In addition to the expected assurances of full coverage, even skin tone and long-lasting formula, it’s also said to provide maximum luminosity, giving you that ever-desirable glowing skin. Available in 20 shades, there’s sure to be something here for everyone.

Timeless Beauty: Rediscover the lost cosmetic arts of the Ancient World

It has long been known that many of the world’s most ancient civilizations boasted sophisticated and highly effective beauty regimes, the secrets of which have been lost over the intervening centuries. Now, though, it seems at least some of those arcane aesthetic arts have been rediscovered by the contemporary cosmetics sector…

anti-ageing — *Derm Institute Youth Alchemy Soft Cream*

Pre-eminent in this move to restore such timehonoured treatments is Derm Institute, with the ultragentle formula of its Youth Alchemy Soft Cream said to contain a number of active plant cells, including blue lotus and myrrh, both of which are reported to boost the skin’s immune system and help protect natural collagen, ultimately delivering a luxurious anti-ageing effect.

Fresh to the market and all but guaranteed to freshen up your facial features is Guerlain’s Orchidée Impériale. A modern take on a classic remedy formula, it actively soothes the papillary dermis, reducing enlarged pores and gently concealing deep wrinkles.

Those enamoured with the renowned wisdom of ancient India may already be familiar with su:m37˚’s LosecSumma Elixir Day Ampoule and LosecSomma Elixir Cream. The active ingredients of this traditional Indian Ayurveda fermentation remedy are said to detoxify and regenerate the skin, while trapping essential moisture within for anti-ageing effects.

Another heritage treatment well worth investigating is Sulwhasoo’s Timetreasure Invigorating Cream. The brand’s take on nature incorporates Korean red pine needles, an arboreal element said to help combat the effects of ageing while bolstering skin cells.

Finally, should you still be searching for just one multifunctional means of amelioration, La Prairie’s Platinum Rare Cellular Life Lotion, with its fusion of antioxidants and platinum metal, is said to help restore your skin in myriad different ways.

Silk Route: Get silky smooth skin with our top three foundations

Chanel – that most noteworthy of Parisian brands – claims to have discovered the secret of truly silky smooth skin and has incorporated it into its Luminous Touch Foundation, the latest addition to its Vitalumière Glow line. Utilising the very finest hyaluronic acid, the foundation is said to lock water naturally into the epidermis, creating the brand’s signature soft look.

Championing the cause among the non-European brands is Japan’s Clé de Peau Beauté, which has just released its apparently high-functioning Hydro-Softening Lotion, a foundation that, it says, delivers an immediate softening effect, while eliminating all signs of dryness and flakiness. A must-have for winters, we say!

While silky smoothness may traditionally have been the forte of liquid foundations, Guerlain is no respecter of such conventions, as it demonstrated with its newly available New Lingerie De Peau Compact Mat Alive. With easy purse-friendly portability, it could be just the thing you need for a quick touch-up after a long day.

Nature’s Mothering: Top four creams with natural ingredients

Since time immemorial, ladies have found in nature a true ally when it comes to enhancing their own beauty. Whether it was Cleopatra, the timeless Queen of the Nile, bathing daily in asses’ milk or the princesses of India turning to sesame oil to enhance their complexion, our foremothers knew a thing or two many cosmetic brands have yet to pick up on. That, though, may be changing.

La Mer, the internationally renowned skincare specialist, for instance, has just launched Crème de la Mer, a treatment said to contain a Miracle Broth, an ingredient wholly sourced from the ocean. Harnessing the goodness that is sea kelp, it is fermented to create a cream with unique skin-soothing properties.

Also looking seawards, Switzerland’s La Prairie recently unveiled its Skin Caviar Luxe Cream. With a reputation for maximising the benefits of maritime-sourced treatments that dates back to its early days in the late ’90s, this is the most recently launched of its caviar-extract collection.

Clearly not one to be left behind, Paris-based Guerlain has on offer New Orchidée Impériale Black The Cream, a preserving balm made from rare black Andean orchids that deliver protection from excessive sunlight while also compensating for the damage caused by too little exposure to natural light.

Another brand relying on nature to bolster sales is Chanel, which has just released its Le Lift Cream. Getting back in touch with its Gallic inheritance, alfalfa is said to be the treatment’s key ingredient.

Text: Suchetana Mukhopadhyay

Out with the old: Four beauty solutions for the forever young

With age, so they say, comes wisdom, poise and return on investment. Less alluringly, superannuity also brings with it wrinkles, crow’s feet and other signs of incipient decrepitude. The challenge eternal, then, is to revel in all the plus points of inching ever closer to pensionhood, while ably diminishing time’s toll at every turn.

Ever ready to prop up the cosmetic conceits of the age-averse, pretty much every beauty brand has its own take on wrinkle reparation and skin rejuvenation. At present, foremost among these is the recently launched Abeille Royale Double R Renew & Repair Serum, courtesy of Guerlain, the renowned French beauty line. Boasting the very latest in soft peeling technology, the serum is said to renew and repair dull skin, all by harnessing the good offices of TIEG1, a potent collagen-replenishing gene.

Another apparently effective year-rewinder is RéVive’s Intensité Complete Anti-Aging Serum. This fast-absorbing treatment comprises an advanced line-relaxing complex that is said to significantly soften lines while covering micro-crevices and giving skin that expertly-Photoshopped feel.

Clearly unwilling to be left out, Paris-based Sisley has launched its reputedly gravity-defying Sisleÿa L’Intégral Anti-Âge Firming Concentrated Serum, an epic epidermal aid that that bestows unprecedented firming thanks to its elastin-generating technology.

Meanwhile, those reluctantly resigning themselves to an eternity of dark spots – another consequence of more candles on your cake – could do far worse than invest in Helena Rubinstein’s Re-Plasty Laserist Brightening Creator Cream in Serum, an anti-dark-spot serum-cum-cream that has, apparently, learnt a lesson or two from laser technology.

Text: Suchetana Mukhopadhyay

Top tips for your daily skincare routine

We all know that girl who has the perfectly glowing skin, day in and day out. You ask yourself, how does she do it? Which expensive creams is she using? Her secret is simple – she has flawless skin because she’s nailed the best daily skincare routine. The great news is, you can too! Check out our roundup of the best products on the market to help you rise and shine with that natural glow.

New from Dior is Prestige Light-in-White, an innovative four-step skincare treatment. As the first step, you use the Prestige lotion to gently exfoliate your skin and remove any dead skin cells. Then you apply the nectar, which helps the skin regenerate and removes any light-blocking barriers. The cream is then tactically applied to restore a lustrous sheen to the skin and finally, a touch of UV ensures a degree of immunity from any overdose of sunlight.

[{"id" : "34826","image" : "https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/gallery/10_04_18_daily_skincare/Dior-Prestige-Light-In-White-Light-In-Creme.jpg","caption" : "Dior Prestige Light-In-White-Light-In-Creme"},{"id" : "34829","image" : "https://www.gafencushop.com/wp-content/gallery/10_04_18_daily_skincare/Dior-Prestige-Light-In-White-Light-In-Nectar.jpg","caption" : "Dior Prestige Light-In-White-Light-In-Nectar"}]

Using a unique blend of liquorice root extract, white birch extract, and Activated C, Kiehl’s Clearly Corrective Brightening and Soothing Treatment Water, meanwhile, is said to instantly refresh your skin, with its hydrating properties designed to banish dull, saggy skin, while – with regular use – boosting its natural clarity.

On offer from Guerlian at present is the Brightening and Perfecting UV Protector with SPF50/PA+++ that protects the skin from indoor and outdoor pollution. A perfect combination of pigments and micro-pearls discreetly evens our imperfections and restores a natural glow.

For those looking to maximise their daily shower, look no further than Sulwhasoo’s Snowise Brightening Exfoliating Mask that restores impurities using a gel formula filled with white ginseng powder.

If you’re looking to incorporate the right shine into your daily make up routine alongside your daily skincare routine, check out our Top Five Products to help you get that glow.