Be True To You

Have you ever spent time browsing the beauty departments, swatching colours and testing textures to find your perfect match? Only to frequently get home and try on your new purchase and find it’s not right? Yes, us too.

Makeup shopping is a really enjoyable experience when you get it right – it’s fun to try out new looks and to have your makeup done by an expert, and as for all that pretty packaging? Yes, we like that too. But it can be a costly mistake if we get it wrong.

No7 Match Match Bronzers – 3 shades,??17.50

And we are all after the ultimate beauty win – the perfect match for our skin tone. For so long in beauty, shade ranges were too restricted, causing people to have to wear the closest shade they could get to their skin – but not the exact shade.

Personally, I have very pale skin, and for a long time I fell into a ?light-medium? shade bracket as that was all I could get. Now, I am far from ‘medium? in tone; I am an alabaster, porcelain or absolutely lily-white! It took a while for the beauty brands to realise and deliver to us Celtic complexions, but at last those days are here.

There is another point at play when it comes to finding the perfect match, and to me that has been spotlighted so well by the Match Made campaign from No7 lately. Renowned feminists and authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and our own Louise O?Neill, have helped to shout about the core message, which is that of owning your own beauty, your own voice, your own experience. How does this blend with makeup shopping? It’s the confidence to be your own colour.

No7 City Light Tinted Moisturiser – 3 shades??17.50

Now we know our own skin is beautiful and our own tones are beautiful, let’s keep remembering that?

For so long in Ireland particularly, women have tended towards wearing foundation shades that are too dark for them, resulting in a non-natural looking effect – something false, something masking their true selves. Yes, perhaps this was down to the afore-mentioned lack of shade options at the time, resulting in habitual future purchasing, but we don’t have to do that anymore.

No7 offer a fantastic Match Made service that has been specifically designed for women to help find their perfect tones in, not only foundation, but also in lipstick, blush, concealer and bronzer – all via a snazzy little gadget that is bespoke to the brand. They created this process by testing the skin of over 2000 women, so trust that they have done their homework – you are in safe hands! Not only are the shades on target but also the textures are premium; this is a beauty win-win. You can either visit any Boots store to be colour matched or try it at home via their new Match Made app.

??No7 High Shine Lip Crayon?? 10 shades??12.50

See more about the full Match Made service here.