Rosie Huntington-Whiteley shares her five tips for always looking polished
Last week, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley took to Instagram to reveal that she and her fiancé, Jason Statham, are expecting their second child. This week, the British model and entrepreneur is celebrating a more imminent arrival: her long-awaited Rose Inc beauty collection.
"Beauty has been such a massive part of my life," says Huntington-Whiteley. "Certainly, since I started working at the age of 16, I’ve always been fascinated by the transformative nature of beauty products. I always paid attention in the hair and make-up chair - it’s my favourite time of day."
This passion and knowledge informed her successful content platform Rose Inc. "I knew very early on after launching the editorial site that I wanted to launch products, too," she tells us. "I feel like I have a unique point of view, having spent all this time sat in hair and make-up, having had my face played with and painted by hundreds of artists over the years. But I felt certain that if I was going to do a brand I wanted it to be taken seriously and that it needed to stand for something."
She has certainly succeeded in that. The first collection from Rose Inc, called Modern Essentials, is a curated edit of consciously created skincare and make-up. "It’s all about the key products that I can't live without," explains the 34-year-old. "The ones that instantly make a difference to my day; so we have a cream blush, a creamy liquid concealer, brows, lips, brushes and two skincare products - a daily toner and a brightening serum."
Collaborating with Amyris, experts in formulating bioengineered ingredients that mimic nature, and the CEO and innovator Caroline Hadfield, Huntington-Whiteley has worked hard to ensure that skin benefits come first. All the products in the range have at least five skin-loving ingredients and are non-comedogenic. "As someone who's had acne-prone skin my entire adult life that was one of the first things I wanted," she says. "I've seen a massive change in my skin and the management of my acne and congestion since shifting to products without potentially pore-clogging ingredients."
The range is easy to use with multi-tasking elements that fit into a busy lifestyle. "I'm not a make-up artist: my skill set will probably be better than the average person but I’m no Mary Greenwell," she says, referring to one of the industry’s best make-up artists. "I love applying make-up, but don't ask me to do a feline flick or a really amazing eye look with five different powders. I just want to whack things on and quickly get out of the door feeling great."
Here, Huntington-Whiteley shares her five tips for looking instantly polished, and talks us through her favourite products from the new collection:
1/ Never neglect your brows
"A scruffy brow to me is like wearing odd shoes: it feels uncomfortable. I could be having my worst skin day, worst hair day, my worst everything, but my brows will still be groomed and perfected. It really is amazing how much that transforms and frames the face. I recently had my eyebrows laminated. Jason came home and was like, ‘what the f**k have you done to your eyebrows’ - he did not get it - but they really did look amazing. It damages the hairs though and after about three weeks they went a bit crunchy and curly. I created the Brow Renew clear gel to be like a pomade to create that same lifted effect and to really flatten the brows down. I like to apply the clear gel first, to set the shape of the brow that I'm looking for, before I fill them in and set them again with the Brow Renew tinted gel. Hardly any eyebrow products consider the condition of the brows – it’s hair, you know – but Brow Renew also helps the regrowth cycle and keeps the hairs hydrated and smooth with vitamins E and B5 as well as squalane."
2/ Try a cream blush
"If you want an instant, results-driven blush that's going to add that really radiant, illuminating finish to your skin, it's a cream blush for me. I found a lot of cream blushes go on as a cream but then dry like a powder when I want them to stay dewy and radiant. So that was what I set out to do: to make the most beautiful, illuminating, bouncy, long-wearing and buildable blush possible - and having been a cream blush afficionado for all these years, it was very fun to benchmark mine against some of my old favourites. I put Blush Divine Radiant Lip & Cheek Color on in the morning and usually I've got a pretty hard-wearing day (between getting dressed and undressed 100 times a day, having a child and generally running around) and I come back home at night and I'm still really pleased with how it’s turned out. My favourite shade is Heliotrope because it has a bronzy feel to it. I also love to wear it on my eyelids and brow bone."
3/ Don’t be scared of daily resurfacing acids
"Gently resurfacing the skin is really vital, especially when you have acne-prone skin. The Skin Resolution Clarifying Toner is a daily toner with salicylic, mandelic, lactic and glycolic acids, which gently exfoliate the skin on a daily basis, while the pink clay powder, which settles at the bottom and gives it a lovely cloudy effect, detoxifies. A lot of people sweep on toners, but I learnt over the years that you really want to push it into the skin."
4/ It's OK to skip foundation
"I personally have not applied foundation much over the last year. I've just been moisturising, maybe using a little bit of a new launch of ours that's coming in 2022, which is a very sheer serum-foundation, and then really going in with my Softlight Concealer. What I love about it is that the finish isn’t cakey or matte, but it’s also not oily or glossy, so you don’t feel like you’ve got to add a load of powder on top. It looks like skin and it gives you a really luminous finish. There are 20 shades, which isn’t vast, but it was about being balanced, so the range is inclusive. We tested this across our wider community of women and worked with several make-up artists of colour who gave their feedback, because it's not for me to say what works for deeper skin tones."
5/ Invest in a matte, long-wearing lipstick
"Since we're in the era of mask-wearing, which obviously might stick around for the time being, it’s important that lipstick lasts throughout the day. I love a matte lip but I don't want it to feel tight and dry. With Lip Sculpt you can really carve out the shape of the lips and have a very polished lip look, but I also like to blot it back with a finger or a brush to give it that blurred, more undone effect. I call it my bottom-of-my-handbag product as you can apply it without a mirror. It has a matte-velvet finish, while also being very rich, so it gives you those very sexy, pouty lips without being drying. I named the shades after some of my favourite female artists and the titles of the works that are most meaningful to me."
Rose Inc launches on the 27 August and is exclusive to Space NK. Visit spacenk.com to join the waiting list.
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