Christmas Gift Guide Day Three
Makeup for teens should be all about fun, colour and experimentation, but it doesn’t need to be at the expense of quality. Opening an exciting looking palette on Christmas morning and rushing to put it on for lunch, only to find that the application is patchy or insipid will not make your teen’s day. Having had several late night Facebook messenger chats with the teenagers in my life, I’ve pulled together a selection of gifts at all price ranges that won’t disappoint.
In my experience, the two premium brands most often requested by teens are Urban Decay and MAC. I think you might hit ‘favourite relative’ status pretty quickly this Christmas if you pitched up with the Urban Decay Full Spectrum Eyeshadow Palette, £43 (for something a bit more subdued the Naked Ultimate Basics palette is also lovely at £38.50). MAC have the most gorgeous Christmas range called ‘Nutcracker Sweet’ this year – I particularly liked the mini kits such as the Nude Gloss Lip Kit, £26 – there’s a reds version of this too.
If you’ve got a teen that’s into all things body art, I think they’ll love Kat Von D’s eponymous range. The eyeshadows are soft and heavily pigmented, the lipsticks are dense and provide great coverage and the packaging is designed by Kat herself. The Metal Matte eye palette shown above is £50 for 22 shades (the lid has a very cool ambigram on the lid which spells Metal one way and Matte the other), and there’s also a ‘Bow N Arrow’ set of nude liquid lipstick and black felt liner for £19.
On the High Street, Sleek continue to produce fantastic quality for the price. The limited edition i-lust Hidden Gems palette for £7.49 is, as the name suggests, filled with shades of ruby, emerald and sapphire. There’s a big range of 12 pan eye palettes for £8.99, and a highlighting palette with two powders and two creams, £9.99, at Superdrug too – you’re bound to find something to suit. If you’re in Boots, any of the Bold Metals brushes by Sam and Nic of Pixiwoo, from £12, will go down extremely well – there’s a really great value eye set of three brushes for £20. I’m also hugely impressed by the palettes from Morphe, £21.75 – 35 pans of colour in heaps of colourways from neutrals to brights, in really nice chunky black cases that feel way more expensive than they actually are.
BeautyMart has tons of products that would be great for teens. The Glo & Ray Balloon Pop eyeliner set, £28, has six full size, soft and densely pigmented liners (five colours and a black), and this set of mascara wands, £5.50, in different styles could keep a teen and their Instagram feed busy for hours on Boxing Day – what a brilliant way to try different looks with their favourite mascara.
For skincare, Clinique’s Pep Perfect set, £24.50, is a lovely starter kit of cleanser, moisturiser and eye cream perfect for teens, and we’re still huge fans of Sam Farmer’s gentle formulations with non gender specific designs. His travel set, £20, is a good place to start – his products are also stocked at Space NK and Ocado.
Finally for younger teens and pre-teens, this year I’ve bought Zoella’s We Three Beauties bags (£18 for 3, also in store at Superdrug), which will enable endless hours of rearranging hair bobbles, slides, lip balms and stationery. You also absolutely can’t go wrong with Lush – I’ve bought one festive bath bomb, from £3.75, for them to use on Christmas night while the oldies watch some hideously unfunny Christmas special, and a gift card for them to choose some more once the shops open.
Debra Brock is co-founder of salihughesbeauty.com and a contributing writer.
