Oooh, baby, where do I start? Honestly these are the best thing to pass your lips since chocolate was invented, and if you’re a lippie spastic (come on, be honest, I think lots of people are), it’s pretty much foolproof.

The chubby Crayola-like stick takes me back to my stationery collecting days at school (yes, before I collected makeup I obsessively collected stationery – am I sensing a trend?) And it’s totally Collect ‘Em All!

Basically it’s a cross between a lipstick and a pencil, and like it says on the box, it’s truly MATTE. I’ve been into matte lips and over gloss for quite some time, so these are a timely edition to any makeup bag. However if a glossy lip is your thing, you can add your gloss of choice over the top and you have a perfect lacquered lip.

The deep reds are amazing and the orange-y one, Red Square, is this weird off color that is great for shooting editorial because it’s so strange, and the pencil glides over your lips to impart deep, rich matte color. I can’t think of a single color that I don’t like in this range, and I have about 8 (so far!) in my kit. The fleshy beige of Belle de Jour, the perfect mauve of Sex Machine, the warm browns of Bettina and Tortola which are so right for a natural lip, and the pink perfection of Roman Holiday are all staples in my kit. No more excuses for bodgy lip outlines and thin, anemic looking color coverage! Importantly, for our makeup artist friends out there they are light, portable and take up no space, which is relevant when your kit is making Bungalow 8 on a Saturday night look empty.

Its easy pencil application means that you don’t need to fiddle with a lipbrush and a multiple layers of lipstick to get the right depth of color and a perfect line. Get thee to a NARS counter immediately and

Bag It!

Oh such an old favourite. I have had these in my kit since God was a boy, and used it on practically every client who needed some eyebrow help (and baby don’t we all in these troubled times?)

Illamasqua brow brush

They need a stiff brush, like the Illamasqua brow brush (sadly both the Laura Mercier brow brush, or the Chanel eyebrow brush I am currently using have been discontinued). Any of these bad boys will do the job. The beauty of the powders is that you can blend the two colors together to get just the right shade, and it comes in 5 different tones.

Laura Mercier Brow Powder

There is even a version for redheads which is nice for our oft-neglected russet brethren. The blonde ones have an almost green cast which is the color region you need to be in to correct blonde brows – taupe-y, ash to green. Sounds weird, but anyone who has been using blonde pencils with too much red in them will know what I mean (as one of my friends unkindly said to me in my late 1990′s, pre-makeup career, ‘Why are your eyebrows orange?”).

And the Brunette powder is a perfect dark brown with a black right next to it so you can get a little bit dramatic if you feel like it. It fills in spaces and gives strength where required. If your brows are lovely and full and don’t obviously look like they need help, put the tweezers down, and thank your lucky stars. You don’t need them.

Bag it!