Illamasqua Hypnotica

You’ll have to put yourself straight onto fast-forward to summer heat and festival time to see the best of the Illamasqua Hypnotica range that launches in June this year. What you see in the picture above are a couple of the Sketch Sticks of which there are seven. My shades here are in Fly (hot pink) and Spirit but the line-up includes lime green, yellow and cornflower blue.

What I love about the Sketch Sticks is their fluid use – there is no set way to use them so they could be eyes, lips or cheeks (if you can persuade yourself that a lime green cheek is a thing!) or even body sketching; the point is that it doesn’t matter. I like this less rigid approach and being completely creative with colour – if you think about it, we have our hands held so tightly by brands and product usage so I kind of like that these encourage you to do exactly as you please. The same thing as ‘dance like no-one is watching’… this is make up for the stifled.

I’m also pretty keen on the Activist lipstick for the same reason – it’s a blend of pinky purple and blue and it comes out on the lip as different colours as you’ll see in the swatch. I think Illamasqua could have gone braver with this – if you’re going to do a randomly two tone lip you might as well go all out. I would love to see a red and orange or blue and green. Maybe they’re coming. But, it’s all part of the bigger picture of not doing things in exactly the same way as everyone else.

Here are the three beauties swatched up.

In addition, there’s a Lip Lure colour intense liquid lipstick in a very loud pink (called Paw) and this Slick Stick lip liner that is a real stayer – it’s not going anywhere once it’s on! Because it’s a fairly lip neutral shade you can blend it around to prevent lip bleed or just give a better definition to lips. Oh, and some lashes called Dolly Lashes which are all about subtle volume – so, lash it up and then add some.

The only thing I don’t like about Illamasqua Hypnotica is the campaign imagery – you’ll see it closer to launch. I think it’s what might happen if you let a cat loose with an eyeliner. Just a tad TOO creative to be of any use or inspiration. Otherwise, there is a definite hippy/festival/all of the unicorns vibe to it that is all things summer.