By Terry Build Your Own Palettes

If you’re anywhere near Selfridges (currently London only), make sure you stop off at the By Terry Palette Factory where you can create your own customized colour palette – and when I say create, I don’t mean pick a few shades. No, you get right at the heart of the action, filling and pressing the pan yourself. It’s the best make up fun I’ve had in ages.

I am absolutely kicking myself for not taking my proper camera and relying on iPhone pictures instead, so the quality of these isn’t great – sorry. I chose my three shades from the extensive colour wall, picking out Copper Flash, Bronze Green and Trafalgar Red.

That was the easy bit! I then got taken round the other side of the colour wall where the scales, spatulas and pans live. I opted for the trio effect (see the top picture row of circles for options) so had to pile the pigment in roughly that format into the empty pan. I didn’t want to be too precise (good job too) because I wanted a sort of camouflage  effect with it. Once the pigments are in, you pop it into the pressing machine, adjust the pressure and twist a huge screw to pat it all into place. I’m SO thrilled with the result below!

Similar to this

By Terry Brightening CC Blush

e.l.f. Perfect 10 Palettes

It’s not perfect – I was probably too quick with the press – but I couldn’t love it more. No swatches – I’m still gazing at this in a cloud of make up happiness! The palette is £46 – the rest is free, all part of the experience of building something that’s truly your own.

One of my major concerns about the personalization trend is that it’s only the few that feel happy with it while the many are left waiting in a long queue for their turn to come or in the case of embossing and so on, having to come back later while they catch up. I did question the By Terry team on this and they have the factory set on a rotation system with two attendants so the move-through is quite quick. The longest part of the process, if you’re not decisive, is choosing the colours. The factory is set right at the very back of the beauty hall (not the main one with all the big counters, the other one that leads to the food hall) so, while busy, it’s not competing with the Tilbury and MAC stampede.