How to get the bare-faced chic look

Fresh, natural beauty is back in vogue. Make-up artist to the stars KAY MONTANO reveals how to achieve it...  

Pretty as a peach: A sensual look, simple to achieve, requiring very few products 

The novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote of the 'perilous magic of nymphets' and of one in particular whom he called Lolita, in his best-selling work.

In it, he describes the attempt at composing a madrigal inspired by 'the soot black lashes of her pale grey vacant eyes, to the five asymmetrical freckles of her bobbed nose'.

Visual descriptions such as these have ensured that 51 years after the novel was first published, our fascination with Lolita's image of unwitting, innocent sensuality still remains.

She has become the icon of forbidden desire and is therefore a perfectly enticing inspiration for make-up, the result of which is a delicately sensual look, simple to achieve, requiring very few products and the minimum of time.

First apply the sheerest foundation, like Paul & Joe's Light Cream Foundation or Laura Merciers tinted foundation. Conceal any under-eye circles with a light product in the desired shade. Clinique's 'Airbrush' and YSL's 'Touche Eclat' are good examples.

Be sure to cover any redness with an olive-toned concealer like Max Factor's Erace, for the tones of this make-up look will accentuate colour elsewhere in the face. Dust a fine veil of the loosest translucent powder across the face with a soft powder brush.

Brush a soft line of Dior's greyish-mauve in the '5 Couleurs Rose gipsy' palette. Curl your eyelashes with the original — and still the best — eyelash curler by Shu Uemura to recreate that wide-eyed innocence.

Apply a coat of Dior's Ultra-Lengthening Curving Mascara to top and bottom lashes. Brush eyebrow gel by Estee Lauder in upward strokes, neatening off where necessary. Smile sweetly and apply Guerlain's Bubble blush in Rose Bubblegum to the 'apple' of your cheeks. Perhaps this was what Nabokov chose to see as 'Botticellian pink' in the complexion of Lolita.

The novelist's flagrant account of lips 'as red as licked candy' or the colour of 'raw rose', give ample inspiration for all shades of pink through to red, from gloss to matte.

For an innocently red 'stained' mouth, use Chanel's Brilliant Extreme Glossimer then tissue off. Blend the edges in with a cotton bud and repeat, finishing with a final 'blot'. Use the same approach with Guerlain's KissKiss Laque in Fabulous Rose. Alternatively, use a fruity coloured, yet transparent gloss by Lancome.

This is a truly wonderful five-minute makeover — for a look of understated sensuality with minimum effort, just take a leaf out of this book.