Sophie and Hannah Pycroft are the sisters behind the incredibly successful SpectrumCollections, the fabulous makeup brush brand taking the world by storm. Launching their brand from their garage in Wales, Spectrum Collections has grown at an incredible rate, their brushes are loved by countless celebrities, and have been called the “World’s most Instagrammable.” In their exclusive column for Style of the City the sisters will be sharing their beauty and makeup advice as well as highlighting some of their must-have Spectrum Collections brushes.
This has not just been the start of a new year, but a new decade which sounds pretty daunting, but if anything warrants a couple of tweaks to your beauty routine at the very least. January or Veganuary was a hot topic and while a whole new diet is a step too far for most, you can easily switch out a few of your beauty products for vegan ones without compromising on quality or price, and of course, this also provides the perfect excuse to bypass the January blues and pick up a couple of well-deserved treats.
We have to admit that adopting a vegan beauty routine is one of those things that takes time if you have your go-to products you really don’t want to waste time and money on testing vegan alternatives, but that has been part of our job for the last couple of years while we’ve been developing our own range of vegan cosmetics. It hasn’t been easy but it’s definitely been worth it, we’ve found some new favourites that we wanted to share with you.
Vegan cosmetics are not hard to find, but it’s sussing out which ones are good enough quality to swap in to enhance your makeup bag. We love Charlotte Tilbury light wonder foundation. It has a vegan formula which basically means no animal by-products or ingredients. It gives a fairly sheer finish so for additional coverage where we need it, we use Urban Decay weightless complete coverage concealer in a slightly lighter shade, to disguise tired eyes!
The key ingredient in colour cosmetics to look out for is ‘Carmine’ which is crushed beetles. This animal derived natural ingredient is what gives pinks, reds, oranges and purples their tone, so best to avoid as it is quite common but there are very many alternatives.
For blush and bronzer we opt for PixiGlow Cake, a product which has an ombre effect and tones to suit a contour under the cheekbone and a pop of colour on the apples, so a bit of a two in one find, we like to keep things simple when we can. We also cut corners most days and use our A05 brush to apply both bronzer and blush, it helps the two blend together for a more seamless finish.
Mascara has been a real challenge, most of the good ones are tested on animals and contain beeswax. We just had to develop our own because we could not find one we loved. Finally, we have one, our Dark Matter mascara is now the one product we cannot bear to be without, and it’s super affordable, definitely worth a try.
So maybe you can’t manage the gym every day, or the thought of reading the label on everything you eat just sounds too complicated, just try swapping one product in your makeup bag and you may find a new fave.
