The Art of Makeup: Sophie & Hannah Pycroft share their essential beauty products

Sophie & Hannah Pycroft are the sisters behind the incredibly successful Spectrum Collections, the fabulous makeup brush brand taking the world by storm. They share all with Style of the city.

It’s fair to say we can all appreciate a sharp winged liner, a pop of bright lipstick and a beautifully blended makeup look. We’re both firm believers that the application of makeup is most definitely an art form just ask any makeup artist – it’s right there in the name. However you don’t have to be a makeup artist to have fun with makeup and hone your skills.

When we started Spectrum we set out to create premium brushes and tools for all beauty lovers not just professionals, because makeup is for everyone so that’s one of the founding principles of our brand. With endless Instagram tutorials just a scroll away there has never been a better time to put your brushes to work and practice your skills.

Your face is your canvas and there are no rules when it comes to makeup, even better – you can just wash it off and start again. Like anything though, good preparation is key so don’t forget to moisturise and prime your skin before you start getting creative with pigment. We both love Obagi Hydrate as a splurge or Weleda Skin Food as a saver option, hydrated skin is happy skin and it’ll help to achieve a more flawless finish if your base is prepped.

Experiment and have fun with makeup, play with different colour palettes, tones and textures this will all help you discover your signature style. Day to day we both wear very minimal makeup, a bit of concealer, brows and mascara but when we’re feeling more creative our go-to look would be an easy colour-wash eye with lashings of Dark Matter Mascara. There’s just something about wearing colour that lifts our mood, try blues and golden shadows on brown eyes, bronze and orange shades on blue eyes and purples and rose gold tones on green eyes.

You don’t need hundreds of makeup brushes to create a full makeup look. We find that using the same brush for say contour and blush works really well to achieve a healthy glow whilst softening and blending the two products together, just like mixing different paints. The same goes for makeup products, a solid lipstick can double-up as a cream blush, a top tip our mum used to share with us. Dab a little onto your cheeks and blend out with your fingers. We love Charlotte Tilbury Kidman’s Kiss for this which is a really flattering peach toned lipstick.

Our most recent launch was with professional makeup artist Katie Jane Hughes who we collaborated with to create a completely unique set of makeup brushes, all of which are inspired by paint brushes. Katie has been a huge inspiration to us within the makeup industry. Not only does she paint the faces of her celebrity clients from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to Ashely Graham but the way she plays with wearable colour is genius, watching her Instagram stories will turn you into makeup artist in no time. Like us, Katie is a big champion of just having fun with makeup so pick up your brushes and go for it, because with the right tools we are all artists.

Love Sophie & Hannah