Brand Focus: Glossier Makeup

Are you really a trend-driven millennial if you haven't heard of Glossier?

In an industry that is all about pushing excessive products and promoting an ideal of full-glam on the daily, Glossier dares to be different. The brand has carefully curated a beauty empire with a minimalistic aesthetic and approach to your everyday makeup routine.

Look up the brand name on YouTube or Instagram and your feed will be inundated with natural, diverse, and often unattainable beauty. Glossier has an unbelievable amount of loyal customers, most of which seem to be blessed with the perfect canvas, to begin with. Essentially, Glossier only needs to rely on their consumers to promote and further curate their image, selling it all over social media. Glossier seems to be an all encompassing lifestyle.

There are so many things to love about the brand. It is extremely accessible, at least to the US and UK market, products sell for a reasonable price and you aren't buying excess amounts. The packaging is unbelievably adorable, it's feminine, bright and youthful - everything the brand is itself.

You should know that Glossier isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. Glossier's whole attitude towards makeup is keeping things natural and minimal. Their boxes have the quote "skin first, makeup second, smile always" printed inside them, which is an accurate representation; as the primary focus is skincare and base, followed by a simple makeup routine which enhances natural features.

Some may argue that the trend-driven nature of the brand is faddish, that it will only live as long as the minimalistic Instagram model exists, but it has been going strong for almost four years now and won't be going anywhere fast.

It all started with Emily Weiss and her beauty website Into The Gloss, which has been hugely popular since it's launch way back in 2010. Weiss tapped into a hole in the market for a simplistic, customized brand which would appeal to the "no makeup-makeup" trend, and thus Glossier was born in 2014.

The brand started with a few products, skincare with minimal ingredients that encourage a glowy, youthful base and a range of makeup products which would cut down your time spent in front of the mirror every morning by half. Since then, Weiss has continued to launch new products every few months that are extremely well received.

The approach towards marketing the brand and selling products is interesting too. Unlike it's "competitor" Milk Makeup which launched and sky-rocketed at the same pace as Glossier, sold in the makeup giant Sephora, Emily Weiss made the executive choice to sell solely on a Glossier online shop and at the Glossier HQ and pop-ups.

Keeping all of that in mind, we tried out some of the brands most coveted products and ranked them, we found products that are almost holy grail, makeup-game-is-changed-forever status, and some that make us say "meh". (Stay tuned for a Glossier Skincare brand focus.)

Generation G Sheer Matte Lipsticks - Give it a miss

So the hype for these lipsticks was real, the shade range is small but includes most every shade you would want, and they all fall in line with the particular look that Glossier wants to achieve with their products. We picked up "Cake" and "Crush". To be fair, they do what they say, they are sheer and matte, not very build-able. If they were to reformulate or launch a lipstick that was a moisturising tint, perhaps a take on all the dreamy Korean lip stains, we would be all about it.

Haloscope - A must

This product was something that we were not fully pumped about upon seeing it on the website. It markets itself as a dew effect, sheer highlighter and comes in three shades to accommodate pale, medium and deep skin shades. We tried the shade "Quartz", and our highlighter game is forever changed. Unlike the trend of blinding highlight, this created a "lit from within" glow. It has no glitter in it and has a ring of vitamin-rich moisturiser in the middle which makes it glide on really smoothly.

Balm Dotcom - A must

The "Balm Dotcom" can do no wrong in our books, there is an extensive range of scents and colours and after much deliberation, we decided to try the "Birthday Cake" shimmery balm. It smells just like vanilla cake and the thick consistency feels super nourishing, it lasts a long time on the lips and makes them feel buttery soft. Plus, that packaging.

Perfecting Skin Tint - Give it a miss

This is a product which is like a tinted moisturiser, except you have zero coverage and the tiniest amount of tint. Even if you fancy yourself a light coverage base person, this will baffle you. Glossier describes the "Skin Tint" as a product which, 'evens out discolouration and leaves your face looking toned, smooth and dewy... What won’t it do? Hide your freckles, spackle your pores, or erase any other evidence that you are, in fact, a real human being.' The product comes in five shades for the palest of people to the richest of deep skin shades. As soon as it is applied to the skin, it pretty much evaporates and leaves you with a sheen. If you don't want anyone to detect the makeup on your face, this is the product for you. We must say; with all the other Glossier products layered on top it somehow looked quite polished, so if you're willing to commit to a new type of base, give this a go.

Cloud Paints - A must

This is inarguably one of Glossier's best-selling products and offers something which just isn't on the market. The acrylic paint inspired blush can be applied with your fingertips, a beauty blender or a small stippled blush and looks seamless. The gel-cream formulation of this product is dreamy; it is sheer but if heavily applied can be intimidatingly pigmented. This product paired with the "Haloscope" creates a healthy glow, be prepared for some compliments on your complexion. The shades that we decided to try were "Dusk", a nude, "Haze", a deep berry and "Beam", a soft peach shade, and the brand offers three more shades. Something we love: almost every "Cloud Paint" can be matched with a "Generation G Sheer Matte Lipstick". The blushes can also be applied to the eyelid to create a glossy, barely-there tint.

Boy Brow - A must

This has to be the brands' best-selling makeup product. "Boy Brow" really is the only man you need in your life. It can be frustratingly hard to find a brow product which tames, sets and tints the brows, this does all of that whilst also adding lift and volume. The product, much like the rest in the Glossier range, is teeny tiny and looks like toy makeup, but that works for a brow product of its kind. This can be applied on its own or on top of whatever you fill your brows in with. This will change your brow game - we guarantee.

In terms of attaining the much-coveted Glossier makeup in New Zealand, it is a bit of a mission. We opted to go through NZ Posts forwarding service, YouShop, you are provided with a USA address and your packages get forwarded on from there at a cost depending on weight and value.

This isn't the last you will see of Glossier on The Daily Edit. Explore the online store and you will be overwhelmed with choice, we already have a cart full ready for a next Glossier Brand Focus, stay tuned.