By the time you read this, I’ll be packing for Glastonbury. If that sounds like a goodbye note, it’s because it may be. I haven’t been since my teens, when I was happy sleeping wherever I stood, and my festival beauty regime consisted of layering more black eyeliner over yesterday’s, under the delusion I’d look like Chrissie Hynde. Now I’m decidedly more high maintenance, and mindful of sun damage and hygiene, so balancing a satisfactory number of products with wellies and loo rolls is somewhat challenging. I welcome the social acceptability of looking rough at festivals, without wanting to go completely native, and so I’ve been mentally editing my washbag (leopard-print, from scampanddude.com) since March.
Festivals are one of my few concessions to wipes – with limited access to running water, there’s no use fighting it. I still believe the best are by Simple (£3.25) – they stay wet, remove makeup better than most, and are usually on offer somewhere. Then I’ll slap on Superdrug’s Simply Pure Hydrating Serum (for £2.99, who cares if someone nicks it?) and baste myself, optimistically, in Murad’s Luminous Shield SPF50, £55 (from the neck up) and Nivea Sun Moisturising Sun Lotion SPF50+, £6 (from the chest down). For colour, cover and belt-and-braces backup, I’ll follow with Full Coverage SPF50+ CC Cream from IT Cosmetics (£35), a makeup brand with ugly packaging and the occasional flash of brilliance. This has a smooth, blendable texture and great staying power. To hide inevitable tiredness, I’ll wear Estée Lauder’s Pure Color Envy Lip and Cheek Stick in Rose Exposed, £28, and swap the grotty black liner for Burberry’s Midnight Brown Eye Colour Contour, £23 (both packed in slim, durable aluminium tubes), M&S Autograph Fibre Sculpting Brow Gel, £9.50 (the best I’ve tried in ages), and Maybelline Lash Sensational Mascara, £8.99.
I’m someone who, like a watch-wearer who’s left their timepiece by the sink, has to run home if I forget perfume (or at least to a department store for a tester). Glass is forbidden at Glastonbury, making YSL Rive Gauche (£34.99) a straightforward choice. This isn’t just an olfactory masterpiece, it’s a design classic. Its chic, stripy aluminium canister is easily the most efficient way to store perfume – opaque to avoid spoiling by light exposure, unbreakable for travel, and OK with security guards from the Edinburgh fringe to Port Eliot.
