Recently bright red lips have been the look brazen women everywhere have been sporting. In Autumn/Winter though, purple reigns supreme. Plum, blackberry and purple are all hot colours, especially on the lips.

Clinique has some great shades for A/W, including Rum Kiss, Cranberry Cream, and Crushed Grape, in their Colour Surge Butter Shine Lipstick range. This lipstick is rich, creamy, and won’t dry out your lips. These kind of colours work best matte, so leave off the lipgloss.

A good lip balm is always a great base for lipstick, or there are specially designed bases available that will help your lipstick last longer and prevented drying out. Clinique also have a range of lipliners that coordinate with their lipsticks that can be used to enhance colour.

Clinique’s Colour Surge Butter Shine Lipstick is available for £12 at Clinique counters and on the Clinique website.

Lancome’s Juicy Tube lipgloss has become a classic make up item over the years. The tube tip applicator makes them easy to apply, so there’s no messing about with a sticky wand. You get a long lasting high shine gloss with a hint of shimmer and they come in yummy flavours that don’t dry out your lips.

The main reason we love them though is their iconic tube shape that doesn’t leak, and fits into the tiniest of handbags!

Now Lancome have teamed up with hot new fashion designer Christopher Kane to produce a new range of Juicy Tubes inspired by cities all over the world. The new flavours include the brilliantly named Banana Ipanema, Cinnamon Soho and Sparkling Paris, with the tube showcasing artwork by Christopher Kane. These are limited edition, so get your hands on them and start globetrotting now!

Available at Lancome counters and Boots they cost £13.50 each.

I have applied my makeup in the same way ever since I was about 14, using a simple eye shadow, black eyeliner and mascara… boring, I know! So a few weeks ago I realised I needed a change and more importantly a make-up lesson so I popped into House of Fraiser for a peek around the Mac and Benefit sections.

I love Benefit make-up, I also use their BadGal Lash Mascara, High Beam and Non Fiction Foundation. A friend of mine recommended Big Beautiful Eyes to me while I was complaining about my lack of knowledge applying eye make-up. The product contains a dark circle concealer, pink base colour, cocoa shimmer contour shadow, chocolate brown liner shadow and an illustrated step-by-step makeup lesson. Brushes are included and labelled for each step! Its a great idea and I have been able to transform my boring look to sexy smokey eyes with very little effort and without going OTT.

Benefit’s Big Beautiful Eyes can be bought on their website for £17.50. It comes in a little pack that you can slot into your handbag and retouch when necessary.

There is a new member of the Vaseline Lip Therapy family, and it is aimed at girlies! This uber-cute little pink tin rose-tints your lips leaving them looking glossy and contains rose and almond oil adding that extra care too, serving two purposes. Hooray! Every girl will be won over by this, maybe even replacing some lipsticks which you treasure too much to take out of your makeup bag at home!

Vaseline have definitely done there homework with this, as most people have one of these in their handbag and now, I’m betting it will be upgraded to a new pink tin!

It is £1.49 and will be available in your usual high street shops very soon!

I have fallen in love with the new Mac Electro Flash Mineralize Eye Shadow Duo Range. I think they are brilliant as I personally love mixing eye shadows and this is already done for you, the colours are amazing too and can instantly brighten up your look! There are a lot of colours in the range so you are spoilt for choice and there is something to suit all eye colours.

I haven’t quite made it to the Mac counter yet, but I know which one I will be opting for ‘Odd Couple’ as shown in the picture which boasts a warm gold with lavender and purple. Normally what I do when applying eye shadow so it doesn’t loose its colour or drop onto my eye lashes is apply a base beforehand.

The eye shadow is £12.50 available online at www.maccosmetics.co.uk.

I spotted a pair of tweezers in my friends make up bag the other day and thought what a useful tool! They were called La Tweez and they were not a simple pair of tweezers but accompanied by a light, enabling you to see the hairs on your eyebrows that you cannot spot so easily.

I went and bought myself a pair and they happen to be my best buy of the month! Being blonde I have a lot of fair hairs that I sometimes cannot see and find them hard to remove, as I sometimes apply eye shadow or highlighter underneath my eye brows I find that the fair hairs act as a barrier and the shadow falls off. Now that I can easily see them with the light I can just pluck them out myself, saving a trip to the beauty salon to get them waxed!

These can be found on HQhair.com for £10.99.

I found a new cheek and lip colour from Benefit called Posietint, and at first I was a little bit hesitant on buying it, but I am now glad I did! It is a liquid stain that comes with a brush and when applied leaves a lush sheer pink wash of colour. I did find that when using it on your cheeks you will need to make sure you bend it into the skin, when done so looks fab. As it can be used on both lips and cheeks it have a double purpose; all the more reason to buy!

In my opinion I think this is a great little make up item to have for your day wear when going for the natural look, easily applied and small enough for your handbag. This can be bought online from www.benefitcosmetics.co.uk for £22.50.