Most of the brands in the beauty halls I’ve heard of. MAC, Illamasqua, Charlotte Tilbury. I’ve a bit of an understanding about the brands, I love to wander through and ogle the colours, the packaging. It’s so shiny and pretty.
It’s seductive, and of course deliberately so.
So it’s odd that a brand – the biggest in the far east for the last 20 years or so is a complete stranger to me. True, I’m not a beauty blogger, but it’s been in the UK since 2003. You’d think I might have noticed as I wandered around Selfridges?
But I hadn’t. Even if I’m a bit of newbie to actually having a makeover done at a counter, apparently I’ve been walking past RMK for around a decade. Oblivious. So the opportunity to try a new (to me) brand, a new style of make up was too good to pass up. I’m eternally curious.
RMK is a Japanese brand, with an emphasis on your skin, and emphasising natural beauty. They’re not a brand that continually revamps their products, or brings hundreds of new ones out every year. They find what works, and keep it – they might tweak it a little bit, as technology develops, but at their core are formulas they believe work.
My make up artist was Lucy, who was there to explain the products to me, discuss my skin type and advise. So we started, removing the day’s make up that I’d applied.
Foxy, right?
Lucy used a gorgeous cleansing balm, that smelt delicious – rubbing it in her hands before smoothing it over my face. It even coped with my mascara, and was so gentle. My skin appreciated the gentle touch of the oil and it was followed by a rich, thick lavender scented foam soap to get rid of any stubborn remainder make up. I think personally, I’d be happy with the balm on it’s own, but who am I to complain at being pampered?
We then moved towards moisture. My skin is notoriously dry, and I spend an absolute fortune on moisturisers. Lucy went all out, using two of the RMK Skintuner products, the extra moist and moist, layering them on. My skin soaked up the moisture like a sponge and felt soft and dewy. I don’t think it’s ever felt so good. And that was before we added in the moisturisers!
Lucy recommended a good night cream which would be perfect for my skin, but a this was daytime, used the Concentrate Cream, which again my skin loved. I must admit, the price made me suck air through my teeth, but given how little she used, I can see how this might be a good investment and one that would last.
Suitably dewy skinned, it was time to even out the skin tone. As you’ll have seen in the before picture, I’m as prone to odd skin colouration, dark circles and, at the time of having my face done, a spot had appeared on my lip. Sexy, I know, right?
We discussed skin tone and colour, and at Lucy’s recommendation (I’m always happy to leave myself in the hands of the professionals) used the Casual Solid Foundation. Using a base like this has always made me a bit nervous. It’s quite thick and dense – but using the brush, applied a very gentle coverage, nothing too heavy.
Lucy then expertly applied blusher and highlighted and contoured my face, something I’ll one day get the hang of, before we moved onto the fun bit. Colour.
Never afraid to experiment with colour, I let Lucy do the choosing and she picked the Vintage Eyes shadow in a gorgeous yellow, that made me think of lemon sherberts. Pairing this with a brown for the socket, it reminded me of the nineties, when we last embraced colours, as this was swiftly followed by coloured mascara and liner.
No, don’t worry, not hair mascara. This is two different colours – one for your top lashes, one for the bottle. For me a red/brown that almost matched my hair on top, and a great orange for underneath. I’ve since used (yes, I know, I had to, it had my name on it) the orange to colour the tips of my lashes when I’ve used black too, and it looks great.
The liner used was a deep navy blue, something I wouldn’t have picked myself, but that went really well with the other colours on my eyes. This was followed by a nude lip, and lip gloss, so as not to overpower the face and to set it all, a gorgeous refreshing herb mist.
What do we think?
To give you more of an idea of the colours, here it is a few hours later.
The staying power was great and my skin afterwards felt fantastic. I’ve still yet to be convinced on blue eye liner, but the yellow eyeshadow and the mascara I’m a definite convert to. I may have worn them every day since.
But what really impressed me about the brand was the skin care. My skin felt incredible, moisturised, cared for. And that cleansing balm was heavenly. I have to admit I’m pulling together a bit of a shopping list, even if my credit card is already wincing in anticipation of the small spending spree.
If, like me, you have fussy skin, stop by and book in. I think you might just like it.
With thanks to RMK and Selfridges for the invitation to have a make over and the small number of goodies I was able to take away with me. I’m a definite coloured mascara convert!