The best beauty products for spring that will lighten your makeup bag

This year Spring beauty is all about lightening it up! As we transition our clothes from darker shades and heavier fabrics, we also transition our beauty routines. I want to show you products that will take your routine from winter to spring as well as a couple beauty hacks that you can do using products you already own. A new season doesn't mean you need to buy everything new!

MOISTURIZER

The winter can be harsh and dry and we tend to heavy up on products focusing on intense moisturization. It's important to moisturize year-round, but with Spring comes venturing outside more and coming into contact with more city aggressors and pollutants. NIVEA just released a brand new skin care line called Nivea Urban Skin to help us through Spring and beyond.

This line is all about defending your skin against pollution and stress and detoxing your skin - leaving it feeling fresh and healthy-looking.

The Urban Skin Defence Day Moisturizer is made with organic green tea and hyaluronic acid. Helps protect skin from external aggressors and it has SPF 20 built in.

The NIVEA Urban Skin Detox Night Gel Moisturizer is infused with green tea extract helping your skin detox after exposure to environmental aggressors such as stress, pollution and late nights.

FOUNDATION

In the winter people tend to wear more foundation and matte foundation - but to lighten it up for Spring, it's all about dewy, glowy, natural-looking skin.

A great way to achieve this look is to swap your foundation for a skin perfector.

The Omorovicza Complexion Perfector is one of my very favourite products to create a healthy, dewy base for your skin. Coming in three shades, it corrects skin tone, smooths and brightens your skin as it contain vitamin C their patented Healing Concentrate that leaves your skin firmer. To apply this to create the most natural look - use clean hands or a dampened beauty blender.

Now, if you own a matte foundation - a quick trick to make it work for you this Spring is to simply add in a drop of facial oil, I love the Toronto-based Indeed Labs Squalane, mix and apply with your hands or a damp beauty blender. This will thin out your foundation and add a dewy radiance.

BB CREAM

Garnier also has a wonderful BB cream that is a perfect mix between a moisturizer and a foundation, allowing you to pair down your Spring routine and lesson the amount of layers you are wearing on your skin.

Coming in three shade, this is a 5 in 1 product has a 24-hour moisturizing formula, it evens skin tone, it boosts your radiance with mineral pigments that provide a glowy finish, it reduces the look of imperfections and protects against environmental pollutants. It has a combo of Vitamin E and green tea extract that perfect and protect the skin. I love how light the texture is - once applied with your hands, it’s like you’re not wearing anything at all.

LIPS

Glosses are having a major moment this Spring. For many seasons now it's been all about matte, long-wear lipsticks, but glosses are coming back and stila’s Beauty Boss Lip Gloss collection of high-shine shades is the ultimate collection. It has naturally plumping hyaluronic spheres and oils (no stinging or numbing sensations) plus light-refracting iridescent pearls to amp up the sheen. Coming in 12 great shades,there is a colour or two for everyone...and they smell great - like fig vanilla.  

Now, if you own a matte liquid lipstick - a quick trick to make it glossy this Spring is to simply add in a drop of our beloved facial oil, mix in a small dish with a lipstick brush and apply this will thin out the lipstick and add a glossy sheen.

POWDERS

Spring means the return of humidity which can cause havoc with your makeup and rather than using a heavy, pigmented powder on your face that can cake, there are two wonderful new products out that combat humidity and are super light and silky to the touch.

The first is Rodial’s new Soft Focus Glow Powder. I can honestly say I’ve never loved a powder more - it is so luxurious. It leaves you with an ethereal glow that is hard to describe and it performs better throughout the day - it doesn’t cake, it doesn’t pill and it’s a universally flattering shade coming in a baked powder compact with a mirror. Its velvety to the touch and you can use on bare skin to elevate, or, you can use it over your makeup to set it. I brush it on after my concealer as my final step to set my makeup and perfect my skin.

And the last product to tell you about today is stila’s In the Buff loose setting powder spray. That’s right - a SPRAY powder!

It's so light, so silky and helps your skin stay smooth and dry all day. It doesn’t look powdery, it doesn’t cake or look heavy. In fact, you can barely even see it. It is a microfine powder, so it not only sets your makeup, it absorbs oil and blurs imperfections.

Here’s how it works - you don’t spray it directly on your face, but you spray it on a fluffy brush and brush it all over your face. I start on the forehead and work my way down my T-zone and then out towards my cheeks. One puff will do you.

It comes in three versions - two tinted (light/medium and medium/deep) and one soft matte finish that imparts a subtle glow. The spray is great for travel or the gym bag as the pump locks in place you don’t have to worry about mess or powder compacts breaking.