On lockdown and skincare “During the first lockdown we all got so obsessed with skincare, with LED masks and massaging and tools and because of that, the trends have definitely been about make-up that shows off how good your skin is and how much time you’ve spent on it,” notes Eldridge. “If you’ve been doing all these treatments and using all these tools, you want to just enhance that. Which is why I think blush and highlighter are going to have a really big moment this year – it’s about enhancing your skin rather than wanting to cover it up. We want our complexion to look very healthy and glowing – it’s about ‘health-signalling’, looking good and presenting yourself in a way that looks positive and healthy and fresh, even if you’re not feeling that way on the inside. Using make-up can almost cheat your way to feeling good sometimes. If you’ve got blush and highlighter on, and you curl your lashes and put mascara on, it can help you to convince yourself everything is fine – it just gives you a different perspective. Especially if you have to work online – you put on your ‘work face’ and it makes you feel productive.”

On beauty now “At the moment people just do want to look like they have the most perfect skin – it’s just such a focus on basics, whether that’s skin or lashes that look long but not clumpy. And blush is back in fashion – though it was never out of fashion as far as I’m concerned, I love it!”

On creating the perfect complexion “Really it’s about a bit of coverage just where you need it – unless you have perfect skin – and in certain places most of us can do with a bit of help to even out the skintone, particularly around the nose and mouth and under the eyes. Using your foundation or concealer just in certain areas is a good idea – just start round the centre of your face, then continue with the rest of your make-up and then go back and maybe add a bit more concealer or foundation if you need to, once it has settled onto the skin. It’s just stepping back a bit I think, and being conscious everything is there for a reason, rather than going through a paint-by-numbers, put it all over your face kind of approach.”

On home tools Eldridge has been using LED masks for face and chest, and also a face-firming device: NuFACE, a mini handheld toning device (€215 at www.brownthomas.com): “I had been using it anyway for maybe two years before lockdown so lockdown gave me time to use it more regularly – those things only really work if you use them regularly.”

On lashes Lancôme are well-known for their mascara line-up. Eldridge was involved in the product development for the latest addition to the line, Lash Idôle (at Brown Thomas and Arnotts and pharmacies nationwide, €28.50). With its curved brush, I find it acts like a push-up bra for lashes, creating a fanned-out volume effect. The formula is a gel emulsion so it’s really lightweight, while micro-bristles help to capture every single lash. “And it really doesn’t smudge,” notes Eldridge. “No clumping, really separating, it ticks all the boxes – it’s just a great all-rounder.” Our beauty panel are currently testing out this mascara – see The Gloss March issue to find out how they get on …

On finding foundation from home “It’s very difficult to find your perfect shade from home. An app called Find My Shade is meant to be much more technical than some. But really the technology isn’t there yet. You can on blue eyeshadow or lip colours now and that’s great, but with skin there are so many variables. Skin has so many different tones and it depends on light and shade.” Lancôme are offering one-to-one consultations on www.lancome.co.uk where you can talk to the pro team on a camera for help.

New beauty on the way Due to launch in May, Lancôme Foundation Sticks have had a makeover and now feature a kabuki brush within the packaging for on-the-go touch-ups. This can be useful when wearing masks, as they are handily portable, with a lightweight texture. Similarly, highlighter sticks are launching too, to give a second skin radiance.

On where beauty is heading “I was on YouTube quite early and remember saying that in five years from now, everyone will be a make-up artist. We’ve now had ten years of education where people have basically been to technical make-up school. So if you meet someone now in their late 20s they can tell you all about contouring, colour correction and so on, really to the level that someone trained in make-up would have had. It’s as if now everyone is graduating from technical make-up school and it’s become very homogenised – when social media started there were lots of different make-up looks, but then we ended up with just this one kind of very technical make-up that’s very formulaic.

“The thing is, people know how to do their make-up now – and the next stage, I believe, is that maybe you’re able to be very creative, and be very individual and create your own trends. Once you know the basics you’re then able to let go of those very technical ideas of make-up and really create interesting looks. And I feel that now people don’t care about a particular look on Instagram, they just want to enhance their own skin, to look how they want to look. I really feel that the next thing that’s coming is just bonkers make-up – like the Roaring Twenties. People will be going to festivals again and parties and concerts and imagine when that happens – there’s going to be almost a carnival-like type of make-up, rather than anything formulaic or overly technical. It will be something that will be very creative and celebratory. Even on Instagram now I’m seeing lots of artistic and creative ideas – people creating art on faces. The complexion will remain important, but when it comes to looks it’s going to be very interesting – and something I really look forward to.”