Beauty trends report from London Fashion Week

In between drinking champagne and taking in shows, I caught up with MAC to find out what the trends for spring/summer 2010 will be. While some are not too different to 2009, a couple have got me quite excited indeed. First of the latter category is lavender. That's right, purple will be adorning your face like it's 1989 (and Dallas is still a popular soap opera).

The beauty house's Lavender Whip lipstick will capture this look perfectly if/when the snow ever goes away and Blighty has sunshine once more. Like last year, MAC also predicts coral will be a staple of the summer make-up bag as will brights - pinks and reds - that really pop.

Backstage at Marios Schwab, I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview at the beauty trends in the pipeline for autumn/winter 2010. For nails, industrial grey will be the flavour of the winter months as will the most naked nudes - not a pale pink but a colour that really blends into the skin. The polish for Schwab's show was mixed from three different lacquers and applied by Kinetics. But to get a head start on this trend, OPI's Give Me the Moon is a good alternative until next season's nail collections hit the shelves.

Natural make-up and brows will be the over-arching theme of beauty this winter, so throw away the heavy slap you might haul out when the winter months hit. Everything is to be beautifully light and radiant with harder touches in the form of a strong eyeliner or messily smoky eye, as seen at Jena.Theo. For eyes at Schwab's show, one of the backstage tricks was to slick the models eyes with lipgloss to create a sheen more durable and shinier than vaseline. Make-up artist Petros Petrohilos said he was trying to make the models look like 'really beautiful mannequins'.
For the body, celebrity beauty therapist Nichola Joss said bare legs are going to be huge this winter. A light colour will suffice for this season - orange is never in fashion and certainly won't make its debut at the top of the beauty charts in 2010. So forget ditching your bodycare regime as soon as those dark nights start to close in - this winter, skin needs to have a beautifully satin look. St Tropez's instant self-tanning mousse will be a must.

In addition to the pics from backstage at Marios Schwab above, take a peek at some images below from Vivienne Westwood, Louise Goldin, Jena.Theo and Topshop (antlers by Emma Cook)...