Breaking News: Blush Out; Bronzer Out, Contouring & Pale and Interesting In, say Smashbox

"OHMYGOD are you ready for this?" So sayeth Smashbox's main man Daniel Chavez as I settled myself onto the couch beside him. "Em, yes I am," I say, not even remotely alarmed (I've encountered his ebullient ways a time or two before), "I'm even sitting down and everything."

I'm nothing if not a smartarse.

"Blush. Is. O.U.T!" declares Daniel.

OUT! How can this be? Did I not do a big gushy post all about Benefit Coralista earlier in the week? Oh, I just can't keep up with all these trends. And on the face of it, this one sounds pretty stupid. But he explains: "take a peach blusher - not bronzer, bronzer is O.U.T -  and apply it below the apples of the cheeks. What you're looking for here is to contour and give shape to the face, not a pop of colour." The perfect shade for this is the one in the Reign collection, (or above) which Lynnie blogged about the other week.

Right so, I was getting the point of this now and itching to grab the blush out of his hands and have a go, but politeness reigned and I kept my snatching claws to myself. Besides, he'd said something quite interesting as he was explaining that Blush Was O.U.T, and I wanted to know more.

"So Daniel," says I, "did you say bronzer is O.U, eh I mean, out?" "Yes!," he exclaimed. "Smashbox says bronzer is O.U.T for the autumn and Christmas period." Wow, he seemed so certain of the timeframe. Could it be that mna na hEireann will down tools and adopt the natural look? I'm sceptical but if you're feeling pale and interesting then the brand have a really lovely little product as part of the Christmas collection, Baked Fusion Softlights in Stardust, €30, top left.

It's like a MAC Mineralize Skinfinish, but not marbled and  less robot-y, if you get me. So if MSF terrifies you, then this could be a goer because the fact that it's baked means the powder is fine and sheer and doesn't deliver the same slightly metallic finish the MAC product can.

Swirl a powder brush around in a circular movement, employ your tapping/flicking/blowing method of choice and use this as a setting powder all over liquid foundation for a very subtle shimmer. Of course you could layer it up on the top of cheekbones and temples for even more illumination if you wanted, but I'm using it to set my base and it's very nice. If you really require to it multitask, you could pick out individual shades and use them as shadow too - so it's versatile.

Psst: do you want to know when you can lash the blusher on again with impunity?

"Daniel," says I, "seeings as you're so sure it's O.U.T right now, that means you must know when blusher is coming back in?"

"Yes!," he said, laughing, "I can exclusively reveal that blush will be BACK on January 2nd 2010."

There you have it, as spoken from the trend-setting horses mouth.

P.S: I may have exaggerated the dialogue above, but only slightly. Tee hee.