Valentino Finally Has a Beauty Line

When you think of Valentino, you immediately think of high fashion, fine details, and luxury in every aspect. Well, the Italian fashion house has just launched its very own make-up line and it’s everything you’d expect and more.

And to back up the line, Valentino has drawn inspiration from a true beauty icon: Pat McGrath. Called the most influential make-up artist in the world by Vogue magazine and included in Time's 2019 100 most influential people list, the woman is an institution herself. Needless to say, we think she's a worthy muse.

Over the years, Valentino has become known for elaborate and utterly fantastic make-up looks thanks to McGrath. Glitter is her favourite weapon—who could forget the full face of gold glitter she served up on the runway for the Spring/ Summer 2021 collection?—but she also produces bold shapes, wild colour, rhinestones and feathers in her creations.

Now Valentino’s creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli has taken inspiration from Dame McGrath—yes, she was the first make-up artist to become a dame—as well as classic glamour and modern-day thoughts and modalities to create the line’s first-ever make-up line in collaboration with L’Oreal.

Valentino Beauty: The Collection

When it comes to beauty, the fashion house didn't skimp. The line comprises a whopping forty shades of foundation and fifty lipsticks, as well as a highlighter and a range of eye colours, so there’s something for everyone in the collection.

These products are clever, too. These are not your everyday make-up bag basics. The liquid liner, for example, has two ends: Classic black and a bright colour for when you’re feeling bold.

The highlighter we mentioned? It’s also a primer. And it comes spiked with hyaluronic acid so it hydrates as you wear it. The brow product has a liquid brow pen, a brow pencil and a spooly brush all in one. The blush is designed to be brushed onto cheeks or eyelids with the fluffy brush that’s included in the palette.

The eye shadow Color-Flip, for crying out loud, is a double-decker palette of coordinating colours that includes two bases, four statement colours, and two shimmery options.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Valentino without glitter, and that comes in the form of Dreamdust High Impact Glitter for your lips and Dreamdust Multi Reflective Eye Glitter for your eyes.

Valentino Beauty's Refill-Friendly Packaging

Naturally, the packaging is all utterly divine, but most of it is also refillable. Good for the environment, good for your wallet, good for showing off when you’re in the ladies’ doing a touch-up.

We love it.

The packaging peaks with the Go-Clutch, which you may recognise from the runway at the spring/summer 2017 show. The tiny structured clutch on a fine gold chain houses a miniature lipstick at the top and a powder bronzer, blush or highlighter inside, which you can replace when it’s finished.

“Beauty and fashion are in a constant and symbiotic evolution,” said Piccioli. “The work we are doing in Valentino is guided by the values we trust in, we moved from an aesthetic built on exclusivity to an inclusive one, we grew from a two-dimensional vision of beauty to a three dimensional one, where emotions, dreams, and individuality are as important, if not more, as any other feature.

“Beauty is directly connected to the intensity of our feelings, the more we love, the more we are connected to our true self, the more it shows and glows on the outside. Valentino beauty is for the dreamers.”

The full line is available to view now, and pre-orders for the whole 100-plus piece range open next week.

Love Valentino? Learn more about why the fashion house chose Zendaya as a face of the brand, here.