Best London Spring 2012 Fashion Week Trends

After an exciting week in New York, we were ready for fashion across the pond. Designers at London Fashion Week experimented with more dramatic makeup designs (just what we like to see!), and a few trends stood out to the Beautylish team. We recap three British beauty trends to watch this spring.

1. The "Night After" Look

Designers took a grungier approach to makeup in London. One of the biggest trends we noticed was makeup that looked intentionally messy, like a girl forgot to take off her makeup after a night of partying. Andrew Gallimore created smudgy glamour at Holly Fulton and flushed cheeks at Paul Smith, while Lucia Pieroni focused on stained lips and mussy hair at Giles. While we don't advocate a sleepover with your makeup, blend colors with your fingers for an effortless stree style look.

2. Blue Hues

Since the advent of Avatar and The Smurfs, blue makeup has risen in popularity. For spring, designers took pale blue, turquoise, and aqua to extreme beauty limits. Like Richard Chai's blueberry lips at New York Fashion week, Val Garland crafted vivid blue pouts of her own at Mary Katranzou. Florrie White at Meadham Kirchhoff and Alex Box at Vivienne Westwood Red Label painted the brow bone and forehead with shades of aqua, while Mel at David Koma kept turquoise to the inner corners of the eye.

3. Pulled-Back Hair

Bangs were scarcely seen on the spring London runway. At Sass and Bide and Peter Pilotto, hair was slicked to perfection, while Basso and Brooke and Jonathan Saunders loosely brushed the hair away from the face and left some face-framing strands. With lots of product, hairstylists lifted the entire front section of the hair at Felder Felder and House of Holland, channeling the '90s grunge/punk era.