Summer beauty: The best products for sun-kissed, 'no make-up' skin

​Sun-kissed summer skin is a beauty must - so much so that there’s an avalanche of products to help achieve that paradoxical “no make-up” look. Sarah Young highlights some of the season’s best

Tommy Hilfiger opted for iridescent hues of copper and gold to create sunny, caramel skin ( )

Warmer weather fast approaches and the beauty look of the season calls upon a trifecta of bronzed, dewy skin and gloriously-flushed cheeks. A recurring theme for spring/summer, there is something reassuring about that glistening hyper glow that imbues the world of beauty at this time of year. It’s easy-to-understand beauty, it’s appeal is across the board. But finding the balance between hot mess and sun-kissed goddess can be a tricky endeavour.

The spring/summer 2016 catwalks showed how to do it best: they were brimming with seasonal glow and a 24-carat tan worthy of a two-week stint in the tropics. Hence the perfectly co-ordinating beachy hair to accompany a face full of stripped back ‘no make-up make-up’, that nevertheless took a couple of hours each to apply.

For Chloe and Michael Kors, the name of the game was simple – tawny, natural, matte skin with subtle bronzing and a flush of highlight to accentuate the cheekbones; a hint of shine was added to the eyelids too for skin that oozed a healthy, post-gym glow. Bronzer wasn’t far away though with the likes of Balmain, Tommy Hilfiger and Alberta Ferretti opting for iridescent hues of copper and gold to create sunny caramel skin.

Sun-kissed: Balmain was liberal with the bronzer

The inevitable monotonies of life insist that we can’t all jet off on exotic getaways - and the majority of us aren’t blessed with unsullied supermodel skin either. So just how achievable is this look? Fortunately, this is the perfect time of year to stock up on bronzed beauty essentials with summer collections from some of the industry’s biggest names landing in stores. It can seem like a bit of a glistening minefield, with so many very golden products to choose from but in essence this trend requires very few components. Making your skin look and feel its best is priority.

First up, hydration is key to achieving that sun kissed guise, so make sure your skin is perfectly prepped with plenty of moisturiser. For an extra boost why not try applying a bronze-toned, glow-enhancing primer before your foundation? When it comes to bronzer, if it’s dewy skin you’re after then it's best to stick to a liquid base applied at the points of the face that naturally catch the most sun: the bridge of the nose, the cheekbones and the forehead.

Next, gently pat a highlighter to the top of your cheeks, your brow bones and Cupid’s bow for a subtle pop of shimmer and finish the look with a gorgeous nude lipstick or a touch of gloss – don’t forget to blot to remove excess shine. If you’re going to invest in one thing this season, we’d recommend an illuminating base, to guarantee that you’ll get every penny’s worth from your pot of gold.