I’ve been to Paris three times in recent months, and each time I spotted a pharmacy window display of Bourjois makeup I felt a further pang of disappointment over the brand’s recent withdrawal from the UK. So on returning from France after my last visit, I was shocked but delighted to find an email announcing Bourjois’s resurrection.
I grew up with Bourjois’s Little Round Pot rosy blushers and pastel eyeshadows, stacked satisfyingly in my local Boots like macarons. (See also their signature violet-scented lipsticks, glossy nail lacquers and creamy eye and lip pencils.)
My deep affection continued in adulthood and so, as the loss of brands go, this one (after more than 160 years of solid service) genuinely hurt. I wasn’t alone, either. It seems that British beauty shoppers have been so vocally dismayed by their inability to score beloved powder pots, Healthy Mix foundation and one of the very last proper black liquid eyeliners not to be grey-squirrelled out of town by the ubiquitous felt-tipped liner pens, that Bourjois’s parent company, Coty, has – just under three years into our European exile – performed a volte-face. Due to customer demand, this month Bourjois returned to the UK at superdrug.com.
Old favourites are back, mercifully unchanged: Healthy Mix is still £9.99 and, I would argue, the best high street foundation in history for balanced skin types of any age looking for light-to-medium coverage and moist-looking glow. Rouge Velvet lipstick, £9.99, still gives a matte finish and exceptional colour payoff without any of the scratchy, dry, dragging sensation of too many others. Alongside it is a brand new UK arrival, Rouge Velvet Ink, £10.99, a liquid version with a pointier, more precise application and even longer lasting finish.
Twist-Up the Volume mascara, £11.99, is France’s best selling mascara (1.7 of them are sold every second – if you’re a fan of pointless marketing stats) and also lands fresh with your old favourites. Its key benefit is your ability to twist the cap to combine a lash-lengthening mascara with a volumising one (fans of Clinique’s brilliant Full Lash to Flutter mascara, may she rest in peace, will get the idea).
Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind the scenes look at the making of the magazine’s biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.
More new products will follow as the brand, refreshed and reinvigorated from its sabbatical, enjoys a much-deserved renaissance.
