Five minutes max - on a good day… That’s how much time most women have to do their make up in the morning. Bit more for the evening, bit less when you’ve overslept.  That’s where Code8 Beauty comes in. It could just be your magic ticket to looking pretty damn gorgeous, pretty damn fast.

Nadine Ayache and Sophia Chikovani, friends and joint founders of Code8, are busy, busy, busy.  Nadine’s a real-estate investment advisor and a self-confessed make up junkie while Sophia, formerly head of an architect and interior design company, has three children and wants to get up and go - looking great.  Their mission was to launch a carefully edited collection of cosmetics that really work to flatter all women, regardless of age and skin colour, so all their customers could create the look they prefer.

Code8 certainly can pile on the gloss and bejazzle too. They were the official make up range for London Fashion Week 2019 and their catwalk looks were, as they blogged on their website (codeeight.com), ‘hyper-glam’!

So – Beauty Bible’s verdict? Sarah set off to London’s Burlington Arcade, just off Piccadilly, for a make up make over by the in-house make up artist Anna, (who’s also a passionate milliner BTW). 

A short while later, Sarah – who was exhausted and looked it (hit by the hay fever pollen bomb)  – was a different bunny. Skin fresher, dewier and brighter, lines softer, brown spots banished, eyes (almost) sparkling. Anna’s carefully chosen Code8 cosmetics had absolutely done the biz.

Then, to test them in real life, Sarah popped them in her make up bag and took off for a week to wet, cold, windy Scotland – which is a pretty tough trial face-wise. Readers, they triumphed! Took less than five minutes to put on and really stayed the course.

These are Sarah’s key products: Radiate Beauty Balm/£39 in nine shades; Seamless Cover Concealer/£25 in six shades (genius!); Blush Palette/£32 in Rosé, also available in Pink Beach (with more blue) and Merlot (for darker tones); Lash Sophisticate High Definition Mascara/£25; Precision Liquid Eyeliner/£28 (in Carbon Black); and gorgeously summery Colour Brilliance Lipstick in Spiaggia Rosa/£25.

(Last week, Jo went in for her own makeover – and is equally impressed with her own edit of products.)

If Nadine and Sophia had a mantra, it could well be ‘K-I-S-S’ – keep it simple, stoopid… These products (you can see them arrayed below) aren’t tricksy or demanding: they are on your side, your beauty besties - simple to apply, fab to wear. In fact, legendary make up artist Mary Greenwell loved them so much when she tried them that she did all the models make up for their ad campaign. And you look natural – ‘just like yourself but prettier,’ as one fashion friend said happily.

Code8 is currently popping up at 4 Burlington Arcade, Picccadilly, W1J 0PA. And HOT NEWS!! there is a second pop up in Knightsbridge, just opened at 273 Brompton Road, SW3 2ER.

And we nearly forgot the bonus! If you have about an hour to spare and feel like spoiling yourself to the tune of around £75, you can acquire your own bespoke lipstick from über make up mixologist Juan, who wields his palette and colours like an Impressionist painter – which seems entirely fitting. Juan is at the Knightsbridge pop up from June 11th, 2019.

 codeeight.com

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