The secrets to looking #instagood: Chiara Ferragni reveals her beauty tips

As screen stars go, they don’t come much bigger than Chiara Ferragni. The screen in question might be mobile phone-sized, but her impressive reach spans the globe, having amassed 16.8m followers on Instagram alone. To put that into context that’s almost 2m more than the population of Denmark, Finland and Norway put together.

Chiara is undoubtedly a new breed of superstar – businesswoman, entrepreneur, influencer, mother and muse. The former law student, who hails from a small town outside Milan, started her blog The Blonde Salad back in 2009. Documenting her personal style and helping to spawn the ‘fashion influencer’ phenomenon in the process, she hurtled her way through the ranks of social media. Fast-forward a decade and the self-made millionaire, who was number one on Forbes’ Top Fashion Influencers list in 2017, commands an empire – a thoroughly modern ‘hashtags to riches’ tale indeed. 

From an eponymous shoe and apparel line to several high-profile brand collaborations (she is the first Lancôme ambassador to co-design a capsule collection with the brand), her influence is in no danger of waning. We caught up with her while poring over her Lancôme X Chiara Ferragni stash: an utterly covetable collection consisting of a palette, three lipsticks, three glosses and a mascara, all very much in keeping with her irreverent style and emblazoned with her signature ‘iconic eye’ logo.

Here, Chiara talks us through the new products, as well as revealing her daily skincare routine, wedding make-up strategy and how to harness the ultimate selfie light.

‘My best all-round beauty advice is to really take care of your skin, stay hydrated and sleep a decent number of hours every night. I try to stick to a good skincare routine when I can and tend not to use too many products. I also take a good-quality multivitamin. Essentially, I try not to overcomplicate things. We’re all so busy these days so I wanted to make things as simple as possible, especially with my Flirting Palette, which has everything you need to create various everyday looks as well as more elaborate ones too. I also wanted to make sure it was transgenerational so that it’s equally appealing to mothers and daughters. Make-up is such an accessible tool for everyone to feel better about themselves.’

‘Although red lips always get me the most comments on Instagram, I’m more of an eye girl, especially when I do my own make-up. My go-to look is some bronze/gold/brown eyeshadow mixed together and applied with my fingers – it’s really easy to do. I wear it with a little blusher and highlighter then I’ll just go for a pinky-nude matte lipstick. For a date-night look, I try and do more with my eyes. Not necessarily a full-on smoky look, but I’ll just pump things up a bit more using the same types of colours. Then I’ll use natural-looking shades on my lips – sometimes I’ll use gloss when I want to be a little more flirty.’

‘My best selfie tip is to find the right light. Lighting is everything. For me it’s all about natural light, but failing that, try and find a good artificial light and position yourself in front of it. My favourite Instagram filter is Valencia – it’s a really simple one that works like a beauty filter and makes your skin and everything else look better. I don’t wear much foundation – I prefer to just do a bit of correction on dark circles and breakouts – but when you’re on camera you need a little more, which usually means some contouring and highlighting.’

‘I’m very basic on holiday – I just want to feel really comfortable and enjoy the experience. If I’m by the sea, my hair is up in a messy bun or a ponytail. I don’t like wearing a lot of make-up on holiday either – I usually only wear it at night. In the evenings I might use a little bit of blusher, some highlighter, lipgloss, mascara and I’m done. When you have a tan you look much better anyway, so you don’t need to enhance too much.’

‘I think the most important thing for a bride is to feel like herself on her wedding day. Of course you want to look your best, but you don’t want to look too different by trying a new look or wearing too much make-up. For me, it’s all about enhancing your natural beauty and being the best version of yourself. I had very simple hair and make-up for my wedding, but I had to do a few touch-ups as I cried so much during the ceremony. We read our own vows so it was very emotional. My make-up was kind of a mess afterwards. My tip is to leave time for a touch-up immediately after the ceremony!’

‘I’ve learnt a lot over the years and now I know which colours suit me, what my foundation shade is and how to apply my make-up. It’s not how a make-up artist might do it, but I think I do my make-up OK now. I’ve made so many beauty mistakes over the years, like wearing foundation which wasn’t my exact colour, too much blusher, too much highlighter, lipstick not applied correctly so I ended up with it on my teeth… I’ve done them all. Most of the time it’s just about finding the right products for you and knowing how to apply them correctly. I started dyeing my eyebrows about five years ago because I realised that I like how the contrast gives a much stronger look. I collect beauty looks and photos of celebrities so I can use them as a source of inspiration. I keep them in about a thousand folders on my phone called things like ‘base’ and ‘beauty looks’ so I can recreate them – I’m organised like that!’

Images courtesy of Lancôme and Getty Images