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According to beauty buffs on TikTok, it’s time to ditch the heavy lipstick and swap your gooey gloss for a slick lip oil. Make-up influencers have been posting videos raving about their favourite shades (and fruity scents), comparing brands and hunting for designer dupes, with clips racking up millions of views. “I think the texture is new to a lot of people who are fed up with sticky balms and glosses, and want something more low-key but still with a great colour and finish,” says Ciara O’Shea, celebrity make-up artist and founder of Proshine. “They are also great for people that would have traditionally stayed away from lip colour or were too scared of it.” Unlike the highly pigmented glosses that have been popular with Gen Z over the past couple of years, lip oils tend to offer a more subtle ‘your lips but better’ colour pay-off – or no pigment at all, in the case of clear oils. “They are an elevated alternative to the Y2K-inspired lip glosses and provide a nourishing treatment,” says Jamie Genevieve, make-up artist and founder of VIEVE. “Lip oils also offer a beautiful, natural wash of colour, which complements the ‘clean make-up’ aesthetic that has been trending for a while on TikTok.” Jamie Coombes, Dior UK pro make-up artist, says that rave reviews are a big driver of cosmetic sales: “The power of social media is mighty and when a product’s formula, packaging and results fit the expectations, it makes it a winner!” What’s the difference between lip oil and gloss? “Lip oils offer the effects and results of both lip gloss and lip balm,” says Coombes. “It is a richer texture that penetrates quicker and deeper for instantly nourished lips.” If you love the shiny, plump-pout look but struggle with gloopy glosses, try a lip oil, Genevieve says: “Unlike a balm or gloss, a lip oil is lightweight and non-sticky.” What’s the best way to wear lip oil? “Lip oils are very versatile,” says Genevieve. “They can be worn on their own for an everyday, ‘off-duty’ look or layered over liner and lipstick to add a high-shine finish to elevate a dramatic lip.” She recommends the best-selling VIEVE Lip Dew in the Original shade: “Clear with a golden multi-dimensional finish, it’s incredibly flattering when worn on its own and looks beautiful layered with your go-to lipstick shade.” Lip oils can also double up as an eye gloss, O’Shea says: “I like to use it liberally on my lips and then pop a little on my eyelids and cheeks to have a uniform colour and texture in my make-up look.” She’s a big fan of one of the OG ranges: “Clarins has been top of the lip-oil game forever. I’ve been using them for years. They come in a variety of the best colours that suit everyone.” While shimmery gold and silver oils are on the rise this summer, the best-selling shades of the TikTok-famous Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil are all punchy pinks. “The most popular and my personal ‘go-to’ colours are Pink, Rosewood and Cherry, which are gorgeous and suit all skin tones,” Coombes says. “Lip oil is not just a trend – it’s a beauty must-have and can suit every make-up preference.” Get the gloss: 9 of the best lip oils to try Dior Addict Lip Glow Oil 001 Pink, £32 MERIT Shade Slick Tinted Lip Oil Sangria, £26 VIEVE Lip Dew Original, £17 Lottie London Oil Slick Peachy Cheeks, £5.95 Fenty Skin Cherry Treat Lip Conditioning Oil, £20, Boots Clarins Lip Comfort Oil 04 Pitaya, £22 Ciate Watermelon Burst Hydrating Lip Oil, £14 Hourglass No28 Lip Treatment Oil, £50 Stila Heaven’s Dew Gel Lip Oil Moondust, £22 Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live 5 late summer blooms to plant now Why have the birds disappeared from my garden? I’m a 26-year-old who still spends hundreds of pounds to play with dolls

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I’m standing outside my local cafe in west London, looking bedraggled as I’ve been up since 6.45am making the dreaded school packed lunch. It’s nothing exotic – margherita pizza for Lola, who is a fussy eater, and plain pasta with cheddar cheese and corn on the cob for Liberty. There were all the snacks to pack, too – sadly, no chunks of carrot, just Pom-Bears and breadsticks. I am buying a croissant to add to one of the lunch boxes when I bump into the mum of one of my daughter’s friends. “Oh darling,” she tells me, “it’s all ‘white food’. Not good.” I shrug my shoulders knowingly, then stupidly ask her what’s in her kids’ packed lunches. “Sushi bento box,” comes her instant reply. “Crudites and organic hummus. Japanese panda crackers. Seaweed crackers. Dim sum. Oh, and sandwiches cut into little shapes – I do hearts and stars.” Right. That’s a good start to my morning; I now feel totally inadequate. When it comes to my children, I am a slave to the packed lunch. But gone are the days of stuffing a hard-boiled egg, a jam sandwich or processed cheese triangles into a box – as was the case when I was a child. Even apples have been voted a prehistoric lunchbox item by 17 per cent of parents. Instead, packed lunches are now a status symbol. The actor Hilary Duff, for instance, gives her son caviar for a snack – and it’s not that unusual. One in 10 parents (9 per cent) choose sushi and, according to a recent survey by Amazon Fresh, 26 per cent of parents take a photo of their children’s packed lunch for Instagram. A third (33 per cent) have also admitted they’ve taken a sneak peek inside another child’s lunchbox – and believe me, it’s often to silently snack-shame another parent. I can’t help but wonder if food and snacks are a kind of modern litmus test of parenting. But does it really make you a better parent if you give your child home-cooked wild keta salmon and wholemeal rice in a thermal container for lunch? The playground politics of packed lunches are complex. Parents are constantly criticised for sending inappropriate lunches to school. The TV chef Jamie Oliver once said unhealthy packed lunches are tantamount to child abuse. At the other extreme, parents are finding the time to stamp cucumbers with flowers and dice dried herbs into them for their kid’s bento boxes – then post them online. There seems to be no middle ground. Christina (not her real name) is a 40-year-old PA and tablescaping specialist whose child attends a prep school in west London’s Notting Hill. She makes all of her daughter’s packed lunches from scratch, and it’s always organic produce. “I always wanted to go that extra mile,” she tells me. “My motivation to do this was never to be ‘Queen Bee mum’ – it was to make my daughter happy and proud of me.” The “presentation” and “the taste” of the packed lunches, she says, is “super important” – to such an extent that it needs to be “Instagram-worthy” and “fun” in order to encourage her daughter to eat healthily. One of her lunch box specialities, she adds, is mini American hot dogs “decorated with a little flag and a drizzle of ketchup”. “I know it is always going to be flagged by other mothers because the school is very competitive,” she continues. “This dish goes around the mums like wildfire because mums always want to outdo other mums.” If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods. It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food Charlotte Stirling-Reed, child and baby nutrionist While school playground rivalry among parents used to be about pigtails and bows in your children’s hair, Christina says, now it’s about lunch and snacks. “Kids have a much more sophisticated palate,” she explains. “They’re exposed to a lot more than a ham and cheese sandwich. The playing field has widened, and the bar has been set higher due to social media, and Deliveroo and Uber Eats – everything has become more instantaneous.” For other parents, it’s about making a packed lunch as wholesome as possible – something my children would scoff at. Ella Mills, the founder of the plant-based food brand Deliciously Ella, tells me she has found “batch cooking” easiest for her daughter’s packed lunches at nursery. “It’s a real rush getting everyone dressed, ready and out of the door each morning,” she says. “Plus, thinking of something to cook at 7am that’s got no nuts, no sesame in it [due to possible nut allergies], that I’ll know they’ll eat, and that doesn’t take a little while to make. So I make huge batches of veggie bolognese, bean chilli or sweet potato and chickpea stews plus big batches of grains, then simply heat a portion up and pop it in a thermos. Something that’s pre-made makes a world of difference.” Other parents call in the professionals. Chef Meryem Korkut Avci of Mary’s Mobile Chef Services does “meal preps” for elite customers in west and north London. She sends over an ingredients list and will then come to your home once a week and cook for the whole family – a two-hour session is £120 for six dishes (on the seventh day, her clients usually get a takeaway). For packed lunches, she says gluten-free muffins are popular. “Also egg or chicken fried rice, chilli con carne with tortilla, little mini puff pastry rolls with cheese – or sausage rolls.” She’ll even wash up – and says clients use her because “they don’t have time” or are “bored of their own food”. Dr Megan Rossi, a gut health scientist, bestselling author and founder of the website The Gut Health Doctor and The Gut Health Clinic in London, says an ideal packed lunch would contain something from each of the super-six plant groups: “Legumes (such as chickpeas), vegetables, whole grains (such as oats and barley), fruit, nuts and seeds and herbs and spices. Hitting all these is a tricky one but for optimal health, the goal is for them to have at least one from each of these most days. It’s a great target to have in mind!” She advises “hiding legumes and whole grains in sweet treats like black bean brownies with porridge oats,” and says that “while not a long-term strategy to keep plants a secret, it can help build some confidence and comfort with those plants (as well as training childrens’ taste buds) for you to reveal when the time is right.” For chocolate lovers – like my daughter, Lola – Dr Rossi also suggests “making your own chocolate bars with dried fruits, popcorn, seeds and nuts included for extra dietary fibres and a more satiating treat”. I personally can’t see how I would fit that into my schedule. But for many parents healthy eating is a full-time job. Children may need to be offered a specific food “around 10 times” before they accept it, according to research, while Dr Rossi adds that it means nothing to a child if you merely tell them food is healthy or unhealthy. “Try explaining to them from a young age about the importance of their gut microbes,” she says. “Tell them they need to feed the little pet bugs in their tummy with broccoli, for instance, to help keep them strong.” I often feel ashamed that Lola is a fussy eater – though I find solace in the fact that her younger sister isn’t. Dr Rossi claims that what mums-to-be eat during pregnancy may also affect the kind of food your child will have a taste for. “That could play a part with fussing eating,” she says, but adds that she’s not keen on “mum guilt”: “Pregnancy is hard enough without the added pressure of nutrition.” Charlotte Sterling-Reed, “The Baby and Child Nutritionist”, runs a fussy eater course, and assures me that “parents are not bad parents if they are struggling with a fussy eater at home”. She says she is currently witnessing a backlash from “defensive parents” who are fed up with being told to live up to the “ideal” of being a perfect parent. “If I put out a post saying how much fibre children should be having, I get people replying saying that ‘it’s unrealistic’ and ‘we can’t do that as well as everything else’ when it comes to kids’ foods,” she says. “It ends up with parents pitting themselves off against one another with food.” An extravagant lunchbox is also not realistic for the majority of parents, she adds, “whether working or not, and nor should it be – there is a way to find a balance”. She says that a middle ground is possible. “As parents, [we can] pick something that is balanced but that also works for the family situation. This constant comparison between two extremes on social media makes us feel like we are failing in multiple aspects of parenting.” I don’t think I’m ever going to be posting my kids packed lunches on Instagram. I also know that sliced pepper fingers won’t get eaten even if I arrange them in the shape of a smiley face. More than anything though, I won’t feel guilty about my kids’ food habits any more, or the lengths I sometimes go to to get them to eat healthy – I once told my daughters that if they didn’t drink their freshly squeezed orange juice, their legs would fall off. And, you know what, it worked! Read More Keir Starmer is keeping his children out of the public eye – but that won’t stop them being privileged I’m a jellyfish parent – my run-in with a tiger mum was terrifying Kate Moss credits her stress-free life to ‘moonbathing’ – can eccentric wellness regimes help me too? Vasectomy and British men in their twenties: ‘Young, none and done’ Why taking a mental health day could be bad… for your mental health What the world’s happiest children tell us about where Britain is going wrong

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NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 3, 2023--