Pantone's Colour of the Year: Ways to Work it Into Your Glam

Somewhere in Europe, a top-secret meeting of industry experts meet annually to discuss one of our favourite topics: colour. The colour forecasts of these experts are narrowed down from thousands until only one remains: the Pantone Colour of the Year. This colour ideally encompasses the mood and trends of the upcoming year (though often guided by past trends) and is filtered down to us in the form of consumer products: makeup, paint, fashion etc. Now that I’m saying it out loud (text counts as out loud in these WFH days), it all sounds very Devil Wears Prada. And this year, Pantone’s version of Miranda Priestly has designated Very Peri as the colour of 2022.

Coming off the back of a year that saw a lot of isolation, Very Peri is a colour that aims to inspire us to “embrace the altered landscape of possibilities,” and “encourages personal inventiveness and creativity.” While these whimsical reasons for picking it are poetic and inspirational, the cynic in me thinks they picked this colour purely on the back of the retro-futurism pastel home décor trends. Pastels have been on trend everywhere from fashion to wallpaper over the last year and continue to be a mainstay (well, at least I hope so – I just bought a lilac faux crocodile skin trench coat...)

If blue is the warmest colour, then periwinkle is the warmest blue. It gives warmth to blue and cools down red, and you know what that means? Periwinkle suits almost everyone. Although you may not want to paint your walls periwinkle, there are a tonne of great ways to incorporate the colour into your beauty regime.

Nails:

Nail polish is one of the easiest ways to add some colour into your look while still being work appropriate. Essie has a huge selection of periwinkle and periwinkle-adjacent shades – we especially love Wink Of Sleep and Pret-A-Surfer. Pick up some French tip guide stickers online and give yourself a periwinkle tipped manicure to subtly celebrate this Very Peri year.

Eyes:

Blue and purple eyeshadows are not just for your cranky maths teacher (or was it just mine who wore blue shadow up to her brows?) Eyeshadow palettes like Kaleidos’ Futurism VI: Lunar Lavender are great for giving blues and purples a modern vibe by including light shimmers with some solid matte browns to help your blending game.

If eyeshadows aren’t for you, NYX’s Epic Wear Liner Stick in Periwinkle Pop is a fun colour to use for a cute winged liner look. Even though we know that wings are sisters not twins, using a light colour like this also will minimise the appearance of unevenness. 

Highlighter:       

Give yourself a celestial glow by using a purple coloured highlighter like Inglot’s Intense Sparkler Face Eyes Body Highlighter in shade 20. Brush it on your cheekbones and shoulder blades before using a wet brush to press some onto your eyelids – a one stop shop to achieve a cohesive and galactic periwinkle look.

Lipstick:

A funky way to add periwinkle into your beauty look Keep your eye out for limited edition lipsticks – most of the big hitting brands don’t keep periwinkle shades in their permanent rotation but we LOVE Fenty’s Mattemoiselle Plush Matte Lipstick in Violet Fury. Though, if you manage to get your hands on MAC’s Men Love Mystery buy yourself one and then send me the link please. Seriously. I need it.

All in all, this is one of our favourite Colours of the Year of all time (or of all 22 years that Pantone has been running this). Do you love it as much as us? If you want to give periwinkle a try in your beauty looks this year, we’d love to see what creative designs you come up with – tag us on Instagram so we can check them out!