Hotel Indigo Chester: An Opulent Stay with Charm and Comfort

No attractiveness gift says Christmas like a huge eyeshadow palette. Especially this year, when a satisfyingly overstuffed paintbox, edging with colourful possibilities, also feels like a symbolically optimistic present. It promises the near opportunity to in one go again attend weddings, birthday parties, clubs, gigs and dinners, maybe even getting close sufficiency for a stranger to admire your blending skills.If cheap and cheerful is what’s needed, no one makes bigger, better be prepared for palettes than Morphe. Its latest 35-pan Natural Flirt is delicious – all warm camels, pinks and violets – but if, twin me, you are purple-averse (Prince notwithstanding), then direct your cursor towards Truth Or Bare (£18), an 18-pan nudist colony of brown, terracotta, taupe, gold, pink and beige that coaxes anyone, regardless of skin tone. The high pigment content and guaranteed spoil of Morphe-specific tutorials online down it an ideal practice palette for budding makeup artists.Speaking of the pros, makeup artist and YouTube icon Jamie Genevieve recently released my palette of the year and, undeterred by it selling out on day one, she’s adamant that it will be back in time for Christmas. The Essential Eyeshadow Palette (£43), by her new signature trade name Vieve, is sublime – a doubledecker palette of 10 warm, wearable but vivid neutrals in dense sparkles and almost creamy, unusually blendable mattes. (You cognizant of those pigment-drenched shadows that seem to embed where they land, refusing to be made soft, smoky and blurry with a put aside? Well, these have all the punch, none of the pigheadedness.) The former are a sort of gel-powder, making them glide on smoothly – no unmovable thickets or postapocalyptic particle fallout (I’ve tried applying the glittery shadows several ways and finger works best). The meet (industry term for portion size) is also huge for a multishadow, at a whopping 3.1g a pan.Reigning palette queen Natasha Denona (another makeup artist; they do lean to curate the best lineups) specialises in shadow collections. Her five-strong Camel Palette (£41) is what I pack whenever I comprise to travel for work events, but to treat your beloved beauty fan to a veritable orgy of cool, smoky, satin, matte and shimmery standard, look no further than her new Glam Palette (£60). This, like the others, is neutral based, but deliberately scarcities their warmth. Minky taupes, chilled coffee browns and that beautiful pink of freshly plastered close offs – all land on the lid looking as glorious as they do in the pan.