She won’t mind us saying it, but Claudia Winkleman is almost as famous for her beauty missteps as her TV career. Whether it’s streaky tan, ‘Tippex lips’ (her phrase) or THAT myopia-inducing fringe, Claudia is the first to hold her orange-stained palms up and rejoice in her beauty crimes. ‘I’m the colour of Minute Maid orange juice,’ she once us, quite delightedly. ‘I want to look like I’ve spilled gravy over my face, gone to sleep in my make-up and then woken up and carried on with my day.'
Which brings us to her most iconic beauty blunder of all: the smeared, smudged black eyeliner she sported on the GQ Awards red carpet back in 2013. It’s become a genuine source of pride to the Traitors presenter, who uses it as her Instagram headshot, name-checks Alice Cooper as her all-time beauty icon and says a ‘strange drunk pirate’ look is her ultimate beauty goal. ‘I want eyeliner that looks like I’ve slept in a skip,’ is her take on the matter.
If that’s her aim, she was wide of the mark at last night’s BAFTAs, but her latest red-carpet eye makeup appears very much like a tongue-in-cheek reference to that famous fail.
Claudia paired her black tux jacket and skinny jeans with an equally inky kohl liner, worn all along the waterline to make her green eyes stand out.
The detail that’s really caught our eye, though, is the wash of charcoal under Claudia’s eyes and on her lids. At first glance, we thought that history was repeating itself but, on closer inspection, it seems to be a deliberate 360-degree smokey smudge. Very rock ’n’ roll, very Claudia.
We assume this playful dishevelment is the work of her usual makeup artist, Debbie Dannell (who was not at fault for her 2013 makeup malfunction. Claudia took the full blame, explaining: ‘I don’t have any mirrors in my house’ and vowed to throw her eyeliner ‘in the bin’).
While we don’t yet have any behind-the-scenes intel on the red-carpet look, we do know that Claudia has a new favourite black liner to create her beloved ‘Captain Jack Sparrow’ look.
She’s name-checked Lord & Berry Kajal eyeliner as one of the two makeup products she’d grab if her house was burning down: ‘Because it goes on and never comes off,’ she said in an interview.
Her other ‘rescue at all costs’ item is MAC’s ultra-pale Fleshpot lipstick, which she’s worn ‘for ever’ and was on duty last night for her aforementioned ‘Tippex lips’ look. ‘I’d marry a MAC Fleshpot if I could,’ she once told us. You can’t doubt her dedication to the art of perfectly imperfect beauty.
