A Collaboration Gone Good

I don't really go in for the whole 'TV presenter collaborates with high street chain' kind of beauty, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. The darling of Saturday night TV, former model and wife to Vernon Kay, Tess Daly has teamed up with Marks & Spencer to produce a small line of cosmetics and bodycare items. She is quite a woman to admire - she has a busy schedule, two kids and a, by all accounts, full-time job (albeit quite a glamorous one) and she looks pretty damn perfect so I'll quite happily take tips from her beauty bag.

Although this collaboration is fairly old news in the beauty world I wanted to highlight the fact that less high-profile celebrity beauty collaborations can work if pitched correctly. OK, it's not in the league of Scarlett Johansson and D&G or Dame Edna and MAC (pah!) but it is one to be applauded and one to try. The products work, the packaging entices me and Tess is a good role model, so why not.

The product I'm loving at the moment is the Tess Daly Beauty Dewy-Glow Highlighter. Not only is the packaging pretty slick - one that you could definitely pull out of your cosmetics purse with pride - it's also a really nice product to use and gives you a lovely sheen without looking thick and overdone.

If only more brands would think before they team up with any showbiz Tom, Dick or Harry riding high on their fifteen minutes of fame and produce a product that is low quality, cheap and, quite frankly, unpalatable. Consumers aren't daft, you know - we may like value for money but we also want hard-working products that look nice and glossy too.

Rant over.

M&S Tess Daly Beauty Dewy-Glow Highlighter £9.50
http://www.marksandspencer.com/