If you’ve paid even an ounce of attention to Meghan Markle’s life this year, then you’ll know the plot to Netflix’s Christmas Prince sequel. Aptly titled A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, the movie finds our beloved heroine—and soon-to-be-royal—Amber (Rose McIver) a year into her relationship with Prince Richard (Ben Lamb). Their royal nuptials are fast-approaching, and with that comes a great deal of stress, wedding planning, and royal protocol. Sound familiar?
Netflix isn’t even trying to be subtle about the Meghan Markle inspiration—not that we’re complaining. The parallels are clear from the get-go. The biggest similarity? Amber is asked by the royal family to shut down her popular blog, much like Markle had to close her lifestyle website, The Tig, shortly after getting engaged to Prince Harry.
But it goes deeper than that. One scene finds Amber sparring with her future royal in-laws about her wedding dress. She wants something more contemporary, but they say their family has traditions that’ve lasted for centuries. Again, this all feels very, “Meghan Markle wore her hair in a messy bun and broke royal protocol.” Literally, was the Duchess of Sussex a consultant? Probably not, but can you imagine?
Watch the trailer for yourself, below:
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For those of you not indoctrinated into A Christmas Prince, the first film centers on a journalist, Amber, who traveled to the fictional country of Aldovia to cover a press conference for the notorious bachelor Prince Richard. After some snowy shenanigans, the two end up falling in love, and Prince Richard proposes. Of course, Markle was an actress on Suits—not a journalist—but both stories have that “European royalty falls for an American commoner” factor. And we’re hooked.
A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding hits Netflix streaming on November 30.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced on Monday (October 15) that they’re expecting their first child, and the Internet’s been in a tizzy ever since. The timing of the announcement came right as Markle and Prince Harry arrived in Australia for their first royal tour.
“It’s great to be back in Australia, and especially even more so, this is my wife’s first trip here, so I’m very excited to show her this incredible country of yours,” Prince Harry said at an event in Sydney this week honoring both him and Markle, according to Entertainment Tonight. “We’re both absolutely delighted to be here and to see you serving beer and tea at an afternoon reception in true Aussie style.”
It wasn’t long before Prince Harry addressed the elephant in the room. “We also, genuinely, couldn’t think of a better place to announce, uh, the upcoming baby, be it a boy or girl, so thank you very much,” he said. And while Markle didn’t officially address the guests, the Daily Mail reports that she was overheard talking to Australian TV personality Eddie Woo, who told her about his own kids. “We’re ready! We’re excited to join the club,” Markle reportedly replied.
“Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are very pleased to announce that The Duchess of Sussex is expecting a baby in the Spring of 2019,” Kensington Palace posted to both Twitter and Instagram on Monday morning. “Their Royal Highnesses have appreciated all of the support they have received from people around the world since their wedding in May and are delighted to be able to share this happy news with the public.”
Markle is reportedly around 12 weeks pregnant, which means there’s still some time before she does become a member of that club.
The royal wedding was just under a month ago, and news around the day’s events is somehow still coming out. But this is no minor detail we bring to you. This is big news about the most interesting part of Meghan Markle’s wedding day beauty routine: the barely-there foundation that inspired tweets and freckle-envy around the world.
Details have been hard to come by on the products that celebrity makeup artist Daniel Martin used for Meghan’s wedding makeup, which was to be expected. Buckingham Palace is notoriously tight-lipped about the royals’ beauty routines, and unlike their outfits, there’s usually no way to ID a product from afar. Yet the beauty world’s whisper network has come through. Nothing is officially confirmed, but rumor has it that Meghan’s foundation was Dior’s newest formula, the Backstage Face & Body Foundation. With the line hitting shelves today, here’s everything to know about how the $40 foundation plays.
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The release comes to us as part of the brand’s new—and more affordable—sister line, Dior Backstage. Peter Phillips, the creative director of Dior Makeup, had full reign over the new line, and came up with a slate of products intended to be both high-performing and intuitive to use. These are familiar claims in the beauty world, and they’re joined by a number you’ll also recognize: The Face & Body Foundation comes in a total of 40 shades, which has become the go-to benchmark for foundation lines. Those 40 are divided between six skin undertones, including cool, cool rosy, neutral, warm, warm olive, and warm peach. The foundation is joined by two eye palettes, two brow palettes, a highlighter palette, contour palette, and lip palette, along with 14 brushes.
In case anyone’s forgotten, Meghan’s skin was the stuff that dreams and dermatological aspirations are made of. Contending with late spring weather couldn’t have been easy, but the hundreds of thousands of photos prove what everyone saw that day: Meghan’s skin was fresh, dewy, and glowing, with her freckles in full view by personal request. Incredible photo opps and gentle lighting could only do so much, and after testing the Face & Body, I feel comfortable saying this foundation must have taken her the rest of the way.
Dior describes the foundation’s finish as luminous, but it doesn’t get there in the usual hydration-packed way. Which is a good thing, because where those formulas can stay moist and slip and slide throughout the day (and glom onto your phone in the grossest way), the Face & Body has a thin, watercolor quality to it that sinks into your skin. Phillips describes it to Glamour as a film-like texture, which lends itself to layering for adjustable coverage. After moisturizing, Phillips says that he applies it with a flat brush all over, and then uses a sponge or his fingers to blend. Thin layers were crucial for avoiding a melt-down situation at the royal wedding, he says, which is solid advice; Sir John said he used a similar layering technique to create Beyoncé’s Teflon face at Coachella, and between the two of them, no greater endorsement can exist.
PHOTO: Getty Images
PHOTO: Getty Images
After testing the foundation for a week on my combination skin, I can report that I won’t be putting it down anytime soon. Going by the name and squeeze-bottle packaging, the Face & Body will likely attract comparisons to MAC’s Studio Face and Body Foundation. They’re somewhat similar, but MAC’s has a much wetter formula, where the Dior dries down quickly. My skin leans dry, and if I bring a mirror an inch away from my face, the Dior can read a little powdery. But from a conversational distance away, it has a light, evening-out effect that looks like a second skin. From Meghan’s face to my own—because why stop at copying her mouth massage, when her foundation is up for grabs?
For nine non-stop months, we speculated about what Meghan Markle’s wedding makeup was going to look like, and on Saturday, she did not disappoint when she rolled up in her Rolls sporting her signature glow (and those freckles!). It was rumored that she might do her own makeup, but in the end and in true Meghan style, she opted to have her long-time friend and makeup artist, Daniel Martin help her out. Lucky for us, Glamour, too, has been a long-time friend of the Dior Brand Ambassador and Honest Beauty Creative Color Consultant, so we rounded up the best insider tricks he’s given us about glowy skin over the years. Here’s how to get it right.
Prep Your Skin Even the fanciest foundation with major moisturizing and illuminating properties in the world won’t look good on dry skin. Before any kind of makeup, you need to “wake up your complexion” with a non-greasy moisturizer, said Martin. (Try Dior Hydra Life Hydration Rescue Intense Sorbet Creme.) Smooth on a pea-sized amount, then massage your face for a few minutes to plump things up and boost circulation. Ditto for your eyes. “Hydrate with an eye balm or eye cream first to build up resistance to the layers it takes to cover up dark circles,” he once told us. (We love Honest Beauty The Depuffed Eye Gel.) Once your skin is properly hydrated, anything you put on top—foundation, concealer, powder—goes on a lot smoother and lasts longer.
Color Correct a Touch Sure, sheer makeup is the goal, but sometimes a girl needs a little coverage. And to do that in the most natural way possible, you need to neutralize—not just camouflage with concealer—spots and discoloration. “Unbalanced undertones and uneven skin texture are distracting and not appealing to the naked eye—the benefit of color-correcting products is being able to put your skin tone back to a blank-canvas state,” he said. To cancel out pimples and uneven patches of redness, try applying a whisper of green-tinted cream like Dior Fix It 2-in-1 Prime & Color Correct in Green on bits that need evening out. If you want to counteract sallowness or hyperpigmentation, lay down a thin layer of peach color corrector like Dior’s Fix It in Apricot. “Once your canvas is treated and prepped, you can use less of everything else,” said Martin.
Stipple (Don’t Swipe) on Foundation Smearing foundation over your color-correcting handiwork will only make a mess. Instead, “lightly buff and swirl your makeup brush dipped in foundation over your skin to create a flawless, diffused finish,” suggests Martin. “Think of it like waxing your car—minus the pressure. When you use light, short circular motions to achieve coverage, it ends up looking seamless and not streaky at all.” His three must-haves for no-fail blending: Dior Backstage Blender Sponge, It Cosmetics Heavenly Luxe Magic Eraser, and the Sigma F64 Soft Blend Concealer Brush that he uses as a foundation brush.
Spackle a Zit with Eyeshadow Primer What’s worse than a big zit? A big, flaky zit, which is usually what happens when you use a spot treatment and then dump on a ton of concealer over top. Trust us: When it comes to hiding a pimple, more is not more. His pro move for making an angry spot look less noticeable? “First, treat the inflammation with either a cortisone gel or redness-reducing eye drops. It really gets the red out!” he said. Wait a few minutes for the swelling to go down, then dab on some clear eyeshadow primer. It works two-fold, says Martin, by creating a smoother, less permeable surface (so bacteria stays out) and helps everything else stick and stay put.
Highlight Strategically The quickest way to glow up, says Martin, is to dust a shimmery gold highlighter (or gold eyeshadow if you’re feeling wild; watch him break down his best shadow hacks, below) all up on your cheekbones. But don’t just put it anywhere. For a believable glow, concentrate the color underneath your eyes and along your cheekbones to “brighten the complexion and add a nice radiance to the face without looking too much.” Add a dab of gloss and you’re good to go.
Meghan Markle’s friend Priyanka Chopra all but confirmed to Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live on Thursday night that the future royal cried when she said yes to the dress. And although the exact tear-inducing dress will likely remain a complete mystery until the moment she walks down the aisle at St. George’s Chapel on May 19, multiple outlets—quoting, keep in mind, very anonymous sources—are reporting that Markle chose a Ralph & Russo dress. Most recently, the Daily Mail‘s royal correspondent reinforced the rumors on Friday.
The rumors aren’t totally out of nowhere: Ralph & Russo is a British line (check) with an incredibly regal vibe (check). Markle also has a history with the brand: She wore a stunning, sheer black Ralph & Russo dress during her engagement photos.
As far as the odds of her wearing Ralph & Russo—again, there’s no one on the record yet—the line is a favorite amongst the bookie crowd in the UK, which yes, is betting on the designer of the royal wedding dress. In the UK, if it seems like someone knows something as a fact (say, who the designer of a royal wedding dress is), and word is spreading, betting companies will stop anyone else from putting money on the bet. Paddy Power and Ladbrokes, both bookmakers, have suspended bets after an overwhelming amount of people put their pounds on the designer.
“We’ve taken the market back down again because it’s been confirmed pretty much that the designer of the dress is chosen and the dress is ready,” a spokesperson for Paddy Power told Racked. “So what happens is if our traders see we get a lot of substantial bets on a particular designer, they think to themselves, ‘OK, what are the chances that someone actually knows this for a fact?’”
Financial Times writer Carola Long straight-up asked the duo behind the brand, Tamara Ralph and Michael Russo, if they were designing the wedding dress, but they declined to comment. Based on their body language and awkward laughs, Long wrote,“If Ladbrokes hadn’t closed bets then mine would be on this duo.”
Again, nothing is confirmed—but part of the fun of a royal wedding is a little speculation, and there seems to be a bit here to back it up. Then again, British bookies were actually totally wrong when it came to Duchess Kate Middleton’s dress back in 2011: They overwhelmingly placed their bets on designer Bruce Oldfield, but she famously wound up wearing Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.
So yes, there’s a chance (a chance) that Meghan will wear Ralph & Russo. Until then, we’ll have to see if anyone reveals the news themselves—or simply wait until we see her for ourselves May 19.
Glamour reached out to Ralph & Russo for comment and will update the story accordingly.
