If you can’t wait any longer to get your hands on Isamaya Ffrench ’s brand new make-up products then we have some good news for you. ISAMAYA is opening a pop-up this week in London and now you have the exclusive opportunity to be one of the first people in the store.
Located in Soho, the pop-up will be the first place where the Industrial collection will be available, before the products launch online on July 4. The store officially opens on Friday July 1 at 11am, but Dazed readers are getting the chance to come down an hour before it opens to the rest of the public to shop and experience the collection for yourself. Not only will the five-piece range, including the eyeshadow palette, lip gloss and mascara, be stocked but exclusive limited-edition merchandise and jewellery as well.
Speaking to Dazed Beauty earlier this month, Ffrench said that she wanted her brand to offer a non-conformist alternative to the message often fed to us by the beauty industry. Describing the make-up products as “weapons for truth”, she sees them as tools for people to express themselves and find their authenticity. “This brand is about make-up that you wear for yourself, it’s a personal journey,” she says. “That, for me, is the right message – make-up is a weapon for truth, it is a way to help you become more of who you are.”
The brand will be made up of limited edition collections, rather than one permanent range, each centring around a different concept and aesthetic. Industrial, the launch collection, takes its visual and spiritual cues from the lexicon of BDSM culture and champions the extreme and the hardcore.
If you want to be one of the lucky 100 people to get early access to the pop-up on Friday at 10am before the rest of the public, all you have to do is email popup@isamaya.com with your RSVP. First come, first serve. In the meantime, get a taste of what you can expect from the Industrial collection with the Steven Klein-directed campaign video above and below where Ffrench gives us the inside scoop on each product in the range.
The ISAMAYA pop-up store will open from Friday 1 July 11am-6pm until Sunday 3rd July at 15 Bateman Street, Soho, W1D 3AQ.
The centrepiece of the collection, the 14-shade eyeshadow palette contains a mixture of textures including special effect pearls, putty, and shimmer finishes. “The putties activate at skin temperature,” Ffrench explains. “So they’re really amazing to blend with. The two darkest shades are the putty effect, so if you want to do a smudgey, smokey eye it’s the easiest thing in the world now. You do it with your finger because it melts at body temperature.”
The shades, meanwhile, take inspiration from industrial hues – think oil slick greys and chrome silvers with a couple bright acids thrown in as well. “You’ve got these inky colours, these vivid bright acid coppers and greens that look very beautiful in conjunction with the silvers,” she says. “The metallics are two types of silver and they create a really dense chromatic effect. They're pure pressed pigments, so you get really serious colour intensity.”
“For me, it was really, really good fun to sit with all of these colours and work them out side by side and create something really harmonious but still quite tough.”
Using a blend of coffee beans, ginger oil and a botanical complex, the lip gloss serum creates a plumping effect to make lips look fuller. The deep berry hue gives a darker, edgier, sexier look. “I really wanted to create a gloss that didn’t feel girly,” says Ffrench. “This is a black veil, it’s very, very sheer and it basically tints your lips a couple of shades darker than they are naturally.”
With a curved wand to help deliver a fan-like finish, the mascara in this collection works to curl your lashes as well as make them look fuller and longer. A blue-coated triple black pigment gives a, as Ffrench describes it, “ really deep black-black” effect, while conditioning oils encourages lash growth.
“I worked really closely with the lab and when I briefed them the two really important things for me were length and volume but also lash curl and colour intensity,” she says. “The formulation contains this meshing property that encapsulates the lash and basically stretches them back, kind of like rubber or elastic. So you get that really great curly effect without having to use a lash curler.”
The sole skincare product in this collection, the serum creates a pearlescent glow and contains a triple hyaluronic acid complex and peptides to deeply hydrate the skin. “It’s a hybrid between skincare and highlighter,” says Ffrench. “It’s a universal serum, it’s really beautiful. It has this really lovely, almost glass-like feel to it.” Ffrench says she uses it either pre-foundation or combined with foundation to help illuminate the skin and lock in moisture. You can use it as a highlighter as well.
An ultra-strength clear eyebrow gel, the brow laminator will hold your hairs in place through the day and night, while glycerin and humectants keep the hair nourished. The accompanying mini comb will help you achieve whatever style you are looking for, whether that’s an extreme lamination or a more groomed natural look. “We were inspired by haircare products when creating this,” says Ffrench. “You can do a proper brow lamination with it, or you can just style your eyebrows, or you can do your baby hairs. It is really, really strong.”