This weekend I spent an inordinate amount of time playing about with Bobbi Brown’s Scotch on the Rocks makeup collection. It’s absolutely delectable. Warm, shimmery tones that make you think of candlelight and sparkling champagne; rich shades like Bordeaux and Scarlet and Sultry Red that are as deep and sumptuous as velvet… And then there’s the packaging – perfect golden lipstick tubes and tortoiseshell compacts and the faux-crocodile-skin casing on the eye palette. Perhaps I have a completely overactive imagination, but it all makes me think of a big Christmas party thrown in an old Scottish castle; twinkling candles and enormous chandeliers and walls swathed in tartan and women elegantly swanning about in long satin gowns. The kind of Christmas party I always imagined I’d go to once I “grew up”, until I realised that those kind of parties exist mostly in Ferrero Rocher adverts and Richard Curtis films.

Anyway, we can but dream. Will you just look at those lipsticks? I usually balk at shimmery lipsticks, but these are decadent and pigmented and have more of a sculpting effect than anything too glittery. My instinct was to reach for the very palest (Beige Gold Shimmer) and the bright red (Sultry Red) but in actual fact my favourite of the bunch turned out to be Malt Shimmer, second from the left, which is a medium, hi-shine nude. (You can see it in my makeup look further down the page.)

A standout product in the collection is the Highlight Powder in Bronze Glow, pictured above. It’s one of the creamiest powder highlighters I’ve ever used – this bronze shade is like a warm, golden apricot tone and it looks amazing if you have olive skin or a touch of a tan left over from the summer holidays. I used it very lightly over my temples and browbone and so on, but actually found that it worked brilliantly swirled together with a light matte bronzer to give a glowing, candlelit look to the cheeks. You can see in the photograph below that I’ve only applied it to the left hand side…

…it’s a really beautiful effect, I think, especially if you want to “lift” and give glow to your skin for a party but don’t want to have obvious lines of gleamy highlight.

And here’s the Warm Glow Eye Palette; there are some very wearable, flattering tones inside that mock-croc casing. I like this because you’d wear it all year round, not just for the Christmas party season. (What is this party season that everyone talks about? Don’t most of us just have the one office “do” and then get roped into going to the local pub for “Mulled Wine Night” with their parents? Every year I wait with delicious anticipation for the “party season” bugle to sound and the posh invites to come pouring in…) But back to the eye palette. The luxurious packaging makes it the kind of thing you’d want to keep for a very long time and there are enough warm, shimmery neutrals and bronzes to take you through to spring and into the summer too… Below I’ve used the Velvet Bronze shade (bottom left) all over my lids with a “top coat” of Golden Pink (top right) and Bonfire (second shade down on the left).

I also smudged some of the limited edition Long-Wear Gel Eyeliner in Black Scotch into the lashline, top and bottom, just for a bit of extra definition.

The pay-off on Black Scotch is quite subtle and light compared to the classic Long-Wear liner in black – if you want a no-messing-about, deep inky liner then the original is your best bet, but the rich goldeny-brown of the Black Scotch fits very well with the rest of the collection. Just don’t expect it to actually be black – it’s not!

Here I am wearing my full look, including the lipstick in Malt Shimmer and a topcoat of glittery lip gloss in Gold for the ultimate party feel. I used Bobbi Brown’s BB Cream on my skin (in Fair) and perfected it with a light brushing over of Finishing Powder, just to get that wintery, velvety finish. Those of you who have reserved places at my “Meet and Greet” at the new Bobbi Brown Studio in Covent Garden this Friday* will get to see the whole Scotch on the Rocks collection in action; people who missed the list can pop in at any other time, and the collection is available nationwide so you can play about with it at your nearest store. Personally, I think that it’s a bit of a cracker (boom boom!) and I can’t wait to see the look that Amy (Bobbi Brown Pro Artist) will create on Friday – I’ll take some photos for those of you who can’t make it down. (Or didn’t get a place – so sorry if that’s you, the studio can only hold so many people due to health and safety regs, etc.)

I leave you with another big fan: Mr Bear. He came to have a sniff around and see what all the fuss was about – his favourite product appeared to be the face brush, but he did have a paw at the Highlight Powders until I saw that he had dug a claw in and ruined the surface! Bad Bear.

The Scotch on the Rocks collection is in stores now; have a look online at bobbibrown.co.uk if you want to browse from your desk.

*This post and my Friday Meet & Greet have been sponsored by Bobbi Brown.