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Kiko Milano has launched Matte Diaries, a sixteen-piece limited-edition makeup collection centred on a matte finish, in UK stores and online from 31 July. The Italian brand is running a buy-three promotion on the range until 23 August, timed to a back-to-school styling brief. Kiko trades from stores on Oxford Street, Regent Street, and Covent Garden, alongside a wider UK network that runs through shopping centres nationwide. The collection spans primer, powder, blush, bronzer, eyeshadow, mascara, lip products and nail lacquer, drawn from a palette of vintage green, soft red, burgundy and a run of neutrals. The tagline reads Not shiny. Not sorry.
The Timeless Invisible Liquid Mattifier anchors the range, a three-phase formula of oil, water and powder designed to cut shine on contact. Kiko has run clinical testing behind the mattifying claims on that product and its powder counterpart, along with long-wear testing on the Ultimate Pen and Unlimited Double Touch eyeliners, both existing bestsellers reissued here in shades exclusive to Matte Diaries.
A Triple Wear Face Multitasker evens skin tone underneath. Brows are handled by an Eyebrow Sculpt Automatic Pencil and a Timeless Definition Eyebrow Wax. Blush and bronzer share the Bounce & Blur name, a cushion-texture powder Kiko pairs with its own Face 10 brush in the styling notes that accompany the launch.
On lips, where the collection carries its widest edit, the routine starts with a Kissable Smoothing Lip Scrub before the Matte-À-Porter Lipstick goes on, layered over a Sketch & Define Matte Lipliner. The Mattest Lip Stylo offers a flatter finish that Kiko ties to 1990s matte, worn over a Secret Oil Core Lip Balm underneath. Nails close out the range with a shade from the Power Pro Nail Lacquer collection, sealed under a Matte Top Coat.
Kiko has published two style guides for the launch, drawn from the same sixteen pieces. The first keeps the eye as the focus, pairing a tortora wash from the Throwback Matte Eyeshadow Palette with a soft black liner, then settles the mouth into Matte-À-Porter Lipstick 01. The second flips the balance entirely: a lighter eye with no defined liner beyond the brow, and a darker lip in Sketch & Define Matte Lipliner 06 under Matte-À-Porter Lipstick 06. Each look takes its own Power Pro Nail Lacquer shade under the same top coat. The shade choices, not the product list, are what separate one look from the other.
Kiko is running a complimentary Makeup & Go service through its UK stores for either look, alongside longer thirty and sixty-minute sessions covering full face, eyes only or lips only. Kiko ME loyalty members book through the same system the brand already uses for shade matching and virtual try-on.
Matte had lost ground on UK shelves over the past two years to the glow and dewy skin trend that shaped much of the category, and Kiko is marketing this collection as its answer. Italian trade coverage of the launch has drawn a line back to the brand’s own Hug Couture limited edition, released earlier this year with a softer, more luminous finish, framing Matte Diaries as a full swing toward something more graphic, velvety and retro in tone.
The collection follows a run of glow-forward launches from Kiko this year, including new suncare products and a Just Cavalli collaboration in bold, high-shine colour. The brand also spent the summer marking ten years of its 3D Hydra Lipgloss, a shine-led bestseller that sells, by Kiko’s own count, one unit every second worldwide.
Matte Diaries lands during a run of leadership appointments at Kiko. The brand has named Margaret Mitchell, formerly chief commercial officer at Space NK, as executive vice president overseeing North and Central Europe, effective 25 August. The remit covers the UK and Ireland alongside France, Benelux, the Nordics, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Poland, with responsibility for shaping global commercial strategy across travel retail and digital wholesale.
Her appointment follows Marcello Mastrogiacomo joining as global executive vice president of brand, communication and media, reporting to chief brand officer Drew Elliott, and Marcelo Gutierrez coming on earlier this year as Kiko’s first global makeup artistry creative director. Gutierrez, whose past clients include Charli XCX and Madonna, joined months before Madonna herself was named the brand’s second global ambassador, following Emma Roberts in 2024.
The launch also lands in a month when UK fashion retail has committed serious capital to physical stores. SKIMS opened its first standalone UK flagship on Regent Street in July, its largest store in Europe. Marks & Spencer completed its Pantheon transformation on Oxford Street the same month, bringing food, fashion, home and beauty together across four floors for the first time. Nobody’s Child opened a new store in Cambridge, taking its standalone UK estate to ten boutiques. Kiko’s own UK stores, concentrated across central London and shopping centres nationwide, are now carrying Matte Diaries alongside the beauty services built around it.
Matte Diaries is available now in Kiko Milano stores across the UK and at kikocosmetics.com, while stocks last.
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