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 Make-Up Like A Pro - 10 Steps to a ‘Do-It-Yourself’ MakeoverBy Jessica Taylor of Jessica's Beauty Services Make-up can completely change the way you look and how you feel about yourself. Unfortunately, many women do not know where to begin when it comes to applying make-up. With skillful application, you can accentuate features you like and de-emphasize features you don’t. Even women with years of practice applying make-up can always learn a new trick or two. 1) Skin care is the most important part of any make-up application. People with beautiful skin do not need a lot of make-up to look stunning. Use a gentle skin cleanser to cleanse your skin morning and night. Then apply a moisturizing cream to moisturize and protect your skin. If you have oily skin use a light moisturizing lotion and if you have dry skin use a heavier cream. With clean, moisturized skin your make-up will apply evenly and stay on throughout the day. 2) To keep your skin looking younger longer, be sure to use sunscreen with at least an SPF 15 on your face every day to protect your skin from the aging rays of the sun. You can use a moisturizer or foundation with sunscreen in it. If your creams do not contain sunscreen, apply a sunscreen to your face after your moisturizer, but before your foundation. 3) Now you are ready to start concealing. Nearly everyone has dark areas under their eyes. To cover the dark area, use a peachy colour concealer and do not use a concealer that is lighter than your skin. The light colour will only draw attention to the area. A concealer that is a shade lighter than your skin is perfect for making wrinkles and lines on your face less visible. Using a thin concealer brush, apply your light concealer into the creases of all the lines you want to hide. Start with the lines on your forehead and between your eyebrows; then, fill in the crow’s-feet around your eyes and the laugh lines around your mouth and pat it onto the area you wish to cover. Do not rub when applying make-up or you will only take off what you are trying to apply. 4) Next, you apply the foundation. Your foundation should match the colour of the skin on your neck for the most natural look. To test the shade of foundation, apply a line of foundation on your jaw line to see if it blends in with your skin tone. Use foundation with a yellow undertone for a natural look as pink and orange undertones do not look natural on the skin. Don’t forget to change the colour of your foundation with the seasons, since skin is generally paler in the winter than in the summer. 5) With a flawless base, you are now ready to add colour to bring out your most beautiful features. If you have dry skin, use cream colours for eye shadow, blush and contouring. If you have oily skin, stick with powder colours. If using creams, apply them before applying face powder. 6) Apply loose powder over your entire face using a powder brush or puff. The powder will absorb oil and keep your make-up from fading away. The colour of powder that you use should be a shade lighter than your skin, as the oil in your skin will cause the powder to darken when it is on. Apply extra powder under the eye area. This will make it easy to wipe off any eye shadow or eyeliner that may fall under the eye when you are applying it. 7) To add contours to your face, you will use a brown powder or cream. Contouring is used to create cheekbones or hide a double chin. Use a blender brush to apply contour powder to the area directly under your cheekbones. Apply a line from the middle of your ear in towards your nose. Stop the line under the apples of your cheeks. Now blend the line. To cover a double chin, apply contour under your chin and blend it down your neck. Next, apply a warm blush colour onto your cheekbones and over the contoured area of your cheeks. Similar to the contour powder, apply blush from the middle of your ear towards your nose. Do not apply colour any closer to your nose than the line that comes down from the middle of your eye. To further highlight your cheekbones, apply an off-white highlighter under the cheek contour and on the upper part of your cheekbone, around the outside of your eye area. 8) To make the most of your eye area, you must first look at your eyebrows. A nicely shaped eyebrow will open and emphasize your entire eye. If you do not know how to shape your own brows, have them done by a professional. 9) To further bring out your eyes, first apply a light shade of eye shadow from the lash line to the brow bone. Next apply a medium colour just on the lid area. To create depth to your eyes, blend a darker colour into the crease. Use a light colour on the brow bone to blend into the dark colour used in the crease so there are no definite lines. Use whatever colours of eye shadow that you feel comfortable wearing. If you use eyeliner, apply it across the top of the lashes and half way under the bottom of the eye. Next smudge the liner with a q-tip to soften the line. Go over the liner with a powdered eye shadow in the same colour to set the liner and keep it from fading away. Apply the powder with an eyeliner brush. For a softer look just use the powdered shadow as your eyeliner. 10) To complete your look, choose a lip colour. A lip liner defines the edge of your lip line and keeps your lipstick from bleeding out of that line. When lining your lips, do not extend the line above or below your natural lip line. To make your lips appear fuller you can round out the outer thirds of your lips to create a fuller mouth without looking unnatural. After lining your lips, apply lip colour. Blend the liner into the lip colour with a lip brush. To make your lips pop out more, apply gloss only to the centre of the top and bottom lip. It is not necessary to use all these steps every day. Try them out and use the ideas you like. The best part of make-up is that you can change it. Try out different things and see what works for you. Make-up is fun, so enjoy it! Jessica is a professional aesthetician and owner of Jessica’s Beauty Service; Calgary’s premiere mobile aesthetics company. Jessica’s Beauty Service can be contacted by phone at 403.701.2631 or email jessicamtaylor@hotmail.com www.jessicasbeautyservice.com |