Hey Beauties!
I often get a bit different post
ideas, but rarely act on them. All the reviews and makeup looks just get in the
way and then I forget all about it. Since I have more time right now, I can
finally write posts that I feel passionate about and are not necessary reviews.
Today I’ll talk about what you should and
shouldn’t do when it comes to makeup. Let me just clear something out. No, I am
not a certified makeup artist and I didn’t do this post to offend anyone. I
decided to do this to help others maybe change some of the things that they do
and are not always the best. Of course, that is just my personal opinion and
you may think some of those things actually look really good. That’s fine. It’s
just makeup, as Wayne Goss says. You can take it off and begin again.
People have different opinions and different styles. This is just what I think
most people notice as being wrong.
Base
This is the first and most important part
of any makeup. A lot of people forget about it. Moisturizer or primer is an
essential part of how your foundation is going to look. We all have different
skin types and we should have according moisturizers. I change them during
seasons and based on what foundation I’ll be using on top of it. If you have
dry skin, you should definitely put on moisturizing creams, because otherwise
foundation may cling to dry patches and just looks very dull. If you have
oilier skin, go for something more matifying or whatever you find that suits
your skin best. If your skin has enough moisture, you can skip moisturizer and
just go with primer. Primer is not a must have, unless you like it. You can
just use face cream and it can work just as fine it all depends on your skin
needs.
Foundation
You should also use the right type of
foundation for your skin type, but it is not as important as moisturizers. I
think that you can use very matte foundation, even if you have dry skin, if you
use proper skin care before and make sure that your skin is in the best
condition.
Choosing the right shade is crucial. You should know what your
skin’s undertone is. You could be cool toned, warm toned or neutral. There are
a lot of different ways to figure that out, so I’ll advise you to google
it. Then you should choose the right shade according to your skin. One of the
worst things is when you have too dark foundation. I think you can get away
with lighter shades, but darker is worse. Most people tend to wear too dark
foundations. Honestly, it’s not all their fault. Our drugstores have the worst
shade selection ever. Almost all of them are too dark for most people. It’s one
of the most frustrating things ever. Certain brands carry white foundations,
which you can mix with your regular foundation and make it lighter. You can get
away with a shade or two darker foundations, but for the love of makeup, blend
it onto your neck. Foundation line on the jaw is still a no no.
For more information watch the video Choosing the Right Shade of Foundation by Lisa Eldridge.
You can
even skip foundation, if your skin is really nice. There is no need to wear
foundation if you don’t need it. You should also consider that foundation is
for evening out your skin tone and getting rid of slight redness and such. It
is not going to cover imperfections. For that you should still use concealer.
Concealer
Obviously there are concealers and
correctors. Concealers are usually the same shade as foundations and have
higher coverage. While correctors have colors like salmon, pink, green, yellow and are
used to correct undertones in your skin. For example, if you have red patches
or red pimples, you can correct that redness with green corrector. Because these shades together neutralize each other. I am more of a concealer kind of girl. You
should have similar shade of concealer to your foundation. You can use lighter
if you want to also highlight some parts, like under eye area or darker, if you
want to contour with it. But usually it’s best to use the similar shade to your
foundation.
Too much concealer can make your makeup
look very cakey and unflattering. I don’t know how some of those makeup gurus
get away with wearing so much concealer underneath their eyes. It looks very
unflattering, flat, cakey and gross on me. I am a believer of applying little
and adding more if you actually need it. It’s also best to just use higher
coverage concealer and not pile so much of it on. Especially on the under eye
area, it can quickly settle into fine lines. For imperfections around your
face, like pimples, patches and such, you should always use pinpoint concealing
method. This means that you get very small brush and apply concealer only to
the area that needs it. This way you’ll have higher coverage only on that
particular part of your face and not all over it. It will look fresher and more natural.
Powder
This step is optional. I need it, but some
may not. It depends on your skin and foundation. If your skin is dry and you
don’t get oily through the day, you obviously don’t need it, unless you want to
have another colored layer on top. If you don’t like dewy finish of foundation
or know that it will start smudging all over your face in a couple of hours,
then use it, because it may help keep your makeup nice for longer. You can
choose among colored powders or use transparent shades, which are usually suited
more for fair skins and don't add any additional color.
Eye Primer
This is also optional step. It’s not necessary
to use, but it can help you a lot. It makes your eyeshadow last longer, makes it look more intense and evens out your skin tone, if you
have darkness or capillaries around that area. You can already see the
difference on the photo. On the left side I used eye primer and my skin is a
lot more even.
Eyeshadow
I feel like most of makeup mistakes, happen in this phase. Most of people still don’t know how to make the best out of
their eye shape. It also has a lot to do with bad practices from the past. We’ve
all learned from metallic silver eyeshadows all over hooded eyes and the
horrible one shade of blue eyeshadow.
There is million ways in how you can
combine eyeshadows and what suits certain eye shapes and so on. There are some
important general rules for applying eye makeup.
Eyeshadow should always be blended.
Applying a patch of eyeshadow on the center of your lid and thinking that’s it,
is wrong. You should always blend it. Eyeshadow should be more intense towards
the center and should bleed into nothing coming to the outer parts of the eye.
There shouldn’t be any visible lines as to where eyeshadow starts and where it
ends.
Here’s one advice for those with hooded
eyes. As you can see mine are slightly hooded, but not entirely. Your eyeshadow
will look much prettier, if you blend it above your crease towards the brows.
No, I don’t mean apply it all the way up to the brows, but just don’t stop in
the crease. Because once you’ll look straight up, you won’t even see the
eyeshadow. So go a bit above it to tie it together with the eyeshadow on your
mobile lid, which will be seen when you look down.
Wayne Goss has a lot of tutorials on how to apply eyeshadows to hooded eyes. I just wanted to show you one that explains all the basics.
Also don’t use dark eyeshadows in the
inner corner of your eye, because this area is already darker because of the
eye shape and shadows. This excludes those with wide apart eyes. You can
actually use darker shades in that part, to optically bring eyes a bit closer.
But for most people, it’s not flattering. As you can see on my photo, on the
left I blended eyeshadow and put it a bit above crease and on the right I didn’t
blend it and I used it also in the inner corner of my eye.
One of the mistakes that most people do is
that they apply eyeshadow too low in their outer corner. You should always go
up, because it lifts up your entire face. If you go too down, it just makes
your face look saggy and your eyes sad.
Now let’s talk about highlighting the brow
bone. I think this looks good on certain eyes, which have a lot of eyelid
space. It’s an absolute death for hooded eyes. If you apply shimmery light
eyeshadow on your brow bone, it will just accentuate that part and make it look
even more hooded. You can get away with using matte shades and applying them
just to the very arch under your brow and don’t drag it too down. It may look
even better if you highlight above the arch of your brows.
Eyeliner
Ta ta ta taaam. I know it’s one of the
scariest steps in doing your makeup. I won’t pretend like mine is always on
fleek, because it’s not. It’s a hard thing to get it right and you should
practice it a lot. Practice makes perfect. You can’t say oh I don’t know how to
do eyeliner. You’ve probably tried it what, four or five times? That’s nothing.
After you’ll apply it fifty times, then you can say you don’t know how to do
eyeliner. But I guarantee you by then, you’ll know how to make it descent. It
helps if you apply it with short strokes starting from inside. You can't expect to draw it
in one swipe. If you can, kudos to you - you have one fan here (me). I thought about doing a separate
post on my eye liner technique, so I won’t go into those details.
As far as the looks of eyeliner, it looks
best if it’s thinner on the inside of your eye and thicker towards the outer
corner. If you have hooded eyes, it should be a lot thinner, you can even tight line your eyes. You can go
thicker, if you have a lot of lid showing, when you’re looking straight
forward. I personally don’t like when someone does very thick eyeliner, because I
think it just closes eyes and cuts the crease in an unflattering way.
As far as winged liner goes, you should
always point wing upwards, never ever make it down. This will again make your
eyes look sad. Just practice and find that angle that suits your eye shape. If
you have hooded eye, your wing obviously won’t look pretty, if it’s at a very
high angle, because your hooded eye will break the line of your eyeliner. It’s
best if you do a slight angle and still make all the eyeliner visible. I hope
you understand what I’m trying to say.
Brows
Brows have really been getting more and
more attention these few years. It’s said that brows are frames to our eyes and
you should frame your eyes nicely. This category may not even be a step for
some of you, who have thick and dark brows, lucky you. As for us, that have
sparse and light brows, we should definitely pay some attention to it. You can
use eye pencil, gels and powders to fill them in. It all depends on how bold you
like your brows.
What I think looks unflattering is making
them too dark. I think brows are one of those parts of makeup that looks best
natural. I don’t like when people with black hair use black gels to entirely
fill in their brows. It can look a bit like an evil queen from Disney. You know
what I mean. I think they’re called Instagram brows. It’s that brow that looks
like you outlined it and then filled it in like a coloring. It’s too harsh and
only looks nice on very little people. Never go too dark or too filled in with
brows. At least that is my preference. Light feathery strokes and still showing
through texture of your brows, looks more natural.
Mascara
Some people take their mascara, apply one
coat, maybe concentrate more on the ends of the lashes and they call it a day.
Wrong. First thing that may change your mascara application is wiping off the
brush. Especially when you get new mascara, it has way too much product on. It
will just stick your lashes together and make it look all spidery.
Then when you’re applying it, you should
go really close to the roots of the lashes and really make it darker here. Then
you can zig zag it up to the ends of the lashes. One coat usually doesn’t do
much, so you should go back for as much coats as your lashes allow. Too much means
you’ll get sticky lashes, too little results in no volume and no definition. If
you’re lashes are super stubborn, use a separate mini comb for lashes to comb
through them and separate them for more definition.
Contour
Never do line under your cheek bone. Just
like with eyeshadow, blend it. It’s best to blend contour upwards and use
fluffier, yet defining brush to get the perfect shadow effect. You usually contour under cheek bone, around nose, around the edges of forehead and along the jaw line but it all depends on what your trying to make recede.
Also chose the
shade that imitates natural shadow. Too grey can look too dark and dead, while
too brown can look like mud on your face. Also don’t make it too dark, because
the whole point of it is to still look like a natural shadow to slightly define
your face contours. Forget what you saw on Kim Kardashian, she films all day and has 20 flashes pointing at her whenever she goes out. You on the other hand live in daylight and anything too much will be very noticeable.
Highlighter
Highlighter is a great way of adding some
glow and dew to only those parts that you want to. It can make you look fresh
and younger. The most common place to put it is on tops of your cheeks, close
to eyes. If you have larger pores, you should avoid applying it on those parts of your face,
which is usually more towards the nose. Highlighter will make those pores even more
visible, which is not what you want. You can also apply it on the bridge of the
nose, on the Cupid’s bow above your lip, on top of your brow arch and chin. It
all depends on your preference and what you want to highlight.
Choosing the right shade means nothing too
dark or too light, which can look very stark. Also make sure that the shimmer
in it is just big enough to give you that glow, but not make you look like you
played with glitter with your 4-year old cousin.
Blush
Shade wise, you should experiment with
what looks best on your skin tone. But as far as application goes, you should
be light-handed. You can always add more, but it’s harder to take it off, if
you’ve applied too much. There’s nothing worse than looking like Marie Antoinette or
clown.
Some like to apply it more towards the
temples, to make it like a contour and some like to apply it on the very apples
of the cheeks, in the center. Apples of the cheeks pop out only when you smile,
so if your apples tend to drop when you’re serious, you may not be doing a
favor to yourself. It’s best to apply it in an upwards motion to pull the face
up. But that obviously depends on your face shape, so experiment. I prefer to use
it in between my contour and highlighter also pulling towards the ear.
Bronzer
It’s one of the most underestimated products
that most people don’t use. For all of those that apply too dark foundation
with the excuse that they want to look darker, you should use bronzer instead. Bronzer
is the one product that you can get away with, if it’s darker. You just need to
properly blend it. It can give you that natural summer tan and it gives your
face a 3D dimension, if you use ti in the right places. It can bright up your complexion and make it warmer. I
love bronzer and never do a look without it. I’m pretty pale, so bronzer gives
me that sun kissed skin and makes my face features a tad darker and 3D looking.
It’s the best way to add color to your skin tone.
It’s best to concentrate it on the outer
parts of your face or use it lightly all over in summer days, to accentuate the
sun tan, that you’ve caught accidentally. You can use shimmery bronzers to really
give you that summer glow or stick with matte ones, to help you contour your
face. Bronzer is also amazing for making your face slightly optically thinner,
if you apply it on the outer parts of the face.
Lipstick
I think we’re passed look-at-me-I-look-like-I’m-dead lipstick phase, but just in case someone’s still using it, don’t.
A few years ago it was popular to use either very light shades of lipsticks or
concealer as a lipstick. Those lighter than your skin tone shades make you look
like you’re dead. It drains all the color from your face and does nothing for your
lips. So please, avoid it.
It is crucial that you choose the right nude lipsticks for your skin type. Lisa Eldridge has a fabulous video explaining you on how to find the right nude lipstick for you.
Overdrawing your lips is another “popular” thing right now. It all became very popular with Kylie Jenner. You can absolutely overdraw your lips you just need to know how. First of all you can’t go too overboard. You can draw lip line on the outer part of your natural lip line, but if you’ll go too over it, it will look bad. When you’re overdrawing matte lip products look better, because they flatten your natural lip line and therefore make it look like it isn’t there. You can go a bit over your line on the center of your lips, but go more towards your natural lip line as you come to lip corners. This will give your lips pout, but not make you look like Joker.
Lip liner
Your lip liner and lipstick should be
close in the shade department. Don’t use dark lip liners and light lipsticks,
it will make you look like a certain stereotype of the ladies of the night
(know what I mean?). It doesn’t have to be exact same color, but just use
similar shades or don’t use them at all. Of course now there's more and more contrasts between lip liner and lipstick with techniques like ombre lips, but this should be done carefully and well blended.
Lip liner is best paired with dark
lipsticks, because you can get a more precise line with lip liner and dark
lipsticks are less forgiving than lighter ones.
You can slap on that nude shade and no one
will really look at it closely or pay attention to mistakes. But when you use
dark shades of lipsticks, make sure that the application is even and that edges are well blended. There’s
nothing worse than an uneven layer of lipstick. It just makes you look sloppy.
If it’s hard for you to apply it straight from the bullet, well use a brush. A
brush can make you help draw that precise line around the edges.
This is all that I came up with for now. I know, it's already a lot. Makeup is a profession and a lot of people study it and use different techniques to get the most flawless makeup application. If you just want to look nice with natural makeup, I hope my tips helped you.
Obviously rules are to be broken and by no means I'm trying to say that you should follow any kind of rules. This is just a guideline as to what I think looks nice and what I think looks flattering on most people. But you do, what makes you happy, because makeup should always make you happy. Don't stress about it, just have fun with it. It's here to make your life a bit more colorful and happier.
