THE BETTER YOU LOOK...THE BETTER YOU FEEL

The Better You Feel

This woman stared at herself in the mirror holding back tears when I asked her, "How do you like your make-up?" She was facinated. "You just gave me the greatest gift, I can't believe this is me, but prettier." As a national makeup artist, it would be so easy for me to do a womans makeup and send her on her way. But what an honor it is as a national make-up artist and give a woman the power behind the brush to be her own makeup artist. Empowering a woman with a force of confidence, showing her that she has the talent and know-how to do her own make-up is beyond gratifying. I stood back and my heart dropped just a little, I just thought to myself, "I can't believe how some simple shadows and a couple of brushes transformed a persons spirit." I smiled and looked into her eyes, "No, you just gave me a gift. I feel so grateful that I had the opportunity to let another person know that she deserves to be beautiful. It was a pleasure flying around to different states, embracing the vast array of fashion, learning about different trends for various life styles. However, being able to edit part of a persons daily routine and help diversify a makeup-up look based on her time, her style, her comfort zone, is more than a gift for me.

The Connection

There's a blessing that comes over you when you teach someone how to do their own make-up. When you hand a woman a mirror and show them how to apply eyeshadow to the lid of her eye then hand her the brush, only for her to look at me and say, "I can't do that." To actually make them do it with me. I've had women cry becasue they were never shown how to take care of their skin or do their makeup. So many women are so intimidated to walk into a cosmetic department, let alone walk up to a makeup counter. Everyone deserves to feel good about themselves. So lets start lifting up some spirits and start giving a woman the confidence of beauty. We'll keep it simple for those that aren't feeling confident about putting makeup on. There's a connection between feeling good and looking good. Makeup is one of the many ways to make you feel confident, powerful, and it can conform you completely. Ever notice when you're looking pretty you feel pretty, and you give off an energy that opens doors for you. So when someone says beauty comes from the inside, you may need to start from the outside first. Although, your looks don't define who you, it feels nice being able to appreciate yourself while giving your self esteem a boost.

LET'S BEGIN:

Let's start with makeup. There are many women that don't feel comfortable wearing makeup, because they don't know how to put it on. Makeup shouldn't look like makeup...it's to make you look like you, only better. Bring out your features by taken a few minutes to apply your makeup. This goes out to those who don't know how to put on makeup.

THE QUICK:NO MAKE-UP MAKE-UP

First and most importantly it's all about skincare. If you want to start out simple with a quick 5 minute low maintenance quick trick routine. Do your skincare first. (Check out our blog on easy skincare.) Easy Pop Of Color: Put a tinted moisturizer on. Dap on forhead, nose, and chin and spread out across the rest of your face. Put on some mascara, go from base of lash and wiggle brush up. Brows, brows, brows, brows frame the face. Even if you wear no makeup at all, make sure your brows are shaped and filled in correctly. Take your pressed powder, your blush, your bronzer and line them up next to each other. Use your big bronzer or powder brush and swipe across all three products. Make a backwards 3 from temple into check and right below neck. Then swipe a little across your eyes. There's your pop of color. Add a little lip balm with some color across your lips, and your done.

THE NATURAL FACE:

Here's how it work: It's all about the base. Put on your foundation primer with a foundation brush or your fingers. Primer allows you to use less product and it gives your foundation something smooth to adhear to. Before you paint a wall, you prime it, same concept. Smashbox is known for their foundation primer, there's also a pretty good one called Elf. Assuming you've selected the right color foundation. Pick something that looks like your skin. When matching your skin tone, take 3 colors and swipe a line of each on your face right above your neck. Your neck may be darker than your face, but that's what bronzers for. Start from the middle of your face, where you usually need more coverage, and dab a little foundation on the middle of your forehead, nose, and the middle of your chin. Grab your foundation brush and blend it in. You have the option of using a foundation brush, a sponge, or your fingers. A sponge absorbs more of the makeup and gives you a lighter coverage. The foundation brush can get into areas like the curves on your nose and around areas that aren't so easy to get to with a sponge or your fingers. It gives you a medium amount of coverage. Then you can use your fingers to spread over your face and blend in. Start in the middle and just work your way out. -

TAKE A LOOK:

Stand back and look at where you need more coverage. Depending on the kind of concealer you prefer, a stick or cream pallete, you can use fingers or a brush. If you'd like a more natural look use a pallete concealer with a brush like Bobbi Brown, Trish McEvoy, Laura Mercier. Using a brush is quick and easy when you know how to do it. Lets call the inner corner of your eye, where it meets your nose, lets call that "Corner." Take your concealer, which should be a shade lighter than your foundation. Place a bit of concealer in the "corner" and now take some concealer from there and use your foundation brush to take the concealer and go straight down. You're going to take the concealer and keep going from corner into the middle of the bottom of your lower lash while swiping the brush with the concealer on it moving it down, when you get to the middle of your eye, go back to the "corner" and get some more concealer and go from the middle under your lower lashes and keep swipping the brush down as you go out to the end of your lower lashes. Now go back to the "corner" and take what foundation is left and swipe it around your nose to cover up any redness around your nose. This sounds difficult but it's not, it's very quick.

FACE 1:

Remember, you always want to put on anything that's liquid on before you put on any powder products. So, when you get your highlighter out, you're going to put it on around the outer eye area. Make an inward/backward "C" from above the brow into the bone under your eyes. Then used your brush or fingers to work it in. Now the best product for this might be the Touche Eclat by Yves St Laurant. There are others. There's a less expensive item called "Flawless Brightening Concealer" by Elf. But the Touche Eclat is a magic stick.Take a little highlighter and put a touch down the middle of your nose. A good fast trick to make lips look fuller is to take your brush and put a little highlighter or concealer right under your lip and right above the bow of the lip.

FACE 2:

Do not be afraid of bronzer or blush. Once you know how to use it, you will see the difference it makes and you will be using it. If it's a liquid bronzer, take a brush like a foundation brush and you're going to make an inward/backwards "3" from your temple hairline, into your cheekbone, and then take it in right under into your neckline. Make sure to blend it in good. You don't want it to look like makeup. You put bronzer on wherever the sun would hit your face naturally. Blend it into the hairline by the temple well and blend it into your neck well, you don't want to see any lines. You'd do the same with a powder bronzer with your big fluffy bronzer brush. Then place bronzer down the nose and use it on your neck to blend your face and neck together.

FACE 3:

The Blush. Do not fear, your pop of color is here and you will not look like a clown. Depending on what color your skin tone is your going to go for a cool color, (more pinks for lighter skin) and for a warm color skin (go for a mocha or purple undertone) Take two fingers, place them next to your nose, with your blush on your brush make an "X" on the apples of your cheeks. (Right next to your two fingers) There you go! A pop of color and you didn't have to worry about looking like a clown. Now, your blush and lips should usually match, or be in the same family.

SEAL THE DEAL:

To seal the deal for the face your going to set it with your loose powder. Do not worry about showing wrinkles. You don not need a lot of powder. Take the puff and smooth/pat it across the face for an airbrushed look. Take a step back and you should look like yourself only better. A natural face that needs a little lip color.

LET'S TALK LIPS:

Lipliner doesn't need to go outside the lip line, unless you want it to. But follow your own natural lip line. Take a neutral lip color, like Chanel's Nude lip liner, and line your lips. No need to open your mouth and follow your complete lip. Don't worry too much about the corners. For a natural lip, use a lip brush. A lot of liners come with a brush on the end even. Take the brush and blend the liner into your lip. Take your lip brush and pick your color of lip stick. Stay inside the lines. Then reapply your lip liner. Take a tissue or thin piece of toliet paper and carefully place it on top your lips. Pat a little loose powder with your puff over the tissue. This will keep the lip on longer and you will not need to worry as much about leaving lipstick on the rim of your glass. Get a gloss, and just in the middle of your lip add a little gloss to make lips look fuller. You do not need to spread the gloss all over lips unless you want that glossy lip. This may surprise you, but there is a red for every lip. Even if you have a thin lip, there's a red. If you don't like a bright red lip but you're wearing red, don't get a lipstick or gloss that's so bright, go for a sheer red with a neutral undertone. Please keep in mind, don't wear a pink lip when wearing red. Coordinate your lip color with your clothes.

THE EYES HAVE IT:

Now that your face is done. Grab your eyeliner, a black or deep brown. If you'd like to make your lashes look longer, here's a trick. Get an eyeliner brush with a square tip; Smashbox, Bobbi Brown, Mac have good square tip brushes. Use a gel liner in a pot or a shadow type eyeliner. Wet your brush, you do not have to be able to make a perfect line. Get your liner as close to your eyelashes as possible. Try to play connect the individual lashes with the eyeliner, make small dashes if you need to. Kick it up a bit and add a pencil liner against your lash line, the closer to the lashes, the tighter the line the longer the lashes look. Then put on your mascara. Go from lash base up and wiggle the brush. If you curl your lashes, you can curl them before or after mascara, or both. Before curling them, heat up the lash curler with a hair dryer. But only for a second, you do not want to put anything hot on your lashes. It helps the lashes look longer and curl better. Take the curler and before you let go, take the curler and lift it up then let go.

TIP:

Do not be afraid to put eyeliner or mascara on your bottom lashes. Take a tissue and place it under your bottom lashes, then put on your mascara over the bottom lashes. You won't have any mascara on your face and it will give you a complete natural look with your lashes. Take a shadow or eyeliner, and play connect the lashes with your bottom lashes. It won't look like you have eyeliner on but it will give your eyes a pop and make your lashes look longer.

NOTE:

We started with the face because we were going for a natural look without eyeshadow. It's usually best to start with the eyes if your wearing shadow because you don't want shadow falling onto your face. However, that's what a face brush or puff is for.

EYE SHADOW 1:

It's all about the base. Just like a foundation base, you want an eyeshadow base. Not only to have the eyeshadow have product to stick to, but also, if you don't even want to wear shadow, it evens out your eyelids. There are many eye shadow bases out there, some with neutral skin tones, some with different shades of color. If you're in need and don't have a base, take a tiny bit of foundation on your shadow brush ( a brush that you can use with a liquid or cream) and smooth across the lid. Then take a tiny bit of loose powder and with your crease brush set it over the foundation.

EYE SHADOW COLOR:

Typically theres three colors that are in a pallete. Take the lightest color and with your flat shadow brush spread all over lid. A white, or really light color you'll also place under the brow. Your base color, the medium color, take your flat shadow brush and I prefer to hold the brush upside down, so more shadow ends up on the eye than on your face, and pat the color over the lid. Now the darker color, use your crease brush and it will be like your windshield wiper brush. Lift your neck up and you'll see the natural crease of your eyes. Place the darker color there and switch it back and forth to blend it in. If you have a V tip shadow brush take more of the darker color, or use another color shadow that's just a bit darker and you're going to make an inverted "V" on the outer area of the eye. Like a > shape on the outside of the eye. You may want to put more mascara on to end your look.

ENDING TOUCH:

If you have a white eyeliner or neutral skintone eyeliner, put it on the inner corner of the eyes. It will open up the eye area. You can also take an intimidating eye color, like a turquoise, if you're wearing purples or blue shadows, and place just a touch over the white liner, and take your finger and barely pop it over the lid for an evening look. If you're wearing more neutral color shadows, just put the white in the inner corner, very lightly and leave it alone, or take a little gold shadow and place it over the white liner in the corner and pop just a light touch on the lid. Seems scarey, but try it, it will surprise you. Take a curved cut brush and dab it with a bit of water, take your darkest shadow color and set it over your eyeliner to seal the deal.
If you haven't caught on yet, it's all about shapes and remembering product sticks to product. The "C" and the "3" the sideways "V" and using an "X" for your blush. Even if you're not good at geometry, you still know your basic shapes. Remember coloring or painting when you were little? You start lighter and can always go back and make things darker. However, if you start with something darker, you can't go back and make it lighter. So start with a light hand and you can always go back and add more. It does take practice. It also takes the right tools. Brushes. We aren't going into brushes at this point, however, keep in mind you need to use the right brushes and you must clean your brushes. You wash your hair...wash your brushes. Don't let that bacteria build up. Hopefully with a little practice and doing starting off slow, you'll be able to start feeling more confident. You will see how pretty your eyes are, you'll be able to get to know your cheekbones, and you'll get to know your face. Because let's faee it...the more of you you get to know, the more of you you get to love.

You can find some great products for tiented moisturizers, foundations, and other make-up products on Amazon, Nordstrom, and Ulta. Keep in mind some companies are umbrella companies. e.g. Lancome also owns Loreal, Estee Lauder owns a majority of companies: Bobbie Brown, Clinique, M.A.C., La Mer, Bumble and bumble, Smashbox, and so many more. So, your options on products and alternative items gives you an array of choices.

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