When it comes to make-up, part of the fun is in a little experimentation and let’s face it we have all had a few beauty blunders along the way. Here are a few tips from celebrity make-up artist Hannah Lisa on how to avoid some of the most common make-up mistakes!
Eyebrows are probably the feature that stands out the most when you get it wrong. The rest of your make-up could be flawless, but bad brows will ruin your whole look. Eyebrows should frame your face and a good arch can take ten years off your brow-bone, by giving the effect of a lift.
To get a perfect, natural brow, I love to use an angled brush, like the straight 262 brush from Makeup Forever. Brows should be no darker than 2 shades from your hair colour and I like to use a powder like the Benefit Brow Zings (it comes with a waxy base too) or the Anastasia Brow Powder Duo. Brush the powder on, starting lightly and building it up. Just make sure the beginning of your brow isn’t too blocky or you run the risk of looking angry all day. Highlight directly under the brow and on the brow bone to sharpen your brows further.
The best way to know your shape is this age old q-tip trick:
- Take a Q-tip and your brows should start when the q-tip is in-line with the base corner of your nose.
- Keeping the Q-tip at the base and looking straight ahead, take it diagonally across your pupil - this is where the highest part of the brow should be.
- Move the Q-tip so it’s in-line with the outer corner of your eye and this is where your brow should end.
Best brow products:
- Benefit Brow Zing
- Anastasia Brow Powder Duo and Dipbrow
- Makeup Forever Aqua Brow
- Rimmel Professional Eyebrow Pencil
- Makeup Forever 262 Brush
- MAC 208 Angled Brow Brush
BASE - Getting the right base is so important. It is easy to go too orange, or the opposite and too ashy, which is mostly down to the undertone of your skin. Most people will see a shade that looks like their skin tone, but it is the wrong undertone (confusing, I know!). To make it a bit clearer, the skin has its tone or shade, which is made up of light, medium, dark etc, and then it has its undertone which is either neutral, pink, or yellow, also reffered to as warm or cool. Yellow undertones are the most common and pink are the rarest. It is actually very hard to tell which undertone you are, so the best way to find out is simply trial and error. Try out different foundations and the one that makes your skin bright and glowing is the one for you. A couple of good indicators though are, if you tan well you are likely to be warm or if you burn easily in the sun, you are likely to be cool (either way, wear an SPF!). Also, try the gold/silver test. If you feel you suit silver more than gold, you are probably cool and vice versa. If none of these are really you, then you’re possibly neutral.
Most shades of foundation will have a cool and a warm counterpart. Bare Minerals is great for working this out as it is clearly labeled on the counter. Illamasqua are also good for this to and they will have two or three shades with different undertones. For example, with their skin base foundation, shade 3.5 is pink undertone (cool), shade 4 is a yellow undertone (warm) and shade 4.5 is a yellow olive undertone (neutral).
Wearing a cool tone if you are warm based will instantly give you an over-all ashy look, which will make your skin look dull and tired. You could also pop in and try the new Pantone colour IQ in Sephora stores to get the right shade and tone for you from hundreds of formulas!