Makeup is one of the most heavily advertised industries throughout North America with hundreds of celebrity endorsements and promises to make you beautiful. You can’t flip through a magazine or watch television without being bombarded with advertisements. With all the available kinds of products in varying shades of colors, it can be overwhelming to choose makeup to flatter your face.
Step One – Identify Your Skin Tone
In order to understand which family of colors will look best on you, you will need to determine which type of complexion you have. There are two basic undertones, cool and warm. Try holding a piece of white paper beside your face and identify what colors you see on your skin. Cool skinned ladies often have blue or pink undertones while warm skinned ladies have a yellow or golden undertone. Often, fair skinned women are considered cool while darker skinned women generally have warm complexions.
Step Two – Choosing the Correct Foundation
Now that you know what your complexion type is, you can purchase a foundation in the correct family for yourself. Always blend on your face, not the wrist or back of the hand, and check in natural light to be sure that the color matches properly. The right shade of foundation should literally disappear into your skin in natural light. If you don’t have access to natural light, be sure to do this in a very well lit area to gain the closest color match. For ladies with uneven skin tones or splotchy skin, choose liquid foundations in a sheer formula and apply with a cosmetic sponge by stippling onto skin. If you have dry, dull skin, opt for a tinted moisturizer to smooth out small flaws and give a healthy glow. For acne prone and oil skin, look for foundations which are oil-free, non-comedogenic, and contain acne medication.
Step Three – Choosing a Complimenting Eye Color
When choosing an eye color, it is not necessary to match to your clothing choices, but to contrast and bring out certain flecks of color in your eyes. Warm skin tones generally look best in “earthy” tones such as creams, medium browns, bronzes, soft greens, and golden metallic. Cool skin tones often look best in dramatic colors, such as silver, dark grey, blue, dark green, purple, and white. Either skin tone can wear brown or black mascara, but it should be chosen based on the eye shadow color chosen.
Step Four – Match Your Lip Color
Lipstick is the last finishing touch for most women’s makeup routine. Warm complexions should choose their lipstick in the range of rusty red, chocolate, coral, beige, peach, gold, and orange based hues. Cool complexions should steer toward bright red, mauve, berry, or light pinks. Choose a lipstick that contains moisturizing agents to keep lips looking luscious and full.
Step Five – Finish with Blush
Pick a blush to complete your look by choosing either a powder or gel formula. Powders work for most people and to be applied correctly, use a big, round blush brush. Gel formulas are generally used as stains for their long last durability and dewy look. Cool complexions should choose blush colors such as mauves, rose, berry, burgundy, or plum. Warm complexions look best in bronze, copper, mocha, coral, and even beige. Start with a light dusting and build up the color slowly. If you do put too much on, dilute the color using translucent powder.
Looking your best is not just simply choosing any colors from your palette, but making sure what you pick flatters your face and makes you look wonderful.