Above is a glamour shoot I did for the fantastic photographer Gina Antoine. I absolutely love creating glamour looks, it may not be a good thing for a makeup artist to say, but sometimes I feel the more makeup, the better! However, this full on look is definitely not limited to glamour shoots, it can be perfect for a night out. I am going to give you a great step by step guide on how to create a look like this on yourself and the best products to use, but of course, you’re welcome to use your own alternatives… ENJOY 🙂
Step 1
The first thing to do is cleanse, tone and moisturise. This look needs a flawless base that goes on smooth not cakey, otherwise you’ll end up with a semi drag queen look… not cool!
I love ‘Kiko Cosmetics’ cleansing products, they’re a really professional range without a ridiculously expensive price tag.
Use a good face scrub with water first, then the ‘cleansing milk’, followed by their ‘softening toner’ and lastly a good moisturiser such as their ‘mat fluid’.
Step 2
Foundation should be applied after moisturiser, a thin layer at a time using a good CLEAN foundation brush until you get the coverage you desire. I will do another blog explaining how to clean your make-up brushes at a later date.
The foundations I used on the model for this shoot and often use are both MAC. I mix the correct colours of both the ‘Studio Fix’ and ‘Face and Body’, this helps me to get a really good texture and thickness for the base as I find ‘Studio Fix’ on its own can be a bit too heavy.
Once I am happy with my base foundation, I then move on to concealer. Again, I use MAC ‘Studio Finish’ concealer. I cover my concealer brush with quite a lot of this and then dip it into some foundation and mix it on my hand. I do this to dilute the concealer a bit so it’s not too thick and cakey on the skin.
I tend to use concealer in the same shade as the models foundation, although some people prefer lighter for under the eyes, it’s really a personal preference.
I apply the concealer under the eyes and blend it down a bit just onto the tops of the cheeks and I cover any blemishes with it.
Lastly, I powder all over the face and eyelids using a large powder brush and make sure I get right into the corners of the nose and powder away any makeup creases on the eyelids or under the eyes.
For white skin, I tend do use loose translucent powder such as ‘Make up Forever’. For black skin, I have a range of pressed powders from various brands such as ‘Bobbi Brown’ and ‘Nars’ in colours such as ‘Golden Brown’ and ‘Soleil’.
This is your base complete.
Step 3
I now move on to the eyes. I quite often use a heap of loose powder under the eyes as a guard for any eye shadow that drops. You use a powder brush once you’re finished with the eyes to brush it all away and it should leave the under eye area clean.
I start my eye shadow with a light shimmery vanilla colour. The brand ‘Sleek’ has incredible eye shadows palettes in hundreds of colours that I recommend massively. I own every palette. Their ‘Bad Girl’ and ‘Oh so special’ palettes both have lovely shimmery whites.
Once I have done the base shimmer, I add my main colour. So for this shoot, I kept to a purple lilac theme.
Add one colour over the top of the shimmer and leave the inner corners whiter than the rest of the eye. Keep layering and blending until the colour is as strong as you wish.
Next I get my dark purple colour such as the ones in the ‘Bad Girl’ palette and use a thin brush to draw a wing in the shape of a V in both outer corners.
Then I use a blending brush to bring the dark into the middle and keep constantly blending until the dark purple fades into lilac and white in the inner corners.
This all just takes a lot of patience and practise but gets easier and easier!
Step 4
Next I move onto eyeliner. I always use a pot of gel based eyeliner with a thin eyeliner brush and I always use ‘MAC’. They have a gel eyeliner product called ‘Fluidline’ and the colour is ‘Blacktrack’. I also use their eyeliner brush no. 211.
Draw on your eyeliner however thick you wish, and wing it out slightly at the corners.
Next use any black kohl pencil to line under the eyes.
After this apply as many coats of mascara as you wish on both the top and bottom lashes.
Step 5
Now I do the models blusher. Blusher is really preference and skin tone based, but I have a palette by ‘Ben Nye’ called ‘Fashion Rouge’ which has a good range from peach to pink to dark red.
Smile J and apply the blusher to the apples of your cheeks and blend outwards subtly.
Step 6
For a full on glamour look, I go with red lips.
I always line the lips first for precise up close shoots, it helps to get the perfect shape and make the colour last.
I used ‘MAC’ lip liner in ‘Cherry’. Draw the outline of your lips following your natural line then colour in the whole of the lip in between those lines.
Next I get my lip brush and mix two different colours together using the back of my hand as a mixing palette. For this colour, I used ‘MUA Make-up Academy’ lipstick in ‘shade 1’ and ‘Maybelline Coloursensational’ in shade 530 ‘Fatal Red’.
Go over the lip pencil with this lipstick trying hard not to go over your lip edge.
Step 7
Now that your mascara should be dry, I apply false lashes.
The trick to false lashes is to measure their width up against your own eyes first and trim them to size. That way you avoid the over-hang that makes them look so terrible.
I use professional glue called ‘DUO’ which you can get from all sorts of make-up stores such as ‘MAC’.
Apply a thin layer of the glue to the edge of the lash and wait up to a minute for the glue to become tacky before applying them.
There isn’t really any miracle tip to applying lashes, it just takes a lot practise until you know what works for you!
FINAL STEP!
Lastly I use a highlighter powder on certain areas of the face and fill in eyebrows.
The best and most natural looking way to fill in eyebrows is using a slanted edge brush and brown or black eye shadow mixed together depending on how dark you can go.
After filling eyebrows, I apply some highlighter to the brow bone just underneath. I use ‘Kiko’ all over light ‘Ultra Shiny Powder’ in shade ‘03’. This is honestly the best highlighter I have ever come across.
I also dust it lightly above the blusher on the cheeks and use a small shadow brush to apply it to the cupids bow above the top lip.
DONEEEE…. FINALLY!!
Hope you can all achieve this hot look!
Thanks, Tessa XO