A metallic-smoked denim eye is by far the biggest makeup tip for fall 2010! Denim have been all over the chart clothing wise for the last two seasons so it´s about time the durable, strong and comfortable vibe from the denim material finds it way into your makeup routines.
A clear view
Some may associate blue eye shadow with makeup from the 1980s gone horribly wrong but, luckily, many of the top designers showed us how to make the look sexy and modern. Designers Derek Lamb, Jason Wu and Diane von Furstenberg let their models down the runway with the hottest make up tip of the season. The reason for why the blue eye shadow is all the rage again is simply because when applied correctly, it is one of the most flattering colors any woman can frame her eyes with. It works wonders for tired and red eyes as it gives the illusion of a clearer gaze. It also suits most hair colors, skin colors and eye colors, which only leaves us with the task of picking the right shade of blue.
If you have a tanned or dark skin color, you should always pick an aquamarine or blue-green eye shadow. For a lighter skin tone, you’re better off using cool colors like Cobalt.
If you really want a great party makeup, you should choose your best suited tone in a metallic texture as seen on the runway at Balenciaga.
The secret makeup tip on how to make the perfect blue and smoky eye!
Applying Eye Makeup: The blue and smoky eye is such a great variation from the original black smoky eye because it makes it more playful and fresh. You don´t have to use a clear or strong shade of blue: more often than not, the most becoming blue colors are those with a speck of brown in them to make the color more deep and demure. If you really want the look to be similar to the trends from the runway, make sure you choose the metallic textured eye shadows.
- Apply a lighter shade of blue from your eyelash line and up to your global. Use a clean brush to soften the edges upwards and outwards. Remember to use the same shadow under your eyes and connect the eye shadows on the inner and outer corners of the eyes.
- Use a black eyeliner pencil and draw an intense line around the entire eye, following the lash line. Soften the outer edges of the eyeliner using a clean, small brush. Make sure the eyeliner is 100% intense between the eyelashes and fill in your inner eye rims for that sultry gaze.
- Complete the look with a dark and metallic blue eye shadow from the eyelashes over the eyeliner and up to the global, making sure that you stop right before you first color does. Finish it all off with tons of mascara.
Makeup Tip
Some runway tricks are simply better left to the runway. So even though a lot of the designers did show this technique used all the way up and into the eyebrows, it doesn´t mean we have to (or should) do the same. That is, frankly speaking, just too hard to pull off!
Lancôme eye shadow in the color Garment, Revlon in the color Venetian Blue, Yves Saint Laurent in the color Mogador Blue, Nars Duo in the colors Burn It Blue, Maybelline triple set.
Keep the rest to a minimal
Sexy eye makeup demands a lot of attention, so there is no reason to try an upstage it by applying tons of make up to your lips or cheeks. Your skin should definitely be perfectly covered and with a healthy shine, but leave the lips nude or peachy. You can always give your cheeks a lift with a darker tone under the cheek bone, but a peachy color is also suitable. The most important makeup tip you can apply to the smoky blue eye is to make sure the area under your eyes are immaculately covered. If not, you might end up looking like a panda bear.
MAKEUP TIP # 1
You will never achieve the desired makeup look if you don´t keep your skin in check. It´s easy to skip, but skincare is one of the real treatments we can do ourselves at home to change the future of our skin. No matter what skin type you have, there are three rituals we all will benefit from.
- Use a facial cleanser in the morning to shed dead skin cells and oils that the skin so kindly tried to remove during the night, and repeat the ritual in the evening so that the air pollution and makeup products that came in contact with your skin during the day, don´t get to spend all night digging further in to it.
- Exfoliating. If you don´t already exfoliate your skin, you surely have heard of it. It comes in the shape of a scrub or as a peeling and it will renew your skin in a way no other easy home potion can do. It is vital to keep dry skin moist and oily skin dry.
- Moisturize everything! Moisturizers comes in different shapes, but it is so important that you find a moisturizer that suits you instead of just opting for the `Normal skin-type` products (normal skin basically doesn’t exist, by the way) or skipping on it all together. It will keep your skin in check as it gets older, maintaining elasticity so that it won´t come hanging down your neck and an eye cream will actually hold the crows feet away for long time.
MAKEUP TIP # 2
When you’re looking for an eye shadow, there’s a very easy trick you can do to make sure the eye shadow will stay on and last you for minimum a year. While in the store, simply rub the eye shadow tester on your fingertip and apply it to the back of your hand. If the color comes out as intense and in the same shade as you see in the box, the eye shadow is good. Cheaper eye shadows will tend to look a shade lighter on your hand. This means you will end up using a lot more product to get the effect you wanted.
MAKEUP TIP # 3
If you use a liquid foundation, it should always be followed by a powder. Without the powder- as foundation contains water; it will evaporate during the day. This is why so many feel like they look spotty in the afternoon. A loose and transparent powder will give the most natural look.
MAKEUP TIP # 4
Never limit yourself to one makeup look. It´s important to experiment and vary your makeup routines as it will make a bigger ´wow-effect´. Don´t be afraid to go without makeup either, this is going to allow you to see the difference and which aspects you actually cherish about your own makeup.
MAKEUP TIP # 5
Keep your brushes clean! This will save you from a lot of unwanted bacteria contaminating your skin. Use shampoo or a disinfecting alcohol solution once a month.
MAKEUP TIP # 6
Know your colors:
Red brings out Green and vice versa
Blue brings out Orange and vice versa
Yellow brings out Purple and vice versa
So if you have blond hair, you will be well suited in purple colors, and if you have blue eyes they will come out even stronger if you use a bronze color (bronze contains orange).
If you have green eyes, they will look clearer with burgundy eye shadow or red lips, and if you have red hair you will always look great in the color green.
These simple steps are perhaps the most important tool we use as makeup artist and stylists when we are mapping out which colors to use in makeup and clothing.
MAKEUP TIP # 7
Dare to use red lips at least once in your life. It´s all about finding the right color, and if the color contains a good portion of blue, your teeth will look whiter!
MAKEUP TIP # 8
Always soften out any edges you make with colors. The most common flaw girls do is to leave the edges of the eye shadow, blush and foundation with a sharp line. This will draw attention and will also give an appearance of something being false or too much.
MAKEUP TIP # 9
Use a shiny eye shadow without glitter in a tone lighter than your own skin tone over cheek bones, along the nose bone, just over the lip on the cupids bow and in the inner corners of your eyes to always get that healthy and fresh look to any makeup.
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Written by makeup artist, stylist and fashion journalist Tove Eggen.
In the age of YouTube and iPods, how we learn and the ability to share information and knowledge is quickly changing. Alongside the technical industries´ progress, the world of makeup and fashion is booming as well. We are seeing a shift in control and hierarchy. Makeup artists and stylists are today idolized and respected for their expertise and business minds, whereas before they were merely a means for the creative director to utilize his ideas. The makeup artists’ techniques are constantly changing and improving, and a stylists’ fashion is obviously doing the same with fashion week running twice a year. It is a thrilling and giving career that allows women and men of all ages (and location) to embark upon a job opportunity especially designed by and for themselves.
The artists that started in the industry 10 years ago would train with an in house school or maybe not even train at all. In most countries and states, there are no laws protecting the name ‘makeup artist’ or ‘fashion stylist’, so anyone with a desire to do so could go out and practice the ‘knowledge’ they don´t really have. This is obviously a path to disaster, as you are not only potentially hurting your clients, but you are permanently damaging your own reputation and business career.
Today, many potential makeup artists and stylists are picking up tips and advice from YouTube makeup tutorials and learning from the comfort of their own home and in their own pace. This is a great way of experimenting with makeup artistry, except for the fact that you don´t really know if the person you are ´learning´ from is actually correct and you have no one to check with if what you are doing yourself at home is sufficient to work in the industry. Most importantly of all, because the makeup industry alone is a multi-billion dollar industry, the stakes are high and people demand quality and they can only know whether a makeup artist has this by looking at her or his certifications.
When you choose which online makeup and fashion school you wish to train with, it´s important that you investigate a couple of things:
- Does the online makeup school have the backings from an actual physical in house school? If so, they will be much more prone to deliver a detailed course content as they have existing material and on staff professors.
- Does the online make up school deal with only makeup and fashion, or several other subjects as engineering, shoe making and general academics? If so, this means that they are experts in the field of makeup artistry and fashion alone, which will guarantee you high focus and constant updated information.
- Does the online makeup school provide a professional tutor who works in the industry and can constantly guide you on the course material and how to get started with work? If not, you´re pretty much left on your own.
- Does the online makeup school demand tasks, projects and photos of your own work as you learn new techniques? If not, how are they actually guiding, critiquing and assessing you along the way?
- Does the online makeup school offer you free in house training if desired, lifelong connection and online tools for you to use after your completion? If so, this is a school that will take care of you and guide you as a regular alumni at an in house school.
In the end, working as a makeup artist is often something you do as a freelancer, and even though you consider your photographer or the different models and your private clients as your colleagues, it still is a career where you have to drive yourself as your own boss. Therefore it makes perfect sense that this is something you can do ‘on your own’ from home with an online makeup school. Ultimately, it is a study and a career for those with passion, goals, creativity and talent and it´s all about finding the right outlet for you to understand how to utilize your own abilities together with an internationally renowned certificate.
Written by International Makeup Artist, Stylist and Fashion Journalist of 5 years, Tove Eggen.
For most of us who work in the beauty and fashion industry, it started as a hobby and an attraction from a very early age. I was only seven when I started combing my father’s hair with water and creating different partings and shapes. I never wanted to go on to become a hairdresser, though (frankly, it feels too invasive for me) but it was the change in appearance that I loved! When my sister was 13, I loved seeing how piercing blue her eyes became when I plucked her eyebrows for the first time and, when, at the age of 16, I made over my best friend for a wedding and she actually looked like one of the grown-ups.
As I was heading towards high school, and later college, I never really thought about looking for a makeup school. I didn´t even realize that such a thing existed. But I was still doing all of my friends and family´s make up and dressing a bit differently. I was never extreme, but I seemed to have a different angle of interest to my looks; it wasn´t all about looking pretty for the boys, it was more than that.
When I was about to start university to study Theater Science and English, my brother met a girl who was fresh out of photography school and about to start makeup school. She immediately became my ‘new best friend’ and I followed her through every step of her studies. She would often do her projects at our house using me as a model, and all along I would be wishing that I was the one doing the makeup. I then realized that this was not only the career for me, but the life too.
This was the opportunity I didn´t even know I was looking for! But as I broke the happy news to my family, the joy was not shared. My father didn´t believe it was a career and my mother was afraid that it was just a ‘phase’. So I started university, doing my best, but all along I knew I would start the makeup school as soon as I was done. I stayed focused and saved the money necessary to apply and, thankfully, I got in on the first try! I was so happy and as soon as I got started with my studies at the makeup school, I realized how little I actually knew about this amazing industry.
At first, I felt a bit intimidated and unsure if I could pull it off. It was only when, after 3 months of studies, I landed an assistant job for a fashion stylist, picking out all the garments she needed for a fashion spread, I understood. When I saw my very own name in print on that credit list I realized: when you work with something you love to do, you will always be the best at it because every day you will wake up and WANT to go to your makeup school, and when you are done there you will WANT to get to work.
Today my father is always the first to read my articles on how to choose a foundation, intensely studying my beauty spreads and always expressing how proud he is of me. He is not worried about makeup artistry and fashion styling being a career or not because he sees how I work in so many and varied aspects of the industry. I do makeup, I teach, I work with celebrities and models as well as private clients. I write, I travel and, most importantly of all, I feel happy and blessed every day. Now, that´s a pretty good career choice if you ask me.