I love makeup, and I love trying on different kinds of makeup looks on myself. But most of the makeup I own is quite cheap stuff, plus I don't own a lot of things that are commonly used today. I have only a few high-end stuff otherwise it's all cheap lol. But I don't think that you need a lot of expensive stuff to get good makeup looks, cause I certainly don't! So I will include some of my personal favorite tips here. Some of them are quite common, but I still hope you like them.
Pop of Color on the Eyes
(Take a shot every time I say 'eyeshadow', lol.)
If you live on the internet like me and you have read a lot of makeup-related articles in past, then I'm pretty damn sure you came across at least one of these makeup 'hacks':
1) Use a very light concealer/white eyeliner on your eyelid THEN put the color on it so that it pops.
2) Don't set your eyehadow primer/concealer and put the eyeshadow on directly so that the color sticks better and shows up more.
3) Dampen your brush with a setting spray or even water and then put your eyeshadow on.
I tried all three above and I love the second one for gold eyeshadow, but so far my MOST favorite tip has been:
4) Cover your eyelid with an eyeliner pencil that is the same color as your eyeshadow, then put on your eyeshadow for an INTENSE color!
Just a few days ago I wore an outfit to a gala dinner, which was a black dress but has some green borders and a dramatic green ombre in the skirt, and I wanted a shimmery green smokey eye to go with it. The eyeliner pencil and eyeshadow don't necessarily have to be the same shade, because I have a bluish-green eyeliner pencil and I put that all over my eyelid, then blended it to make it more even using the eyeshadow sponge thing that I no more see people using (which is sad.. I'm coming to it later). Then I used one more eyeshadow sponge and used that to layer my green shimmery eyeshadow on top. So far, this gave me the BEST color payoff out of my eyeshadow EVER! You can do the same with another color, such as blue. A standard cheap blue eyeliner can be used for both light blue and dark blue eyeshadows, or even bluish purple eyeshadow. That way you don't need to buy a lot of different products and still get the most out of what you already have.
This trick is originally inspired by this video:
Eyeshadow Sponge Applicator/Brushes are Underrated.
I rarely see any makeup artist on YouTube using these sponges, but these are all what I used in past. Now I do use some different eyeshadow brushes but I still love the old school sponges because they can be used for so many things! I'll list some ways that I like to use them:
1) Sometimes when I conceal a blemish I prefer to set only that part with foundation powder for better coverge, so I use these little sponges to put foundation powder over the spot. Since they are small, they are the perfect size for serving this purpose. And yeah it works very well for me, I don't see the blemish again until I remove my makeup.
2) Highlighting on small places like my nose, cupid's bow, inner corner of the eyes, and under the eyebrow.
3) For smudging pencil eyeliner on the lower lash line. It can be used in place of a smudging brush easily, you just have to use its pointy tip to do that job. Also before using eyeshadow I like to use it to make the layer of eyeliner on my eyelid even, like I mentioned above.
4) Putting powder foundation on my dark under eyes and dark pigmentation around my mouth on days that I feel too dull but don't wanna wear a lot of makeup, like just enough to not look dull. Now I prefer a brush for doing it but the eyeshadow sponge worked just fine.
So you see I love using them for many purposes and find them really helpful. I bought one pack of 10 eyeshadow sponges that's only 1.7 US dollars as per exchange rate and they are not very good quality. I bought it almost two years ago and I still haven't used a few of them yet, only two or three went bad so far. So for the price of it, I think it works very well. As long as you take proper care of the brushes and wash them properly they can last a long time! Additional: I also love cotton buds for eye makeup, applying lip balm on my lips while ROLLING the cotton bud on to remove dry skin, and removing eye makeup on the waterline. It is another classic tool and I hope it never gets forgotten.
Quick Nose Contour
Every nose shape is different but I have faith that it will help most of you. I have some unwanted shadows on my nose that I don't want to show, especially in pictures. Two things you can do is, first add some coverage on your nose, with either liquid or powder foundation, and keep it matte. It will reduce the appearance of unwanted shadows. Then you may or may not use a bit of dark brown eyeshadow (or even blush to avoid making the nose look dirty) with a thin brush and slim the nose down however you like to contour your nose. If you wanna highlight, make sure you're very specific with it, like use a small brush for it. It doesn't necessarily snatch the nose or make it look different, for me I just focus on defining its shape and not showing unwanted shadows... that's just enough in my opinion. Nose shapes are quite interesting to me and it is one thing that really doesn't need any change to it. Stop worrying about a wide or big or whatever nose, cause we don't care!
Additional: I think it is too much to use a very dark contouring color on the nose because it is the center of the face and light naturally hits that part a lot, so I prefer that the nose contour is not as dark as the contour around the perimeter of the face! Also don't use a lot of cool tones, it can look like dirt.
This tip is inspired by this video and this YouTuber (by the way yes what I am saying is different from the video because I am not necessarily copying it, this is kinda like my own take on it).
Effortless Date Makeup
Girls don't always wear makeup to impress men and we really don't care if you don't like out makeup style, but we do like to look good for our partner for special days and it is completely okay. This tip is particularly for that purpose. Do whatever you want anyway.
Guys don't know a lot about makeup and they just don't care, like seriously every time I asked a makeup related question to guys on g@g I got a bit disappointed by their ignorance and apathy. All they care is whether or not it looks good, okay? You can get away with skipping so many makeup steps when you wanna look good for a guy. You can get away with wearing very old school makeup, you can get away with doing a lot of makeup 'dont's', you can get away with not hiding your 'flaws' and still look flawless to him. The only two things you have to make sure is:
1) It suits you and looks good on you,
2) It does not alter your face. Guys don't like it when makeup makes you look like a completely different person.
And don't worry about 'too much makeup'. As long as your makeup application is good and it is blended properly no one will bother. Normally when guys described 'too much makeup' to me, it has been when a girl used a heavy foundation and did not blend it down the neck, there was a stark difference between the skin under the eye and the rest of the face (too light concealer), the contour was wrong color or placement, the blush was too intense et cetera even when the girl didn't necessarily use a lot of product. So I can tell you from personal experience that the amount of makeup isn't as big of a deal as your makeup application is. Additional tip: Enhance parts of your face that he likes the most. For example if he likes your lips try out a juicy lip color. If he likes your brown eyes, use a purplish-bluish eyeshadow to make the brown color stand out more.
For a first date you don't have to do anything out of the box, but once you are in a relationship you can easily try out crazy stuff and enjoy it cause I'm damn sure your partner would know what your bare face looks like by then.
In the end, have fun! It's just makeup and you remove it at the end of the day. I literally credit this website for me to come up with this 'tip' or idea.
Setting with Colored Powder
This is only for cases when you *really* need it. In my case, I have a white vitiligo spot on my eyelid and before any eye makeup I put a very heavy duty concealer to cover it. It still shows through sometimes so now I set that concealer with a dark bronzer color and that way it my eyelid looks completely normal. I have dark skin so the white vitiligo mark is really visible in pictures and it can look very awkward... so even if I put no eyeshadow on, I cover the white spot at least. You can also use it for some kind of stubborn hard-to-hide mark on your face.
VERY Optional: Facial Hair Removal
I really don't care about my mustache but before big events I like to use a thread to remove hair around my mouth. I have some pigmentation in that area and removing the hair helps with it and I feel like I need less coverage in that area later. The hairs may not be an issue but the dark root of the hair can add a bit of dark pigmentation, which I like to get rid of. No one really cares tbh, I just prefer to do it. Another alternative to threading or waxing is bleaching. This is quite a well-known trick, and I love it.
Here is a good video on DIY threading:
Lipstick for Brown Girls
I feel like Desi girls, when they especially have dusky skin like mine, don't wanna wear a lot of bright lipstick and especially not nude lipstick. The issue isn't really dark skin, but it is the pigmentation and discoloration (especially around the eyes and mouth, it's very common and totally normal). I already suggested hair removal but besides that you can try out using some coverage. On days when I want to wear lipstick but no other makeup, even then I use powder foundation under the eyes and around the mouth and then I feel like I can wear any lip color very easily. When you test a new lipstick it's very important to have some sort of coverage on your face to see how the color truly looks on you (credits to Sharifa Easmin on YouTube for this). I don't know about you but I definitely have other makeup products on when I have lipstick on as well.
Quick eyebrow and lashes (for those who have it naturally thick)
If you have fairly thick eyebrows and lashes like me, you don't always need any eyebrow product or mascara daily. Sometimes when I'm in a big hurry, but my brow and lashes have powder on them because of wearing makeup, I take a clean spooly brush and brush through my brows and lashes to just remove the powder from there so they look thick and black again. Nothing else needed, I just go out like that and it looks good. Like seriously, any powder or foundation on my brows is my big pet peeve!
Fake Vermilion Border
If I ever overline my lips in a way that the clear light border on the lip (known as vermilion border) doesn't show anymore, I take a nude lip liner and draw a fake vermilion border on the overline so that the lip looks less fake. It's quite a naughty trick but I swear it works.
I kind of made sense of it and came up with this trick by myself, but I saw Chloe Morello on YouTube sharing this tip later on so shoutout to her as well! According to her, drawing a vermilion border is great for those with lip injections.
How to have good makeup: Have good skin first
I can't count how many times I came across such comments on YouTube, that this girl is already pretty, she already has perfect skin blah blah blah...
To those I wanna say, you are absolutely correct. Take care of your skin. Every MUA says it. Use the right products that suit your face, wear some masks depending on your skincare needs. I have extremely acne-prone skin and a lot of scars but even then sometimes when I took good care of my skin consistently and regularly, I even wore no foundation makeup (I can't wear makeup without foundation), just used a bit of translucent powder on my face to control the oil and I was good.
All I used that time was lemon and honey mask twice a week and sometimes aloe vera gel all over my face. So you probably don't even need to buy any special product, just go to your kitchen and you may find amazing natural ingredients for your skin. But recently I started using two store-bought masks because I'm often so busy (and lazy), one is for acne and the other is for brightening the skin and fading scars, together they really helped my skin when I had to attend some events recently. And a week before the event I took the help of a professional to get a facial to extract all the blackheads and whiteheads so my face looks more clean and smooth. Like don't EVER underestimate the power of skincare. Every time I did not take enough care of my skin before an event, I saw the pictures and regretted heavily.
That's all!
10 makeup tips if I counted correctly, that's quite a lot! There might be other makeup artists sharing these tips and I may not be fully aware of it. Even though these are my ideas (and I'm aware what works on me may not work as well on others, makeup is very personal in my opinion), many of them DERIVED from other makeup tricks I originally found on the internet and then it is basically how I like to implement it when I wear makeup, I tried my best to give credits for the tips where I could.
Sometimes when I saw a makeup tip I did not like it when I tried it out so I changed it a little and felt like it worked better that way, so yeah. I am not a professional makeup artist or anything, just a teenage girl who loves makeup. Because makeup is such a personal thing, I would love it if you drop in your personal makeup tip here OR in an old question of mine: What is your personal makeup tip? it might help out someone else on this website, try it! I hope you find any of my tips helpful and PLEASE let me know your honest feedback if you ever try out anything from this myTake. Thanks for reading, you're awesome! :)
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