Tips For A No Makeup Day - Katrina VanDoran

Normally I just wear lipstick and mascara...

It's good enough if you have ok skin and ok brows. The key is to sharpen the features on your face by enhancing some colors. Pink with a grey tone and browinsh colors are great for a no-makeup day. Trim your brows regularly as the shape of your brows could affect your look tremendously. If you don't have enough hair to make a full brow, use a brown brow definer to get the shape right. Your brow should start vertically where the tear gland is, and the highest place for the arch should be right at the same level vertically where your iris is when you look straight. Imagine a vertical line from the side of your nose passing through the beginning of your eye and extending to where your eyebrow meets. That's how long your eyebrow should be.

Basic Makeup

So how to do a full makeup? First of all wash your face, pat dry and apply toner and moisturizer. After a few minutes when everything's absorbed, put on a makeup base if you like it (I don't do that myself as moisturizer is good enough and doesn't burden your skin too much!), then foundation. You should choose a color which is similar to your skin tone. Don't try and get something too white as it would look scary! For Asian skin tone it's always good to use foundation and powder with a yellow undertone. Don't ever try something with a rosy tone! You can use a sponge, or just your fingers to spread your foundation, from top to bottom, outward strokes. Don't put on too much. Then apply concealer to flaws that you want to hide. Choose a color that is a bit darker than your foundation, except when you need to hide under eye circle use a slightly lighter or the same color as the foundation.Then use a brush (or a sponge if you like) to put on powder on your face. For foundation and powder don't forget the eye area. Then brush away excess powder.

Use a light eyeshadow to spread all over your upper eye lid. Then a darker one on the crease and a shimmer one just below your brows, where it archs down. To enhance the effect you can even put on a darker color about one-third to the end of your crease. Then apply eye liner if you wish. Usually only to the one-third end just above your lashes is enough. Or you can draw a full line just above your upper lashes. Use black or brown. Then curl your lashes and apply mascara, in a zig-zag motion. Then use a brow pencil or brush with brow color to fill in your brows and define them.

For your lips: Apply lip balm first. Then use a lip pencil matching your lipstick color to define your lip line. You can always correct the shape of your lips with the help of foundation and lip pencil but don't over-do it. Then fill the entire lips using the lip pencil if you need a long lasting effect. Then apply lipstick. You can put on lipgloss afterwards if you like.

The last thing is to put on blush. Use a brush to sweep the blush from your cheek bone diagonally upwards to the side of your cheek. Blush should start inline with the iris of your eye and out and up.

So there you are, it's done!

If you do feel it's not right, it's probably because you haven't blended well, or you have unmatched colors. Remember not to emphazise more than one place. When you have bright lips don't put on too much eye color. Also you should look at what you will be wearing before you decide on which color to use your face.