Lifestyle Choices

 

Covering the Blemishes

Now is the time to deal with any problems you want to conceal, such as black circles under your eyes or discolorations here and there. Concealer creams and sticks are good here, although some of them are greasy and, particularly under the eyes, tend to sink into tiny lines and make matters worse. If you use a concealer, buy one that is not too light-colored. Many brands are far too pale and, used under the eyes, make you look ghoulish.

Put your concealer on and pat it into the skin with your little finger until it blends perfectly with the surrounding area. If you add a little powder here—particularly under the eyes—even if you don’t wear it on the rest of your face, you will get just the finish you need to make the undesirable area fade into the surrounding skin tones.

 

The Magic of Light and Shade

The whole secret of successful makeup, no matter what look you are after (the natural, clean face or pure glamour), lies in using light and shade well. The rules are simple. Whatever part of your face you want to bring out or emphasize, you apply a light color to, and whatever part you want to minimize, you cover with a darker shade. In practice it becomes a little more complicated. Shaders and highlighters come in several forms: creams or lotions you put on a naked face or just after applying your foundation, powders you brush on after applying translucent powder, and simple light and dark shades of foundation you put on various areas of the face for effect.

In the fifties and sixties the well-made-up face boasted great exaggerations. Brown shaders swept under cheekbones (either real or imaginary cheekbones) gave the face a sculptured look, while brilliant white highlighter smeared under the brow was supposed to “lift” it and make the face more interesting. In truth it all looked very artificial, which in itself would have been all right except that the skill with which the photographic model applied her light and shade was considerable, while the average woman copying her tended to make a great mess of it all and ended up looking slightly ridiculous.

Now, thanks to changing styles in the seventies and eighties, things are different. You can still use a darker shade of foundation to minimize a large jaw or soften a big nose or give a bit more shape to the under- cheekbone area of too round a face, but the difference between the two colors is less exaggerated and the whole effect far more subtle.

The secret of making light and shade work for you is simply to apply both sparingly and only where it matters to your face, and always to blend well into the surrounding area. Don’t get involved in complex theories that may work well when a makeup artist has three or four hours to prepare a face for one color photo with a particular kind of lighting. They are simply not for everyone, nor for everyday wear. Above all, make sure, when you have applied highlight and shading, that there is no dividing line between the darker and lighter areas of your face.

Here are some of the things you can do with shading:

To minimize a jaw that is too large or too square, apply darker shade along the jawline, blending it under the jaw and fading into nothing at the sides of the face.

To shorten a pointed chin, apply shader to chin only, blending underneath into the neck and fading to nothing at the sides.

To fade a double chin, put shader on the double chin and blend it skillfully. This will make it recede into the background and look less prominent.

To give more interesting shape to a square face, apply shader in the temple area and all around the jawline, carefully blending.

To add cheek hollows when there aren’t any, use a small amount of shader in a gentle curve just under where the cheekbone finishes (you can feel it with your finger even if your natural cheekbones don’t show through the skin). Then blend carefully down to nothing just above the jawline at the sides.

To minimize a nose that is too large, apply shader (preferably liquid or cream) in a single stripe down the center of the nose, carefully blending into the color at the sides so that no definite line appears.

To slim a broad nose, apply a shader—preferably a slightly darker foundation or cream—in a stripe down each side of the nose and blend it carefully into the skin to make the nose look narrower to make prominent or draw attention to. Or you can use a peach or beige eye shadow.

When, during the makeup process, you apply the highlighter depends on what kind you are using: creams and liquids just after foundation, powders after using face powder. It also depends on what you are using it for. If you are adding a strip of highlight down the center of a perfect, slim nose to show it off, then apply the highlighter just after your foundation. If you are using it to exaggerate the bow in your lips, then apply a powder highlighter—perhaps a frosted one—after powdering your face but before applying lipstick.

Here are some of the things you can do with highlighter. But don’t do more than two of them at any one time, or the effect will be counterproductive and you’ll lose all of the wonderful impact highlighter can give:

Add a thin edge of matt lightener just under the brows to make the eyes look wider.

Brush shimmery highlighter down the two ridges between the center of the bottom of the nose and the bow of the upper lip, to draw interest there.

Brush shimmery highlighter on the bow of the upper lip at the center.

Brush a touch of highlight in the center of the upper eyelid to add brightness to the eyes and more shape to the eyelids.

Stroke a little highlighter across the cheekbone, just under the outer corner of the eye, to exaggerate the bone’s prominence.

A carefully blended line of light down the center of a beautiful nose will draw attention to it.

A little, very light foundation used in the hollows that run from the edge of the nose to the corners of the mouth will minimize the age hollows there.

Put a little highlighter on collarbones when you are wearing a décolleté dress.

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