Choose make-up colors which suit your skin and hair. Your skin will either have a warm or a cool tone – ie a more orange/ochre or a more pink/taupe basic color. Find eyeshadows, lipsticks and blushers which belong to the same basic range. For example, cherry-red lipstick suits a cool skin-tone; tomato-red, a warm one. Darker skin can take brighter colors, while pale skins need more subtle shades.
The basic goal of applying make-up is to steer one’s features towards a kind of ‘ideal face’. This imaginary ideal is smooth, symmetrical and structured, with highly accentuated expressive features while the merely functional parts are played down. You want people to pay admiring attention to your eyes and mouth, to appreciate less consciously your fine skin and the defined structure of your forehead, cheekbones and chin, and preferably only to notice your nose, ears and neck if they happen to be especially attractive!
Warm, bright and pale colors appear to the eye to be closer or further forward than cool, dull and dark colors, which appear to recede or be in shadow. Therefore, if one wishes to accentuate cheekbones, make a nose appear longer and narrower, widen the eyes or ‘sculpt’ the face in any other way, it can be done at least partly by adjusting the color and shading of the face. By darkening the outer, upper corners of the eyes, you can make them seem larger; by blending a paler skin-color either side of the bridge of the nose, just inside the eye-sockets, you can make them seem further apart. Blusher should be brushed on just below the cheekbone to accentuate its natural shadow, which makes the cheekbone itself look more pronounced; for even more 3-D ‘pop-out’ effect at parties, apply a little metallic luster high on the ridge of the cheekbone where the light catches it. Lipstick should make the lips look fuller, so avoid dark colors if your lips are already a little thin and make sure any very pale pink lip color is glossy, not matte, so your lips don’t blend in to your face.
Learning how to accessorise an outfit and match that with makeup that is just right – not too little or to much – is the key to achieving a winning style every time!