1. Prep and Prime
2. Foundation – Push or Stipple
Courtesy of Sephora.com
1. First you always want to prep and prime the skin to ensure that the make-up stays on and that those unsightly pores and fine lines and wrinkles don’t seem magnified in photos! Start with a great primer that will help that make-up stay put as well as minimizes the appearance of pores and fine lines. This is a definite make-up artist standard in preparing the face to look like you have the best skin! Some great primers to try are DermaDoctor’s Picture Porefect, MUFE’s HD Primer, and Smashbox Photo Finish to name a few.
2. Next when applying your foundation, regardless if it’s liquid, cream or powder, use a brush to “push” it in or a sponge to stipple and “press” it into the skin will ensure that it adheres and stays put.
3. Contouring will definitely give your face height and dimension in all the right places as the flash and lights from a camera can often times flatten out the surface of your face causing you to look unporportioned. Bronzer is a great way to add “depth” to the face and normally should be applied to the hollows of the cheeks and swept softly around the temples as well as lightly applied to the sides of the nose to elongate the nose and to give it length.
Respectively, wherever you’ve applied bronzer to add depth, you can now use a highlighter powder such as a soft
Courtesy of Sephora.com
shimmery powder or illuminating product like Benefit’s Moon Beam to add height to all the high parts of the face like the forehead, under the eyebrow on the brow bone, apple of the cheeks and the bridge part of your nose.
Contouring and highlighting will give dimension and give you that perfect profile and make your skin look almost airbrush perfect!
4. Finally, always set your make-up with a dusting of translucent setting powder, like MAC’s Blot Powder Pressed, to keep everything in place. If you follow these simple steps, you’ll be on your way to a picture perfect face!
I would love to see an in depth tutorial on contouring and highlighting
Do you have recommendations of a primer with high degrees of SPF ?
I will be working on a “how-to” video in the next week or two for you to preview the steps on contouring and hilighting to help you perfect your best profile! Additionally, I honestly, don’t know of any primers off hand but will research it and get back to you. If you are wearing your primer with at least an SPF 15 moisturizer or foundation, you should be all set! There is no need to have a longer protection SPF unless you are intentionally soaking up UVB rays. Remember the higher number for SPF is not HIGHER levels of sunscreen protection–it is LONGER protection. Essentially all SPFs are SPF 15…the higher number just denotes that the protection lasts longer throughout the day w/less re-application, not more protection. Thank you so much for your comments and stay tuned!
This comment is from Michelle – our comment filters wouldn’t let it come through!
Just want to toss this out there – it might be different when it comes to make up (since this isn’t a US regulated designation) but when it comes to sunscreen the SPF number does indicate the level of protection you are getting. Its a mathematical formula that basically says how many more times the amount of sun you can be exposed to before incurring the same amount of skin damage if your skin is bare. It doesn’t take into account the length of time it will be effective on your skin, as that is more to do with the lotion the SPF is in.