Kate’s Guide to Makeup: Part Two

Welcome to Part Two of Kate’s Guide to Makeup!

Hopefully by now you’ve tried the daytime look we covered yesterday, and you’re busy fending off phone calls from persistent gentlemen (I’m free next Tuesday?) or eager ladies, if that’s your thing (one at a time, gals!).

This tutorial will show you how to upgrade your daytime look to a flashier one. Do you have a ball to attend? A wedding to go to? An awkward family dinner with that one aunt who always talks you about her really specific and gross medical problems? No problem!

As we are going to build on the daytime look, you will need to follow the steps from yesterday’s tutorial. Have you done it yet? No? Ok, we’ll wait.

… not sure how long to give you. It doesn’t take that long, but that’s if you have everything ready. If you’re rushing around trying to find a clean sponge, it could take a while, I mean, I don’t know the layout of your kitchen.

All done? Great!

STEP FIVE: BLUSHER

Blusher is important because it makes you look like you have killer cheekbones. It all goes back to this contouring lark. You just want to make your face look like a series of ominous shadows.

… woah, is that a sci-fi series yet? If not, you can have it. Please just name a character after me.

Normally blusher is applied with a brush, but if you don’t have one, just use the other side of your sponge (environmentally-minded folks will be pleased to note that this is also good for the planet). To apply blusher, smear some on your sponge, then suck in your face and schwoop it up. Sorted. Now for the other side.

Suck in and schwoo … oops.

Ok, sometimes these things happen. Sometimes the dog runs away, or the apples fall out of the basket, or you try to put blusher on and somehow make it go across your cheekbone instead of along it. Nevermind. You can catch the dog, pick the apples back up, and re-draw the line.

Even if it takes you three goes to work out how it’s supposed to feel if you’re doing it properly.

STEP SIX: LIPS

Lipliner is important for making sure that your lipstick stays on. I think. To be honest, I’m not really sure what lipliner is used for. All I know is that when I was 13 and I would wear brown lipliner with a layer of Vaseline on top, people would make fun of me.

As a result, I haven’t owned any since then. Which is why I needed to improvise for this blog.

Coloured pencil seemed like a good idea, given that it’s a colour and it’s a pencil, just like lip liner.

Unfortunately, coloured pencils don’t really stick to skin, especially when it’s covered in a thick layer of contour and foundation that is already starting to flake.

So I upgraded to a pen. Now, I used an Artline 220 Super Fine 0.2, but this is a highly personal thing, and you should select the pen that feels right. Ink is subjective, and I won’t be the one to bark orders from on high about which stationery you should employ.

Now, I can’t see the point in lip liner if you’re not going to make it work for you, so I made sure to go over my actual lip line, by just a smidge. This smidge might make the difference between getting that marriage proposal or being passed over for that girl who works at Subway who doesn’t charge for double cheese. Don’t leave your future to chance, ladies!

With your lip liner you’ve created a boundary to be filled, and now all you have to do is colour it in with lipstick, staying between the lines. Maybe this is why people use lip liner? So you don’t accidentally just keep applying lipstick until it covers the bottom of your entire head? Something to think about.

Make sure to get your lipstick all the way to the edges. If you’ve gone over the lines a bit in some places because your hand-eye coordination isn’t that great, make sure to colour these little anomalies in too.

Now is probably a good time to practice your industry-party laugh. You’re going to need it.

STEP SEVEN: EYELINER

Ok, so maybe I’m a bit smug I have a real eyeliner. From a real brand. Of course, if you aren’t as blessed as I am in this area, then you can probably use a felt-tip pen or a Sharpie (depending on how thick you want the line to be).

Now, remember back to the lip liner, when we drew a line around our lips? We’ll do the same thing with the eyeliner, except this time we’re drawing a line around our eyeballs. Keep it as close as possible without putting the stick into the white part of your eye. Pro-tip: if it hurts, or if you go blind, you are drawing too close.

If your line looks a bit like one of those seismic activity charts, don’t worry too much. Just colour in the little shaky bits with more eyeliner. Consider your eyeliner a frame for your peepers, and maybe it can be one of those pretentious fancy picture frames where there’s a tiny picture with like six metres of wood around it.

Practice some answers for when you’re interviewed by Vogue. Maybe you want to start your own range of cat… bling? Maybe your beauty secret is that you drink six litres of water every day and test the pH levels of your urine? You’re going to want these answers at the ready. Nothing’s more embarrassing than umming and ahhing your way through an interview with a Wintour underling.

STEP EIGHT: FACE HAIRS

Part of being a lady is picking out your favourite face hairs, and making them darker and stiffer. This usually means eyebrows and eyelashes, but I’m not one to judge – the following steps would also work well with sideburns or moustaches.

Applying mascara is easy, if you keep a few simple things in mind.

Firstly, you want to get that brush all the way to the base of your lashes, which means opening your eyes wide.

Secondly, you are also going to want to open your mouth really wide. Don’t argue with me on this. It’s like how you can’t sneeze with your eyes open. I heard that a girl at my high school tried to put mascara on with her mouth closed and the next day she woke up dead. It happened. Just ask anyone.

If your mascara is clumpy, or feels tricky to put on, it’s probably because your mouth isn’t open wide enough. Don’t be afraid. Crank that jaw, ladies.

Excellent.

Now that that’s done, we’ll have to do something about those eyebrows.

Some people have fancy eyebrow pencils, but this product is largely a scam on the part of the makeup industry. Just use your mascara to define your brows.

I mean, think about it, your eyelashes and eyebrows are all the same face hair, right? Why should one be treated any differently to the other?

Once your eyebrows are filled in, we’re done!

RESULT!

You have made a frame for your face – from the lipstick chinstrap to the black mascara you’ve combed into your brow hairs. You’ve drawn lines around some of the most useful features (eyes are the window to the soul, and lips make kisses). Pop a breath mint and you’re ready to hit the town!

And who knows? Maybe by following my advice you’ll end up going places you never even dreamed of…

Until next time,

Kate x