Fall 2009 Makeup How-Tos

Have you ever noticed that as the weather cools, you start reaching for the warmer, deeper colored pieces of your wardrobe?  I do the same thing with my makeup, I like to wear a bolder lip or eye.  This Fall some old favorites are coming back around (red lips!) along with some new looks.

Here are few easy tips….

Keep It Simple
When going with something new and bold, keep it simple. Chose one feature to highlight. For example, when wearing a red lip color, keep the rest of your makeup neutral – warm and natural. If you are going to wear a heavily lined eye, keep the rest of your makeup soft and subdued.

Use Brow Powder
Strong, defined brows are in. The trick is to keep your brows looking as natural as possible. Start with the correct shape and fill in with a slightly lighter color brow powder if you are brunette and slightly darker if you are blonde or a red head.  Even if you’ve got dark hair, don’t go with a dark brow color. I’m a medium brunette and I use a blond/light brown brow powder. You want to enhance what you’ve got, not draw on brand-new brows.

Experiment with Metallics
Glamour magazine likes a Metallic Lid for Fall – a metallic bronze, metallic green, a bit of gold. They suggest lining the lids with shadow  in an exaggerated “V” formation.  Try a fuller line than usual, heavier on top, closer to lash line at the bottom,  just beyond the eye corner a bit, with a slight up-tilt at the far outward edge.

Do Your Eyes First
An eye makeup look like this has a tendency to travel down the face a bit, specks of powder can get everywhere. I suggest switching up your usual application order up. Do your eyes first. Apply base, then line with shadow, fill in your “V” shape, clean up the edges, then go back and apply foundation, powder, blush, and so on. Putting the makeup on in this order helps to keep the rest of your face neutral and fresh. This order also works well when you are doing a smokey eye.

Get a Colorful Yet Smokey Eye
Speaking of a smokey eye, the September 2009 Issue of InStyle featured actress Amanda Seyfried with a twist on the classic black smokey eye look. They show the green-eyed Seyfriend (she really has lovely eyes) with 3 different looks – teal, metallic, and brown. Mariel Barrera, the makeup artist who created the looks says that the most important thing is to blend, blend, blend, thus the colors “melt together.” Another tip, when using the metallics, keep the brow bone clear, because using metallic shadow “too high, can look harsh.”

Image credit: Sephora.com