Easy, Intermediate, and Advanced Looks for Everyone

There is all kinds of beauty out there. Some people like simple, and naturally enhanced beauty. Some people like a little more, and some people like the whole 9 yards lashes, bright lips, color, winged liner, everything. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that. It all depends on how you feel, whatever makes you feel good is what you should do. AND FORGET THE REST. Forget what people say, don't take their input if you don't want it. You do exactly what makes you feel beautiful and the rest of the world will stop and stare. 

So these looks can be work, school, or whatever appropriate.

First up, is for my natural babes. I'm wearing lashes but you don't have to. 

The keys to natural makeup, or natural looking makeup is:

• playing up your best features (whether that's lips, lashes, good skin, or eyes)
• have a skin care system that works well with your skin
• have your brows shaped (as in waxed, tweezed, etc.) and have them filled in somewhat

So starting with the first point, playing up your features, focus on that. If you have great lips, make that your focus. Wear bright lipstick, or just lipstick in general. Super shiny gloss and a highlighted cupids bow also emphasize lips. If you have great skin, find a blush that gives you a glow. Subtle colors of peach and pink with soft sheens to them are great choices. Highlight the skin with eyshadow or powder highlighter. Highlighter brings light to the face which catches the eye. Speaking of eyes, if you have a great shape or beautiful colored eyes find a shade that compliments it. For eye shapes focus on your crease to contour the eye socket more. Another great tip that's fast and easy is cream shadow. Just make sure to wear eye primer. Laura Mercier Caviar Sticks are wonderful and so are Maybelline Color Tattoo. This will give you a solid metallic color across the entire lid. Blend it will your finger or a brush and it's a simple fix. If you've got great lashes, pile on the mascara. Wear a ton, wipe off 80% of the product on the brush and just build from there. Looks that I feel best in, like really really sexy, is when I'm wearing lashes and gloss like the picture above on the left. Its simple, looks natural, and it's not hard.

Skin care is your foundation. Find something that works for you. If you're oily, get products to help combat that and invest in primer. If you have texture issues make sure your exfoliating and choose a smoothing primer. If you're dry make sure you are moisturizing with the heaviest hydrating moisturizers and products you can use. Including sprays like Fix Plus from MAC to keep those dry patches at bay. For problem skin, do whatever your dermatologist suggests first but I really like the Murad Acne Line if you want to try something. Invest in good concealers and foundations that cover. The Dermablend Smooth Liquid Camo is breathable but really nice. Revlon Colorstay is also good with coverage. Cream concealers will hide blemishes better that liquid concealers.

As for brows, they frame your face. Just drill that in your head. If you don't want to do anything else at least make sure your brows are shaped, meaning tweezed or something so they have a shape and don't have sparse hairs every which way, and if they're very sparse try filling them in to "sculpt" them slightly. This can be as light or heavy as you want. So Benefit Gimme Brow is a really great low maintenance tool. It fills in and builds up the brow with fibers. While also taming the the brow and keeping it in place. Brow powder or even eye shadow applied with a slanted brush will fill in and define a brow just fine. Neutral tones like taupes and cool toned browns work better on most unless you're red headed or very warm brown. If you want a natural, minimal, look I wouldn't go past powder. I wouldn't mess with pomades and brow pens I would stick to powder and brow gel. 

This is some intermediate looks. They require a little more work. Or at the very least have more color. So this is where I would start using lip color. Like mauves, burgundys, berry colors something that is neutral but that you can see. The eyes are definitely smokier with not your normal browns. More berry, purples, and inner corner shimmer and such. Notice the lower lash lines are really smoked out. I choose eyeshadow over liner any day on the lower lash line because crayon liners melt so easy. Powder stays better. These blown out smokey eyes require more time because your have to layer colors to give them more depth so you have to spend a lot of time blending. So just keep that in mind. Start with a lighter shade on a bigger brush and then work your way into darker colors applied with smaller brushes and blended out with that bigger brush again. Blending is key and it does take practice. You don't have to wear lashes for this either, but I always do. You can sculpt the brow a little more if you want with these looks too. Venturing into brow pens, pencils, and pomades. Not entirely necessary though.

These looks are more advanced. So winged liner, brighter and darker lips. Colorful shadow. Lashes of course. Dramatic, sharp lined shadow. Just a lot of different options. I love color as you know and I feel like there is always a way to wear it without looking like a clown. It's all about blending. For lip color, start with a neutral toned eye look and a colored lip. That way you don't have so much to focus on or like you're trying to hard. Even in the bottom right picture I have a colorful eye and a pink lip. It goes well together because it's a more muted pink and the colors on the eye stay on the lid and lower lash line they aren't super dramatic or too high in the crease. 
The brows are more sculpted and not on the natural side. There's a lot of highlighting going on too, cupids bow, inner corner of the eye, heavy highlight on the cheek, and so on. Winged liner that is both very dramatic and in the bottom right it's a very small wing. 
As for eye shadow, some colors are actually really easy and complimentary like, earthy greens, plums, cranberry, navy, and even baby pink and soft corals. You can pair those with neutral eye shadows like browns and peaches and have an awesome "pop of color " which makes it the focus. If you want to do a colorful eye then start with a more nude lip and then go from there.

So that's my tips. Practice, practice, practice. Remember what ever you feel comfortable with is what you should do. As long as you feel beautiful, that's all that matters. Promise.