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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Putting Your Face On-Part 1

Before we getting into the steps to putting your makeup on, I wanted to tell you that I have decided to take off my gel nails.  I have been thinking about this for awhile now.  While I do love them, I just can't afford the every two weeks salon visit plus I was breaking them anyway.  I hope that my nails won't go back to the awful nubs they were before, but if they do, I will still polish them and still rock the nubs as I have before.

Right now my nails are very thin, they are weak, bendy and actually hurt right above the free edge if I hit them accidentally.  After I soaked the gel off, I buffed my nails and oiled them with Bliss Kiss oil for a day and a half before polishing them.  I should do the three day oiling that is recommended, but I have to work tomorrow and I just know if I don't have something on my nails, they will rip.

One thing I have noticed from almost a year of the NexGen is that all the staining from polish is gone.  I sort of like that natural looking color back to my nails, that I am rocking a very sheer classic French mani at the moment.  You will see that in a later post.

Now before I show you my before face, I am going to show you my after face.  Why???? Because I don't want my yucky before face in all the preview pics in people's emails and blogrolls.  Can you imagine? I will start each of these three posts with the after face.  I don't want to see my before face in my popular posts area.

Oh hell no. I wouldn't do that to you people!

Here is the look we shall be recreating over the next three posts.


As you can see, I cut all my hair off compared to my profile picture. Normally, I put some goo in there to spike it up, but I forgot for this picture!  The cross necklace was my dad's.  He had worn it every day since he was fifteen, never taking it off.  Since he passed, I have been wearing it and never taken it off.

I did buy a cheap tripod for my camera.  I figured out the timer so I could take these pictures.  I do need better lighting and think if I take the globe off my light and add brighter bulbs in this room, it will help a lot.  At least I did it! Next, I need to figure out how to make a video and YouTube stardom here we come!

OK.  Here is the part I always hate.  Before you start any makeup routine, you need to have a clean face with a moisturizer. If you prefer, you can also use a primer.  Personally, I'm too lazy at the moment and I've not found one that makes a huge difference for me.


Yes, I have told you that my skin is far from perfect.  I'm at the end of a particularly bad acne session.

Now, normally I do my eye makeup first so if any eye shadow falls on your face, you won't ruin your foundation.  However, for this post, I chose to do the foundation first for you.  Just know that I normally do my eye makeup first.


First thing is to squeeze out some of your foundation onto a small plate and here I am using a beauty blender. This is my first time trying it for my foundation. Normally I use a flat kabuki brush.  I dipped the DAMP sponge into the foundation and dotted my face as you can see here.

You want to stipple which means to dot all over your face, not rubbing as that only smears things around.  You want to pat it onto the skin.  You can see I have a very hairy face.  In these areas, you can rub gently to get the hairs to lie down, but I don't really let those bother me.


I am using IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Redness cream.  It technically isn't a foundation, but I use it as one. It totally covers my acne and redness in my cheeks.  Here I am almost finished with the foundation part.  Already my skin looks better than the before.

It's totally a personal choice whether you do liquid or powder foundation.  For years, I refused to do liquid and only used a powder.  Part of the reason was I just didn't know how to apply it right.  I realized recently that when I use the powder foundation, it really cracks and creases in my wrinkles and my skin has changed and the powder foundation just wasn't looking good at all.

Oh and when choosing the correct color? You need to match your neck color NOT your face color. If you self tan on your neck and your face is paler, how is it gonna look if you use the paler color on your face?  You will be that person with the foundation line around your face!  Sad thing is, counter salespeople still try to match your face. If you do get the wrong color, it's better to go wrong lighter. Then you can add bronzer etc to make it work.  If you go way too dark, you can return it to the store, or just make sure you do the foundation down your neck.

Learn from me people!

Next you want to apply your under eye concealer.


It's hard to see here, but that's the point.  Your concealer needs to be the same color as your foundation.  Think about it.  If you add something lighter, that's highlighting the dark circles.  I'm using IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Undereye in Neutral Medium.

I've seen some on YouTube do the concealer first, then foundation then the highlight.  I may be doing it wrong. Such is life.  Next is the highlighting part of contouring your face.  I purposely went a bit heavy handed so you can see where it goes.  I realized after I forgot the cupid's bow above your lip.


Damn I look thrilled don't I?? It's actually me concentrating so hard while the timer counts the seconds! Now here is the highlight portion.  I'm using Urban Decay Naked concealer in Light.  There should be a spot on my forehead above my eye brows as well.  Yes this is heavy-remember it's for show for you to see.  You want to make sure you create that triangle under your eyes like I show you here.  I did go a tad too low down my cheek.

You then use your damp Beauty Blender and blend this in.  It takes some time but oh so worth it. You want to then powder this to set it.  The 20 something YouTubers don't have eye wrinkles, so they say the powder stops the creasing-but my dear people, I have wrinkles and it will crease.  Let's be honest here.


Use your sponge to pack on the powder under your eyes so it "cooks." You will brush the excess off later.  I'm still wondering if this works for someone my age.  I'm thinking it makes the wrinkles more prominent.  What I also don't quite get is why you do a concealer and then a highlight in the same spot.

Don't they cancel each other out?

Ah the mysteries of makeup application. Anywho, here I'm using Laura Mercier translucent powder but it's a billion years old literally and I think it's caked.  Next you want to powder your entire face to set the foundation and rest of the highlight.


I'm using IT Cosmetics setting powder and an IT brush.  You can clearly see my skin already looks better without the acne and redness.  You can also see the hints of the highlight I added, but it's subtle as it should be.

I'm going to stop here for today.  As I said earlier, there are 22 pictures/steps to show you and it would make for a monster post that would never load.

Next post we do the rest of the contouring, I show you how and where it's supposed to go and we will start in with doing the eye makeup.

Let me know if you have anything you want me to show you! I hope you are liking this so far!

Until next time people.  Any thoughts out there?