Are you struggling with where to start? Do you need help choosing the right makeup for your skin tone and type? Would you like to know how to correctly apply makeup so that it flatters your features?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above questions, this guide is for you. Below, we’ve listed beginner-friendly tips that are guaranteed to improve your makeup application.

Don’t Buy a Lot of Products

When you’re a beginner to makeup, the last thing you need to do is go out and invest in a huge assortment of products. It’s quite easy to spend hundreds of dollars on makeup, and then be miserable with everything you’ve purchased.

Instead of buying everything from eyelash primer to finishing spray, start off with the basics. Every beginner makeup kit needs mascara and lipstick. That’s pretty much it! Of course, as you get more comfortable with applying makeup, you’ll no doubt increase your selection of lipstick colors, and venture off into eyeshadows, blushes, foundations, and more. But when you’re a true beginner, start off with two products that you love and expand from there.

Don’t Apply Makeup to a Dirty Face

Applying makeup to a dirty face is asking for serious skin problems later in life. In fact, breakouts and acne may not hold off until much later. Never apply cosmetics on top of other cosmetics that have been sitting on your face for hours. The one exception to this rule is lipstick. You can reapply lipstick or gloss. However, when it comes to applying foundations or powders, be sure to clean off what you’re currently wearing first and give your pores a chance to breathe.

Don’t Use Dirty Brushes to Apply Your Makeup

It’s easy to neglect makeup brushes. Unless you schedule a time each week to clean them, you’ll never even think about your makeup brushes until it’s time to apply your products. But, using dirty makeup brushes can introduce bacteria to your skin. Eww. Instead of taking the risk, set aside time on the weekend to wash your brushes.

To clean your brushes, fill a small bowl with warm water and a couple of squirts of your shampoo. Next, gently submerge and swirl your brush in the soapy water. You can also loosen dried-on makeup with your fingers. Then, rinse the brush under warm water and lay on a clean towel to dry.

Don’t Skip Your Eyebrows

Eyebrows are an important part of your face but often overlooked. When done well and intentionally, your brows will perfectly frame your face. If you have the time (make the time, if you don’t) fill in your brows. You can use a matte eyeshadow to fill in the sparse areas of your brows. Don’t go too dark, though! It can create an unwanted cartoon villain effect. Go for a subtle color that’s the same shade as your brows or maybe a shade lighter. If your brows are a very light shade of blonde, you can go darker to define them more.

Don’t Create Fake Brows

While you shouldn’t skip your brows, you definitely don’t want to draw on dramatic fake brows. Huge, drawn on brows come across like furry caterpillars. It’s never a good look. Instead, work with the eyebrows that you have and just focus on making them a little more defined, especially if you’re wearing foundation. (Foundation can “wash out” eyebrows.)

Don’t Sleep in Your Makeup

At the end of the day, when you’re exhausted and can barely motivate yourself off of the couch, it can be pretty tempting to simply fall asleep in your makeup. But resist the temptation. Not only can sleeping in makeup clog pores, it can actually make them bigger! Makeup can stretch pores while settling into them. Sleeping with makeup on your skin can also dry it out because your skin doesn’t have the ability to rebalance itself.

Don’t Pump Your Mascara

Pumping the mascara wand is a common trick that’s thought to get more mascara out of the container. However, it’s an all-around bad idea. Pumping your mascara wand can introduce bacteria into the mascara container. It also causes the mascara to dry out faster. And, to make matters worse, it can lead to clumpy application. Instead, if you’d like to get more mascara on your wand, simply swirl the wand gently in the container first. And remember, mascara expires after three months.

Do Apply Concealer After Foundation

When you have dark circles under your eyes, minor blemishes, or redness, a concealer is your best friend. However, a common rookie mistake is to apply concealer first before applying foundation. That’s not the most effective strategy, however. When you apply foundation first, it can actually cancel out a lot of the unevenness or discoloration in your skin. Then, you can top it off with a little bit of concealer to ensure full coverage. Doing it in this order can save more of your concealer, too.

Do Blend Your Eye Shadows

If you choose to wear multiple eye shadows on your lids, be sure to blend! Having severe lines where one color stops is a no-no. Instead, grab a brush and blend the colors together to create a smoother transition.

Do Pay Attention to Your Skin

Over the course of your life, your skin often changes. Make sure that you’re paying attention to any changes in your skin, including rashes, breakouts, itchiness, or redness. These can point to possible allergies or even gluten sensitivities.

Source: redapplelipstick

Image: Pexels

The post Do’s and Dont’s for Makeup Beginners appeared first on NK Beauty.

The trend has changed now. Men applying makeup is a piece of common knowledge. When done right, makeup can help enhance your features. It can help in bringing out the best of your facial features. We are not just talking about foundation, liner and all, but a basic and simple application that every man can follow.

Trim the facial hair

Face cleaning

Apply moisturizer

Next up is concealer

Choose the right foundation

Use ace powder

Something for the lips

Source: zoomtventertainment

Image: Pexels

The post Simple yet essential makeup tips for men to follow appeared first on NK Beauty.

For most consumers, there’s uncertainty about which colors will go best with their complexion or features.  To make matters worse, we now live in a day and age where there are more color options than ever before.  The internet is loaded with videos of bloggers and web-stars using rainbow palettesfull of technicolor shadows and blushes.  It’s not surprising that we would get overwhelmed.  But before you give up your search, let me give you a basic lesson on color theory and the color wheel for makeupthat might simplify the process.

The Basics

To begin, we want to understand our terminology.  When we are choosing a makeupcolor, we want to distinguish some qualities about that color.  Technically, color has three distinct qualities:  Hue, Saturation and Depth.

• Hue is what the actual color is, red, blue, brown etc. When we’re choosing which hue will work best for us, we want to first consider what colors we have in our skin, hair and eyes.  For example, people with blond hair and blue eyes tend to look good in gold and brown eyeshadows.  If your skin is cool or pink undertone, you’ll probably look good in soft pink blush and lipstick while people with tan skin and brown eyes, look good in grey, silver and blue eyeshadows.

• Saturation is how intense the color is. Highly saturated colors work well for dramatic looks while low saturation colors look softer.  For example, for natural looking, daytime pink blush, we want a blush that’s not too saturated.  While we typically want a red lipstick worn in the evening to have a lot of saturation.  Keep in mind that, just because a color is very saturated doesn’t mean it will be dark.  It will just be intense or bright against the tone of your skin.

• Depth, of course, means how light or dark the color is.  It’s important to consider the depth of your skin when choosing the depth of your makeup colors.  For a color that’s too light may not show up while a color that’s too dark may look more dramatic than you want.

When choosing colors that work well with our features, we typically look at our skin, eyes and hair color to determine what will work best.  We have the option of using colors that are similar to our features – Monochromatic, or using colors that are opposite the color of our features – Contrasting.  To help us understand, look at the color wheel.  Colors on the opposite side of the color wheel are contrasting and colors that match are monochromatic.

Let’s take a closer look at the color wheel for makeup.Historically it was thought that blue eyeshadow would make the eyes look bluer, but in reality, we realized that the pigment of a blue eyeshadow would inevitably be bluer than the eyes thus making the eye look less blue in comparison.  We realized that colors like orange, gold and copper are best for contrasting with blue eyes to make themlook bluer in comparison.  Likewise, green eyes looks most green when enhanced with purple.  Brown eyes have often been confusing since blue is the closest opposite of brown.  In reality, a brown eye looks just as beautiful when enhanced with cool colors such as grey, platinum or silver.

With all of this information stated, it is important to know that you don’t have to wear these colors to make your eyes look good.  We’ve found that varying levels of flesh tones, soft browns and neutral taupes look beautiful on most eye colors.

Correction Before Enhancement

Now that we understand what our color options are we may want to start exploring new colors.  But before we go creating our look and choosing the colors that we do want, we must first take a critical look at our face and make sure we’re properly correcting any discoloration we don’t want.  I’ve had many clients tell me they can’t wear purple eyeshadow because it brings out their dark circles.  My response to that is “what concealer are you using?”  If you don’t properly correct dark circles, no shadow will look good.  This is another important element to color theory.

If we have discoloration, we don’t need stage makeup or heavy concealer to fix the problem.  We work smarter, not harder – with color correcting makeup.  If there is redness around your eyes, or in your cheeks, a yellow based concealer or a yellow based foundation will definitely neutralize the redness.  If you have grey, blue or purple circles, use a peach concealer to neutralize the darkness.  This also works great for hyperpigmentation. You’ll be amazed at how much more easily you can cover the discoloration.  Once your skin has an even tone and your dark circles are covered, you’ll be able to choose any blush or eyeshadow color without worrying that you’ll bring out these issues.

If your entire face has a lot of natural redness and you don’t want to try to cover it, then apply a gold-based bronzer to soften then red.  Likewise, if your skin is very sallow or gold, try a peach or pink based bronzer. These opposing colors can help neutralize your undertone and enhance your complexion.

Dramatic Vs Natural

Another challenge I see consumers face is whether they can get away with dramatic looks or not.  So many of us stick to soft, muted and natural looking colors because we think we can’t get away with drama.  I can’t tell you how many women I’ve met that have 5 of the same color lipsticks from a bunch of different brands…. forever in pursuit of the perfect pink brown.  We wear a color once and get a few compliments and then we think that’s what we’re supposed to wear when in reality, we’re capable of much more diversity than we think.  My recommendation is to go up to the lipstick unit, close your eyes, pick a color and wear it for the day.  Don’t look at yourself and make comparisons to how you normally look.  Look at yourself as if you were a stranger you met on the street.  You may surprise yourself!  And don’t be afraid to try some red.

Source: janeiredale

Image: Pexels

The post What colour makeup should I wear? appeared first on NK Beauty.