Easy Holiday Makeup: How-To

  • Ali

We all need a few new ideas to keep our makeup on trend. He’s my top tips for this seasons looks.

Whether you’re rushing straight from the office and touching up quickly in the cab or have all the time in the world (as if) my advice is always the same; get your nutrition and skincare right first and your skin will glow.

Focus on skin. I believe that skin prep is more important than makeup! It will make all the difference in how you look and feel and in how your makeup sits on your skin. Get this right and the makeup will pretty much take care of itself.

I always prep with a Makeup Primer as it sits so beautifully on the skin, fills any tiny lines, wrinkles or open pores and holds makeup in place for hours. I love Arbonne’s Makeup Primer as it is so light textured I don’t know I’m wearing it. 

No matter what type of foundation formula you choose it will look much more natural if you’ve prepped the skin. With clean formulas, it’s especially important to warm any tint with your fingers before you apply it. I like to apply with my finger or a foundation brush but you can use a dampened beauty blender sponge to sheer it out. Always start at the mid face and blend outwards and into your hairline so you don’t have any skin showing.

Ideally you are only using a foundation to even out the skin. Hide any dark circles, breakouts, and other discoloration with judicious amounts of concealer.  Apply this over the top of your foundation for the best camouflage. If you have dark circles around your eye apply it to these areas. I’ve found that most darkness around the eye area is at the inner corners, away from the laughter lines we all love.

This is the season to really get to grips with an illuminator or highlighter. I love to blend a little under the eyes, at the cupid’s bow and the chin. This creates a triangle of highlighter which is very uplifting. You can even add it to the eye lid right below the brow for a lifting effect and at the décolleté too. And if you’re wearing something bare, mix a little highlighter with your moisturizer and smooth it over your shoulders too.

For me lips and eyes are super important. The thing that makes the biggest difference, after skin, is to curl your lashes. No matter what your day has entailed, curled lases make you look a lot more awake.

I love Arbonne’s  It’s a Long Story Mascara. It’s a high performance, lengthening mascara which won’t clump and clog and sits beautifully all day with no flaking and smudging (nobody likes panda eyes). 

For eyes, I love a light, bright, shimmer around the eyes. You can create this effect with a good chocolate and great gold and blend from the outer edges into the centre. Take the colour along the upper lash line and you could even take it under the bottom lash line to pull the look together.

Finally top your look off with a bold lip. This year’s must have reds are perfect for winter and add a touch of glamour to any outfit day or night. I’m a bit old school with my application. I always use a lip pencil to line the lips and define their shape and then fill in with the same pencil. This ensures my lipstick stays on for hours no matter what I’m up to. I then apply a coat of my favourite Arbonne Smoothed Over Lipstick. This season my favourite is Poppy. 

These plumping and firming lipsticks are ultra moisturising and last for hours. If I can’t find quite the right tone of lipstick I experiment with adding a dab of concealer all over my lips first then applying my lipstick on top. It really tones down a bright colour and means you can go from a subtle day look to a bright night with a single lipstick.

I know it sounds daft but your diet will influence how long your lipstick lasts. I’ve been eating an alkaline diet for years now and have found that the more alkaline my body is, the longer my lipstick lasts. And there are other health benefits too, but I’ll save than for another blog.

Happy holidays and I hope you enjoy the glamour of the season.