Makeup For Special Situations

Sometimes Our Everyday Makeup just isn't enough and nighttime makeup is too much. Perhaps we need help to correct a situation, want something special to get married in, or something that won't make our eyes look bug-like behind glasses. The great thing about makeup is it is adaptable and helpful - if you've got a beauty situation, makeup can be of assistance.

Looking Good in Photographs

You're going to have your picture taken and you want to look your best. What do you do? Focus on creating the most flawless skin possible. After smoothing on foundation, pat concealer onto discolored areas, and then blend everything before powdering to make sure there are no lines of demarcation. If you don't normally wear eyeliner and lip liner, try putting some on - they'll help define your eyes and lips and keep them from "looking lost" in photographs. While you can afford to go a bit brighter with the blush and lipstick, don't go overboard - overly heavy makeup will look overly heavy in pictures. Choose clear colors. Murky mauves, brown-burgundies, and grayed roses don't translate well on film and can make you look ill and washed out. While an extra coat of mascara is a good idea, keep the eye shadow lightly applied, medium to light in tone, and neutral in color; too much dark eye shadow (or overly bright eye shadow) can make eyes look small in photographs.

Eyeglass and Contact Lens Wearers

Eyeglasses can distort the eyes, making them look smaller or larger than they really are. Fortunately, makeup can counteract the effects of glasses. When you're farsighted, you have trouble seeing things that are near you, therefore your glasses make objects appear farther away. They also make your eyes seem a bit smaller, so play up your eyes with an extra coat of mascara. If you like bright eye-shadow shades, you can afford to experiment with bold colors, as long as you blend makeup well. Eyeliner drawn along the top lashes will help further define the eye.

When you're nearsighted, you have trouble seeing distant objects, therefore your glasses help magnify these. They also magnify your eye area, which means unblended makeup, clumpy mascara, and smudged eyeliner is more noticeable to people around you. If you're nearsighted and wear glasses, opt for subtle eye-makeup colors, and be scrupulous about blending eye shadow, cleaning up smudges, and combing out any clumps of mascara.

A special warning for contact lens wearers; If a mascara flakes, don't wear it; the flakes can become trapped between your contact and the eye.

If you're a contact-lens wearer, put your contacts in before putting on your makeup. As for eye makeup, go easy on the eyeliner - or avoid it altogether - and do not use lengthening mascaras, which often contain fibers that can get in your eyes and cause irritation.

Makeup for Brides

Conventional wedding wisdom recommends soft, pink-tinted makeup. Yet, pink is more girly than womanly, and many brides do not want to look girly. I know I didn't, so i wore a lipstick that was both bright and deep - a dark red touched with a bit of brown. And instead of the peach or pink or lavender eye shadow so many bridal brown magazines were pushing, my makeup artist covered my eye with a neutral beige, smudged a smoky brown in the crease, then gave me winged black eyeliner, heavy black lashes, and just-dramatic-enough brows. I looked strong and glamorous - which is exectly the way I wanted to appear. Why am I telling you this? To show you that there is more than one way to face your wedding day. Ignore the wedding planners, those relentless wedding magazines, the makeup artist in the salon where you get your hair done, your mother, and your cousin. Instead, think about what you find beautiful and don't be afraid of makeup that is strong or sexy. After all, marriage is a very adult step - it's nice to look like an adult when you walk down the aisle.

Regardless of what makeup shades you choose, or how you decide to wear them, you'll want your skin to look perfect. Not only will all eyes be on you during the ceremony and after, there are wedding pictures to worry about - if your skin looks blotchy, it will look more so in those wedding photographs. Spend time applying foundation, use a brush to apply concealer where needed, and use a good pressed powder.

If you're wearing mascara on your special day, make sure it's waterproof!. You never know when an emotional moment may strike.

Staying power

Furthermore, your makeup has to last through hours of tears, kisses, dancing, champagne drinking, and more. A good way to ensure makeup stays put is to use both cream and powder versions of everything. Apply foundation and concealer, then use cream blush and eye shadow. After dusting on face powder, apply powder blush and powder eye shadow. If you use pencil eyeliner, go over it with an eyeliner brush dipped in a similar shade of eye Shadow. This double-teaming is a great technique to use any time you need budge-proof makeup.

Creating even Features

Very few people are blessed with perfectly symmetrical features. Eyes and lips are often uneven and one side of a face can be quite different from the other. Luckily, we have makeup, which is great for giving features a more balanced look.

Balancing your eyes

Many people have one eye that is lower, larger, or rounder than the other. One of the easiest ways to "fix" this is to get a medium taupe, tan, brown, or gray eye shadow and an eyeliner brush, and then gently "redraw" the eye. If one eye is higher than the other, you can line each eye at the lower lashes, making the line slightly thicker on the eye that is higher.

A thinner lower lip can look fuller if you use a slightly lighter shade of lip color than the shade you use on the upper lip.

Perfecting Lip Shape

Uneven lips are common. To create a more even outline, find a medium-to-dark, neutral lip liner, such as a natural spice or rose-brown shade. Use it to "beef up" the thin part of the lip by drawing slightly outside the lip's natural line. Fill the entire lip in with the pencil, then apply the lipstick of your choice. Be aware that light and frosty colors don't have the coverage necessary to pull off this effect, so stick with medium-to-dark, non-frosty shades.