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The Power of the Wedding Makeup
Now is not the time to experiment with wild, avant-garde looks or to take the opportunity to wear considerably more makeup than you normally do. You want to avoid looking so different that no one at the wedding will recognize you! You need to find the balance between looking natural but not overdone or washed out. Natural-looking tones that bring out your own individual coloring are what is in order for your wedding day. Steer clear of anything harsh. Check the lighting where your ceremony and reception will be held, and keep it in mind as you plan your makeup. The difference between daylight, soft indoor lighting used in a reception hall, and fluorescent lighting can be extreme and will affect how your makeup looks.
Experiment – Try different foundations, tones, and blushes. Get free makeovers at cosmetic counters. You might even consider having your makeup professionally done, but schedule the consultation with the makeup artist well ahead of time so that you’ll have time to work together. Look at and take full advantage of the wide range of makeup now offered in long-lasting, stay-all-day formulas. These are ideal for minimal touch-ups to your wedding makeup.
Makeup Tips and Suggestions
- Do a completely dry run of your full wedding day makeup and hair routine at least once.
- Don’t try new facial treatments, products, or facials just before your wedding. You don’t know how your skin will react.
- Discover the wonders of blotting papers, now widely available, to remove the shine without adding yet another caked-on layer of powder.
- Build on a good foundation.
- Let moisturizer set for at least 20 minutes before applying foundations.
- Use a long-lasting foundation closely matched to your skin type. Set with loose powder.
- Try out (well beforehand) some of the fun, romantic shimmer lotions and powders. They give an all-over glow and come in a wide array of tines and colors: pearl, pink, bronze, lilac, peach, champagne, gold, and silver. Use them to accent your cheekbones or collarbones, perhaps even your shoulders.
- Use a long-lasting cream blush, a powder blush, or a gel cheek tint to add that rosy glow. It doesn’t have to be rose-colored, however, whatever best accents your own skin coloring: rose plum, caf mocha, shell pink, or peach to name a few.
Makeup for Wedding
Wedding makeup is magic! No, really! Aside from its ability to correct and perfect, great make-up has the power to transform, to convey an idea, theme or mood. Throughout history and across cultures, men, women, and children have worn make-up for many a purpose, from an expression of individuality to a signifier of status and even as a form of protection.
Makeup is part of our daily performances, whether our stage is a stage, a catwalk or the street. What we put on our face is an important part of our costume that we slip into before we leave the sanctuary of our home and step out into the world. With a taste for the eye-catching, we have perused some of the boldest trends already making waves in 2016 and set to make a commotion later on in the year.
Now, what happens on ‘Planet Catwalk’ does not always translate well in the real world. Recreating something that looked utterly ‘fabulous’ on the runaway and making it works for us mere mortals can be a minefield, but in the words of the great Baird, ‘All the world’s a stage: and all the men and women merely players’, it’s time for us to play on and indulges in the bold excess of dramatic make-up!
True blue
The ancient Egyptians thought of blue as a celestial hue, associating it with the sky and divinities, and used it to protect wearers against evil spirits in the afterlife. There is something about the color blue that, once applied to the skin gives it an otherworldly, ethereal property.
Peeps of blue were all over the Spring/Summer 2016 catwalks. Both Roksandr in London and Sonia Rykiel in Paris chose to adorn models with powdery blue smokey eyes in shades of cornflower and sky blue, whilst French designer, Alexis Mabille, opted for something more sea nymph, with a wash of blue-green eye make-up.
Chanel’s SS16 catwalk gave us more of a futuristic take on the trend, with a mask-like sweep of blue across both eyes.
Chanel’s SS16 catwalk 2019
Gold, too bold?
Sumptuous and regal, I am a firm believer that where gold make up is concerned, the bolder the better, and if this year’s catwalks are anything to go by, I’m not the only one.
Gold leaf eyes defined with thick black feline flicks featured in the Creatures of the Wind SS16 collection. The gold lips that were sent out at Prada were utterly unconventional thanks to make-up supremo, Pat McGrath. Whilst the show was the perfect springboard for launching her first-ever make-up product, Gold 001. A gold so unashamedly unrelenting that, when it went on sale days after its fashion week premiere, unsurprisingly the limited stock promptly sold out, leaving many a magpie disappointed.
Ashish’s SS16 collection proved that not all that glitters is gold. Instead, he sent his models down the runway with a smattering of oversized sequins, generously dusted on to their hair and face. Most recently, Burberry‘s Autumn/Winter 2016 range confirmed that we’re not done with the glitter trend yet. Their models sported plenty of glitter fall-out underneath their eyes and around the tops of their cheeks.
Image copyright: Pat McGrath
Makeup for Wedding: Look-at-me lips
Hot Lips
- Consider avoiding high-maintenance shades like fire engine red or deep berry. Stick to neutral shades like rose, pink, or dark peach.
- Try lip stain. It needs to be reapplied less often.
- Try a long-lasting lip pencil instead of lipstick. It won’t budge.
- Slick a bit of long-lasting lip gloss on top of your long-wearing lip color for a dewy finish.
- For very dry lips, use a moisturizing lipstick.
- Put your lipstick on last, after you’ve slipped into your dress, in order to avoid accidental stains.
Statement lips have never been out of fashion! As far back as Ancient Mesopotamia, women have looked to crushing insects and precious stones to concoct their desired lip stain. Thankfully, although we don’t have to go to such extremes nowadays, the appeal of a strong lip is no less enticing and many of us are prepared to spend a pretty penny in search of the perfect lipstick.
Red lips are iconic on their own and as part of an ensemble have the uncanny ability to single-handedly elevate a look. The SS16 collections from designers as varied as Oscar de la Renta, Proenza Schuler, Victoria Beckham, Topshop Unique and Marchesa, to name just a few, go to underline our enduring attraction to the red lip.
Looking ahead to AW16, the red lip seems as if it will mature like ripening fruit, to juicy shades of Merlot as presented at Erdem, dark cherry exhibited by Louis Vuitton and deep blackcurrant tones popular at Dior, Marni, and Rodarte.
Trying to retain perfect lip color throughout your wedding day is easy if you follow these steps:
- Always clean your teeth and moisturize your lips before you start your makeup.
- When you apply your powder to seal your foundation, puff a little over your lips.
- Draw a steady outline with your lip pencil to give yourself an irresistible pout!
- Fill in your lips using the same pencil and blot. This creates a very strong base for your lipstick.
- Apply your lipstick in the manner you are used to. It’s no use experimenting with brushes or wands on the morning of your wedding!
- Blot your lips firmly with tissue paper. Re-apply lipstick and blot again lightly.
- For a glossy look apply some lip gloss (sparingly).
- Finally, put your index finger between your lips as if you were sucking on a lollipop – withdraw it and you will remove any lipstick that would have ended up on your teeth!
Now go and kiss that man!
Wedding Eyes Makeup: The eyes, chico. They never lie
The Eyes Have It
- Try using an eye shadow primer base before applying eye shadow. Colors will go on truer and not slip or crease as much.
- Usually, powder or won’t-budge cream shadows in neutral colors are best. Taupe, brown, smoke lavender, and gray all emphasize your eyes without detracting.
- Use eyeliner of your choice, either a pencil or liquid liner, whichever you normally use. Next, dust some eye shadow powder in a similar color over pencil eyeliner to set.
- In a nutshell- waterproof mascara. It may take a while to locate one that you really like, so try out a few different ones before your wedding day. Take a shower, swim and watch an old tear-jerker movie while wearing it. Try to give the stuff a real workout and see how it stands up.
Graphic eye makeup made itself well and truly known on both the Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter 2106 catwalks. For spring, Italian fashion house, Missoni, opted for boldly colored eyes sans black liner. Cobalt blue, sunshine yellow and turquoise were smudged on to models’ lids and extended into their brows.
The ‘in your face’ eyes at Kenzo’s AW16 show covered two trends in one. Graphic, check! Glitter, double check!! The extended cat eyes on display were certainly a thing to behold.
At Karl Lagerfeld’s Fendi, we were treated to several variations of the cat eye, all black lined and accented in a spectrum of bright colors. The standout look came in the form of an Egyptian-esque eye that would have rivaled Cleopatra’s.
Jeremy Scott chose 60’s inspired whiplash lashes and wing liner, accenting the eye color of the moment, blue, to match his Barbarella meets cowgirl themed collection.
Fendi AW16 eye make-up
Anything goes!
Every season there’s one or two beauty looks that etch themselves on your memory for their unusualness or boundary-pushing.
For SS16 one of the contenders for this award was surely Riccardo Tisci’s Givenchy. He took just a handful of models and made each one up very differently. He then contrasted them with a sea of barefaced models to create this show-stealing impression. Thanks again to the work of Pat McGrath, who on this occasion collaborated with Tisci, a quintet of models took to the runway wearing what can only be described as ‘The Face Mask’. Naturally, these weren’t any old face coverings. Full-faced and heavily embellished with whisper-thin tulle scales and luminescent ivory pearls, another showcased pale blush palettes encrusted with beads and sequins. Whilst another was adorned with gold and crystal jewelry, each drawing on elements of the corresponding model’s dress.
Givenchy SS16 Shawn Brackbill
In its entirety this was most certainly a look that could only work on the catwalk, right? Perhaps, but one thing’s for sure, when the fashion gods decree something to be so, it oft is, before being adapted into something more palatable and wearable for everyday use and performance.