Not Interested Entertainment

So for my first arti­cle here at Not­In­ter­ested, I decided to post a step-by-step guide of some­thing I absolutely love to do: make-up. These pho­tos were all taken back in August, how­ever, and I change my meth­ods fre­quently. A few of the steps in this How-to are actu­ally out­dated com­pared to how I do make-up now, but I’ll attempt to explain what all I’ve learned just in the few months between now and when these pho­tos were taken.

Clearly, I’m no pro­fes­sional, and my train­ing is lim­ited to one course in the­atri­cal stage make-up, years of my dance teacher telling us how to do make-up for shows and recitals, and of course, play­ing around on myself and my friends and fam­ily as guinea pigs for more years than I can remem­ber! So obvi­ously, take my advice with a grain of salt, or take from it what you will.

This is me with no make-up. Yikes. This is also why I always wear make-up when my boyfriend is around. Because with­out it, I look busted as hell. In this photo, I’ve prepped my face by wash­ing it with a cleanser (I like acne-fighting cleansers that tin­gle a bit [see below], but I have REALLY non-sensitive combo skin, so if yours is sen­si­tive, you might want to look into dif­fer­ent prod­ucts?? Maybe??), apply­ing toner with a cot­ton ball (I used to use cot­ton pads, but they leave cot­ton fibers in my eye­lashes! Do not want!!), and then using a non-oily mois­tur­izer all over. The mois­tur­izer step is REALLY impor­tant, because not only does it fill/protect your pores with a prod­uct that’s much bet­ter for them than make-up, it also makes blend­ing a hell of a lot eas­ier.
Prod­ucts: Clean&Clear Deep Action Creme Cleanser or Biore Pore Unclog­ging Scrub, L’Oreal Hydrafresh Toner (it’s pink~!), and Clean&Clear Morn­ing Burst Shine-Control Moisturizer

Next, I applied foun­da­tion all over using my (very clean!!) fin­gers. I used to pre­fer fin­gers over brushes because appli­ca­tion was always heav­ier, and the warmth from my body heat made it blend bet­ter. Now, I’m all about this new foun­da­tion brush that’s cur­rently all the rage with make-up artists and fans. I also apply con­cealer either at this stage, or after pow­der­ing, depend­ing on my mood. Here you can see I ONLY have it on my left eye. I don’t like to wear as much con­cealer now as I am in this photo, because con­ceal­ing some of the nat­ural shad­ows under the eye actu­ally makes my eyes look smaller.
Prod­ucts: MAC Stick Foun­da­tion (NOT RECOMMENDED. IT BLENDS TERRIBLY. Their liq­uid foun­da­tion is won­der­ful, how­ever.), Clin­ique All About Eyes concealer

The next step is to POWDER. WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT FORGET TO POWDER. A lot of peo­ple hold the com­mon mis­con­cep­tion that foun­da­tion is what gives you that air­brushed effect, but really it is the com­bi­na­tion of foun­da­tion and POWDER. With­out it, not only does your foun­da­tion have no stay­ing power, but it also makes you look shiny in pho­tos, which is NOT a good thing to be! I know “dewy” is the lat­est hot word in the make-up indus­try, but when it comes to pho­tog­ra­phy, you’re going to want to be MATTE-MATTE-MATTE. Save the “dewy” look for reg­u­lar days, when “nat­ural” is key. (Aka, at your job, school, dates, etc.)
Prod­uct: prob­a­bly either Bare Escen­tu­als Min­eral Veil or Cov­er­Girl TRUblend Min­er­als. (I like min­eral pow­ders. Makes me feel slightly more nat­ural kinda?)

Next, I applied a base shade of lilac all over my lid because, obvi­ously, this was a make-up test for Dr. Girl­friend, who wears promi­nent pur­ple eye­shadow. This was dur­ing my “I don’t need no stinkin’ primer!!” phase, which I shift in and out of (right now I’m out). Hon­estly, I think using primer is per­sonal choice. If you don’t put foun­da­tion in your eye area, yeah, you should prob­a­bly use it, and if you REALLY want your pig­ments to be true and have a lot of color pay-off, you should DEFINITELY get a primer, but depend­ing on my mood, I don’t always feels it’s nec­es­sary. I also applied blush in this step, in a sweep­ing cir­cu­lar motion from the top of my cheek­bone near the hair­line to the cor­ners of my smile.
Prod­ucts: Either my ULTA $20 make-up palette eye­shadow in Zephyr, or May­belline Expert Wear Eye­shadow in Last­ing Lilac… wait, def­i­nitely the for­mer. Also, Cov­er­Girl Cheek­ers Blush in Rose Silk.

Next, I did the “Car­mindy” and applied a pale laven­der in the cor­ner of my eyes and under the brow on the outer edges, and then applied a medium-dark pur­ple along my crease, start­ing some­where between the mid­dle and inner cor­ner of my eye, and grad­u­ally swoop­ing up into the outer cor­ner to cre­ate lift. Now would be a good time to point out the dif­fer­ence between eye­shadow with primer and with­out. This is with­out primer. Note how the color is kind of translu­cent. Had I used a primer, the color would be much more intensely pig­mented.
Prod­ucts: ULTA $20 make-up palette eye­shadow in Bloom (high­light) and Wild­flower (Shadow/Crease/Contour)

Err, same as before. Just with 10x the creepy. Now every­one knows why I smile so much, because DAMN. I appear to be con­tem­plat­ing how to go about DEVOURING YOUR SOUL.

Next is DRAWING TIME~! That’s right ladies, I said it’s time to DRAW. I lined my eyes along the inner rim (water­line), and tight against the upper lashes, grad­u­ally increas­ing to a thicker line on the out­side that flicks up for an instant eye lift! (Note the dif­fer­ence between the last pic­ture and this one!) Also, I filled in my eye­brows with brown eye­shadow, my favorite brow filler because it’s retarded to pay for eye­shadow mar­keted sep­a­rately as “Brow Liner” when I already have some­thing per­fectly suit­able! Finally, I lined my lips to make them look fuller and more defined, since Dr. G has the look of a woman who knows how to do her face. I looooove lipliner because it INSTANTLY makes my lips look fuller (yes, even though I stay within the lines of my nat­ural lip!), and pos­si­bly even tricks you into think­ing that I have nice lips! HAHA! Although this step is not rec­om­mended if you’re cos­play­ing a school­girl, maybe.
Prod­ucts: Pal­la­dio liq­uid eye­liner in black (top lid only), Rim­mel Lon­don Soft Kohl eye­liner pen­cil in black (water­line), Mary Kay lipliner in Dusty Pink, Revlon Matte eye­shadow in Rich Sable

Finally, I fill in the lips with color and apply mas­cara, mak­ing sure to apply a few more extra coats on the lashes in the outer cor­ners for, of course, more lift!
Prod­ucts: I think I used like, 80 com­bi­na­tions of lip­stick and gloss to get this color, but for simplicity’s sake, I’m going with what I used at Dragon*con: Natrob­bins Stay-put Matte Lip­color in Real Pink and May­belline Wet Shine Dia­monds liq­uid lip­gloss in Spoiled in Rubies. Mas­cara is May­belline Define-A-Lash Water­proof Mas­cara (I ALWAYS go water­proof because I have watery eyes and it has greater stay­ing power. Some peo­ple hate water­proof mas­cara, but I love it. In case you’re won­der­ing, the only dif­fer­ence between the two is an increase in wax in the formula.)

Now, to repeat myself, I am not a pro­fes­sional, and I am in no way say­ing that “my way is the only way.” Also, I pur­posely used inex­pen­sive prod­ucts in this tuto­r­ial because I believe that with the right appli­ca­tion (usu­ally this means brushes more so than skill), inex­pen­sive make-up can be just as good as what you buy for dou­ble the price at Sephora or MAC. I’m not diss­ing MAC, they do have some great prod­ucts (and at work, I can get them with a 25% dis­count!), but not every­thing they cre­ate is worth the price if there’s a truly com­pa­ra­ble prod­uct put out by Cov­er­Girl or May­belline or any other drug­store brand. (Just stay away from Wet & Wild and NYC, etc. That’s TOO cheap.)

I hope you enjoyed my first how-to here at Not Inter­ested Enter­tain­ment as much as I enjoy putting on make-up and shar­ing what I’ve learned! Katie out!