Take your makeup from day to night with my makeup artist’s tips!
An evening out straight from work means you want to refresh and update your daytime makeup and transform it into an evening makeup. But what does this mean exactly?
What’s the difference between a daytime makeup and an evening makeup anyway?
It’s all about the light. Natural bright daylight lets us see everything, every small detail and is neutral in color. In the evening we use artificial sources of light. Overall the light is dimmer, softer and often more yellow. We can’t make out as much detail, and contrasts are softer. Artificial light is also more forgiving.
For makeup this means that in the evening you can (and may want to) use stronger contrasts and colors (sometimes even those which might look harsh in the daytime) to accentuate your eyes, lips and cheeks.
Also, you might want to add some glow and shimmer which beautifully pick up the softer evening light.
Clean and Refresh
Start with some cleaning around the eyes
I often start retouching with the eyes, so if any pigments fall from the eyes onto the cheeks they don’t ruin my freshly retouched skin.
Take a dry (!) cotton bud and wipe gently under your eyes, over your eyelids and anywhere where makeup and dirt may have settled in lines and creases. Make sure to check the corners of your eyes.
If the dry cotton bud doesn’t work moisten it lightly with a tiny bit of moisturizer. You don’t want it to be too wet in order to not damage the parts of your makeup you want to keep.
Make your eyes intense
To make the eyes more intense, I often use a soft pencil like the … eye pencil by Victoria Beckham. I draw a thick line on the eyelids along the lash line and continue over the outer corner into a cat eye. Then I smudge the line upwards until it blends seamlessly. I do the same under the eye, just a bit less intense.
Try using black on the upper lid and dark brown on the lower. This makeup artist’s trick makes for a soft but intense smokey eye. 😉
If you have a bit more time at hand for your evening makeup and you want to try a smokey eye, you’ll find here my tutorial for a fast and easy version.
Add some shimmer
Metallic or shimmery eyeshadow can be added on top of the pencil. The shimmery texture will give your makeup a more sophisticated look.
With a bronze or coppery color you can never go wrong. But you can also go for something more bold. Remember: the light at night takes away a lot of the intensity.
Try a deep aubergine with purple reflections when you have olive skin. A dark green looks stunning on a paler complexion.
(You may notice that I rather look at a skin tone for color choice than eye color. The question of color choiceactually deserves a post on its own. In the meantime and to make it short: I personally find that you can use whatever color pleases you, apart from maybe a strong version of your eye color. On my own blue eyes for example I could wear anything but a very bright blue.)
Don’t be shy with mascara
Mascara is my absolute favorite makeup item, both for daytime and evening makeup. Reapply black mascara generously, insisting on the lash base for volume and make sure you cover all the fine ends. Brush your lashes with a clean brush right away, before the mascara has dried. This will remove clumps, smoothen your lashes and give overall a more natural and elegant look.
If you want to read more about my thoughts on mascara, it’s to be found here.
Groom your eyebrows
Check your eyebrows if they need any retouching (quite often they don’t). If necessary, brush them up and fix them with transparent eyebrow gel.
Clean and freshen up your foundation
The eye area being reworked and revamped, it’s now time to touch up your foundation.
Again, clean with a dry cotton bud or with a bit of cream when necessary. Check if product residue, foundation, concealer or powder, has settled in lines. Make sure to go over your cheeks and remove any fallen eye makeup pigments or bits of mascara.
Then reapply small amounts of foundation with light dabbing movements. Avoid stroking motion and using too much pressure as this might damage your base.
You can do the same with concealer. But make sure you use very small amounts of product to avoid ending up with a heavy result.
Retouching problem skin and widened pores
Skin with imperfections and widened pores, where foundation and concealer settle, is notoriously difficult to retouch. You should remove all product over the concerned area (for example your nose) and reapply your foundation from scratch. Just make sure you blend the “new part” into the “old part” very carefully and with a light hand.
Powder and blush
Powder your T-zone lightly, and wherever you feel like wanting less shine, with dabbing movements (rather than strokes). But remember, a bit of glow looks very pretty in the softer evening light. Choose a light reflecting powder like the Light Reflecting Fixing Powder from Nars to give your skin a smooth and silky glow.
Blush tends to “disappear” over the day, probably because we touch our faces. But also, in the evening we might want to liven up the color a bit (see the part above about the light). While a cream blush is nice for a very natural day makeup, for a more pronounced nighttime blush I recommend using powder blush. It will be easier to blend from intense to transparent and the pwder texture will also add a bit more sophistication.
Apply it the way you applied your daytime blush, either high up for freshness or a bit lower for structure.
Whichever style you apply your blush, I personally prefer products without shimmer. Instead, I’d rather add some creamy shimmer a bit higher up, on top of the cheeks. This I find adds more dimension.
Add some color to your lips
Remove whatever is left of your daytime lipstick entirely and make sure to check the fine lines around your lips (if you have any). To define your lips contour and to make your lip makeup more longlasting, apply lipliner. You may even fill the lips with the liner for a highly pigmented base. Then apply your lipstick of choice, either directly from the bullet or, makeup artist style, with a brush. With strong colors I always recommend using a brush, for more precision and because you can correct the shape of your lips.
Eyes or lips? Why not both… 😉
As for the rule “eyes or lips, never the two”, when it comes to sophisticated evening makeup I want to say “forget it!”. A smokey eye and a deep red lip? They can look stunning together! Especially if I you wear a black dress. When it come to makeup, it all depends on the context!
If you emphasize both eyes and lips you may want to go lighter on the blush. Also: always make sure the colors look good together. And of course, your makeup must work with your outfit.
Enjoy your night out!
By Louise Wittlich
(Makeup on the model in the picture by Louise Wittlich)
*All models’s on all pictures of this blog are made up by me, unless otherwise stated.
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