Easy guide to the perfect face makeup...

Hello again!

This is beginning to become a regular occurrence... Once again I'm sick of tirelessly writing about phallocentrism (the world's obsession with penises), so I have found myself wanting to blog about something a bit more lady-friendly.

Forget about this silly obsession with the male genitalia, for however long I can remember, girls have been obsessing over one thing and one thing alone; achieving flawless face makeup. Now I'm going to try and make this blog as simple and as accessible to everyone as possible, but I'm not going to lie to you all, the better your tools and materials, the better the end result will be.

I have always struggled to find the perfect foundation for my skin, and I have literally tried them all and never found one that I was really happy with. They were all either too thick, too thin, too gloopy, too orange, too white or rubbed off as soon as anything came into contact with my face. This Christmas, I decided to ask my mum to help me invest in a nicer and more professional brand. After trolling through Debenhams, I came across the BareMinerals counter and asked the lady to match some of the makeup to my skin tone - I fell IN LOVE. It literally feels so silky and so beautiful, and the coverage for a powdered mineral foundation is astonishing.

So for Christmas, my mum and dad bought me the BareMinerals starter kit, which looks a bit like this:

It includes 3 applicator brushes, a primer, a foundation, a bronzer, a veil, which is basically like a setting/blending powder, and 2 help guides (one is a DVD - how high tech). This all cost £45, which I think is pretty damn good for what you are getting, both in terms of quality and quantity. I think this was a special Christmas offer, but to my knowledge, the kit is usually priced around £50-60, which is still not too shabby. I can seriously recommend an investment!

Essentially, if you have good tools, like the BareMinerals starter kit, then you are well on your way to achieving flawless face makeup.

Where to begin? Well, make sure your skin is clean and thoroughly moisturised before you start - you can't create a masterpiece on a shit canvas! I also use Benefit's pore minimiser, see below, which is great if you have a holey crater face like mine. You don't need to apply much, just a light coating of there areas you feel your pores are most visible, e.g. nose, forehead, t-zone etc.

After applying my pore minimiser, I then use the BareMinerals primer in my starter kit. Only a pea sized amount is necessary to cover your whole face - you don't want to cake it.

That's skin prep done! I know it's a mish, but if you want to look flawless it takes a lot of effort. Next onto contouring - yawn, I know, but if you want to accentuate (or fake) your cheekbones, it is essential. Everyone's face shape is different, and we all want to accentuate and detract from different areas, but I think this diagram is simple enough to apply to everyone:

Basically, the lighter shades are areas you want to highlight, and the darker shades are areas you want to define - a good contour job can work miracles in terms of sculpturing your face. Here is my own personal attempt....

Yes, I look silly and gaunt and ridiculous, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do. I used an old foundation which I found thick enough to fake it as a concealer. I have quite a big forehead, which is why I chose to use the darker defining shades more in that area. To create the darker shading, I blended the foundation on my hand with Primark (yes Primark) bronzer, which I think cost me no more that £2. After a good blend, this is how may face was shaping up:

Notice how my cheekbones are quite prominent and the area above my brow is prepped to create a good arch when I fill them in - this will however come in another blog, sorry!

Now for the application of my BareMinerals makeup. It is hard to sufficiently describe application in words alone, so I filmed short snippets of myself putting it on; think a lot of buffing and brush strokes:

Next for bronzer. The application is again similar to the foundation, but we want to concentrate on the darker areas we previous contoured. I find the best way to apply this is using a sweeping number '3' motion down the side of my face. Here is a video to demonstrate:

Finally, we need to apply the veil to seal the makeup, and then we're good to go! I always spray a cheeky bit of hairspray on my face as well just to make sure it's all concrete!

So thanks for reading guys, I hope this helps some contour novices out there; it really does make a world of difference! My next blog should cover the rest of my makeup regime (brows and eyes) so keep a look out for that! x