When it comes to make-up and how to apply it
I am pretty clueless. I do have a cosmetics bag with a few pencil stubs, dried out tubes of mascara and random eye shadows, but I have never been too sure what I am supposed to do with them. Which may be why I am so taken with the Stila Talking Palette: it’s a little eye shadow case with four colours and a button. Press the button and the voice of a make-up artist talks you step by step, through the process for creating that
contemporary smoky eye look.
I don’t try out the ingenious device however, because I am getting a full make-up lesson at Le Visage, in Camana Bay. Sharron Eyers, the owner, has been a professional make-up artist for many years and is now running private sessions to teach people how to achieve a
certain look, or just get them looking pretty for a special occasion.
“Make-up is about creating an illusion,” she says. “It’s all about lifting.” Up and out seems to be almost a mantra to repeat with each successive product that is applied, I learn. Something else I discover is that the array of products and the kaleidoscope of colours they come in are not as fearsome as they appear.
Le Visage had just received its first shipment of Stila cosmetics – a modern, innovative brand from California that is a favourite among celebrities and often worn on the red carpet – so this was what Sharron was using for my demonstration.
On the shelf, sitting in their funky patterned tubes and eco-friendly boxes, the pinks, oranges and reds of the lip and cheek products look, to my untrained eye, to be a touch on the bright side. Garish even.
The last thing I want is to look heavily made up, especially in colours more suited to teenagers on a night out. I do, however, have to concede that Stila does make life easier for people like me (who don’t really want to spend hours messing around with a dozen different lotions, potions, pens and powders) not only with innovations like the Talking Palette but also with their multi-tasking products. A number of products incorporate several functions in one, such as the Lip and Cheek Stains (a lip colour and blush in one), the Smudge Pots (an inky gel that can be variously applied wet or dry with fingers, brushes or smudgers, functioning as both eyeliner and eye shadow) and the tinted moisturizers that give you a sun-kissed look while protecting the skin with SPF20.
As I settle down to be transformed, Sharron explains, “If you are going for more dramatic eyes, you should do the eyes before the rest of the face, so that any specs that fall can be easily wiped off.” As it’s the middle of the day though, she is showing me how to achieve a much more natural look – something that she says can take longer than the more heavily made up look.
My prior knowledge of cosmetics did not even stretch to primers, but the One Step primer that is my first step to looking red-carpet ready, was something of a revelation. Inside the clear bottle are three separate swirls of lotion: green to counteract redness, lavender to cancel out sallow spots and peach to neutralise age spots. At the same time it is magically correcting colours the lotion is also brightening and hydrating the skin, tightening pores and reducing fine lines and pigmentation. Already I look a little healthier.
Next is foundation. I mention that finding the right shade is a bit of a mystery to me. “Forget what they tell you about testing it on the back of your hand, that is not where you are going to wear it,” Sharron tells me. Instead, test it along the jaw line. If it blends seamlessly, that’s the right shade for you.” The Illuminating foundation she chooses certainly seems to make me look rather more glowing than usual.
Interestingly, concealer goes on after foundation, and the blush goes on under the final, dusting of loose powder.
Choosing the right colours, I learn, is not as baffling as it seems. Stila have a very clever Custom Blush, which in its container looks to be shocking pink but once applied reacts with your skin’s pH to give you just the right rosy glow. Phew – those vibrant colours don’t look nearly as frightening on the skin as they do on the shelf.
When it comes to the eyes it’s as simple as looking at a colour wheel and complementing one colour with its opposite. “You need to enhance the eyes, but if you use make up in colours that are similar to the eye colour, the eyes don’t stand out,” says Sharron. Dark eyes can carry off more colours, but blue eyes, for example, will be enhanced by colours that are opposite to blue. On the colour wheel this would be orange, but in the world of cosmetics copper tones and warm browns are the closest one gets to orange.
Sharron chooses an earthy, coppery tone for me from Kevin Aucoin, the other line of cosmetics Le Visage carries.
The up and out theme applies to eyes as well. “Eyeliner should always go on the top lid, to lift the eyes. If you put it on the bottom lids only, it has the effect of pulling the eyes down.” She demonstrates how to use the smudge pots and a fine brush to get the colour as close to the lashes as possible, in such a way that there is not an obvious dark line. For a natural day time look, she applies mascara only to the outer edges of my top eyelashes – upward and outwards again – to make my close-together eyes appear further apart.
The final touch is lip colour, which brings it all together. Again, finding a shade that is good for you is not that baffling – Stila lip colours come in clear tubes, and Sharron shows how, if you just hold a colour up to your face you can instantly see if the colour works for you. The colours again look rather vivid for me taste, but in reality just one coat is very subtle. The cosmetics are designed to be layered, so that the colours become stronger the more coats you apply.
A balance does need to be maintained between eyes and mouth though – if you go for dramatic eyes, then leave the mouth fairly natural. A crimson lipstick on the other hand, is offset by more moderate eyes.
The end result is far more subtle than I had expected. I don’t feel caked in make-up and I look like I have a healthy, natural glow. Maybe with practice I can manage to recreate the effect myself.
Related Videos
