AFRICAN AMERICAN

With a wide variety of rich skin tones, African American women have a tricky undertaking in finding the right makeup shade, despite the fact that makeup lines have improved vastly in the past few years. If you choose the wrong color family, you might find yourself with a flat complexion or an ashen look. But with a little guidance, you can find a color combination that works for you.

One of the great things about having a deep complexion is being able to wear bold shades, which might overpower women with fairer skin. This includes gold, bronze, orange, fuchsia and silver makeup. Just be sure to wear these colors judiciously; select a feature to which you’d like to draw attention and focus on that, leaving the rest of your face neutral. All it takes are the right techniques to enhance your natural beauty.

At Simply Moore, we custom-blend foundation for all of our clients to match individual skin tone, skin type, and skin texture. We create a customized look and provide step-by-step, hands-on instruction for applying your makeup, so you can recreate that look whenever you want. See below for a quick tutorial.

To apply that perfect foundation, dot your forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin, then blend with a brush or your clean fingers. (Keep in mind that a sponge is absorbent, which means it will soak up your foundation.) Blend enough foundation so there is no visible line where the makeup starts and your face ends (this is especially true around the jaw line). After applying foundation, your face should appear even in complexion and still natural. If your complexion seems lopsided, you may need two different colors of foundation that can be used together. When spread correctly over the right areas, a two-color approach can give you the even skin tone you’re looking for.

A light dusting of loose powder can follow the foundation. Look for a large, natural-bristle makeup brush to apply the powder. Dip the brush into the powder and shake off the excess, and lightly brush all over the face. Your face should appear smooth and natural.

The brows are the framework of the face, yet they are often overlooked. Enhancing your brows can uplift the face and draw focus to the eyes. Some women are lucky and don’t have to do more than brush their brows into a neat shape. For most of us, some shaping may be necessary via tweezing. On the flip side, if you need to fill in sparse areas in your brows, do so with a powder the same color as your hair color. With a small, stiff, angled brush, apply color first to the base of the brow, and then build from the baseline, concentrating on filling in open areas. Comb through with a brow brush to remove any excess.

Blush comes in powder or cream form. If you go with a powder, a good brush is essential. Smile to find the apple of your cheeks (the most prominent, rounded part), then brush a light coat of blush on the apples in light downward strokes, blending straight back towards the nub of your ear. Cream blush should be applied right to the apples of the cheek and softly blended in the same way. Cream is usually best for women with normal-to-dry skin, and powder works best for women prone to oily skin. Choose more neutral shades for daytime; for evening, add a pop of coral or berry tones to the apple of the cheek.

There are perhaps more shades of lipstick than of any other cosmetic. When it comes to choosing a color, the goal is not to distract from the eyes. A lipstick pencil helps prevent lipstick from “bleeding”—that is, running outside of the lip line. The lip pencil should match the lipstick color closely or match your natural lip shade.

Daytime eyes should be different than nighttime eyes. For light-skinned women, eye shadows in peach, taupe, and subtle golds work well during the day. For medium-brown skin tones, mauve, brown, and gray are good choices. For dark-skinned women, deeper colors like rich violet, chocolate, and navy are nice picks. Still, the application should be light. For natural definition to the eye, apply eyeliner to the upper lash line from underneath. Finish with mascara: Start at the roots of the lashes and then pull through to the lash tips, forcing the lashes to curl.

For nighttime, the colors can be applied a little deeper, which adds some definition to the crease. You can add eyeliner to the top of the upper lash line; a good way to do this is with a wet brush in a dry shadow. With a small brush, you can add a dry shadow to the lower lash line for a smoky look.