Tips From a Celebrity Makeup Artist

I love learning and sharing beauty tips and tricks, so I was excited to attend a makeup Masterclass hosted by Brittany Gray (Celebrity Makeup Artist and Founder of Fancy Face). Fancy Face is known for their luxury bridal makeup services – but their tips are great even if you’re not a makeup artist, because you can learn how to apply fresh-faced youthful-looking makeup that stays in place all day. Brittany’s celebrity clients include Jessica Mulroney (Style Expert and Meghan Markle’s BFF!). To be honest, I was planning on sharing what I learned in the class over on Instagram – but there were SO many good tips, that I had to write up a quick blog post instead. I’ll be sharing my favourite application tips, followed by a list of tried and tested long-lasting makeup products.

Application tips:

• When possible, prep your face before applying makeup. Use a face roller and hydrating eye patches. (I STILL haven’t finished writing my face-rollers blog post – but I also own the roller Brittany used – the Nurse Jamie Uplift Massaging Beauty Roller).
• For long-lasting eye colour, spray your eyeshadow brush with Fix+ before dipping it in your eyeshadow. I need to do this more often – I love the look of richer eyeshadow colours on my lids.
• SUPER IMPORTANT TIP – Highlight the lashes near the center of your eye, rather than the the outer lashes. A lot of people emphasize the outer lashes because they think it creates more of a “cat-eye” look, but visually it actually ‘closes your eyes’ and makes you look older. Focusing on your center lashes opens up your eyes and makes you look more youthful. For False Lashes, this means picking a pair with longer lashes in the center of the band/above the pupil. For mascara, this means brushing your mascara wand towards your nose rather than sweeping your lashes out to the side.
• Apply blush in the “meaty” part of your cheek, starting about 1.5 fingers away from your nose. It’s not very natural to apply it high up on your cheekbones/close to your ears.
• Apply your concealer in a triangle under your eyes, to add brightness and bring forward that part of your face (See the last pic in this post for a zoomed-in example of where to draw the triangle!)

Makeup Products I NEED to buy! 

• Skin prep – Laneige Eye Cream, Sunday Riley CEO Vitamin C serum and cream. Nurse Jamie Uplift Massaging Beauty Roller
• MAC painterly as a primer to provide a natural toned eyeshadow base
• Dermablend Jelly Primer – You only need a pea-sized drop of this thick primer. It acts like glue to hold your makeup in place all day – seems especially perfect for vacation days, when you want to look glam but don’t want to worry about reapplying any makeup.
• L’Oreal Infallible Foundation – a full-coverage drugstore foundation that most makeup artists end up using on themselves!
• Tarte Shape Tape – only available in the US – but I’ve heard so many raves about it, and I need to try track it down!
• Benefits Porefessional – use it on more mature skin to fill in laugh lines.
• Shu Uemura Baby Lash curler – Curling lashes is so important, but it can be hard to fit false lashes into a conventional curler. This one can reach every part of your lash (just store it carefully, as the bottom rubber band can fall out).
• Recommended brushes
  • concealer brush – F75 from Sigma
  • crease brush – MAC 221
  • bronzer blush  – NARS Yachiyo Kabuki Brush (apparently this makes everything look airbrushed)

Brittany also shared some phone makeup photography tips. If you want to share a photograph highlighting your makeup, take a little time to set up your shot. Wipe your phone lens clean, fix your hair, straighten your clothes and jewelry. Find a spot where the light hits the front of your face (near a window or with a ring light). Rather than smiling, keep your lips closed and “smirk” a bit!

Did you learn anything new from this post? Which tip did you find the most useful?