Wedding: A Makeup Tutorial
I am doing my own makeup and hair for my wedding. This isn’t a very scary prospect for me; I know some brides get tense thinking about doing their own makeup and hair, because they want it to be perfect and they’re afraid they can’t do it alone, but believe me: it’s way easier than you might think!
Plus, I’m not big on things like fake eyelashes or a bazillion steps for perfect skin. So I thought I would bring you an easy, relatively quick (say… 15 minutes max, skin included) and glamorous makeup look using a makeup palette that was under $6, a $3 gel eyeliner, and only three brushes. Since the main focus of this look is the eyes, I won’t be guiding you on foundation or any of that except to tell you what I do daily, so just use or do what you would do every day, perhaps with a little more care as you want perfect skin for pictures!
What you’ll need:
1. Elf Cream Eyeliner, $3 at Target (I LOVE this stuff. It lasts me all day, and is quite hard to smear, unlike most liquid eyeliners I’ve tried. Plus, it comes with a handy-dandy little applicator brush that makes cat-eye eyeliner super easy.)
2. Maybelline Expert Eyes Palette in Sunbaked Neutrals, $6.49 at Target (As you can tell, I use the golds a lot!)
3. Mascara of your choice (Note, I am not a huge fan of the Mega Plush volume mascara; I prefer just regular Volum’ Express… but I wanted to try out the fancy new stuff. I do, however, love Maybelline’s mascara brushes. They’re the best.)
4. Brow powder and brow styling gel, if you like. My brow powder is Smashbox, on the spendy side but it MATCHES my brows, which is great! The styling gel is… old, and I picked it because it smells delicious. I know. I’m such an expert. 😉
5. An eyeliner brush (narrow and angled), a regular shadow brush (short and full), and a fluffy shadow brush (long and full).
Got it? Good. Step One:
Start out with your regular foundation routine: I use Maybelline Fit Me foundation all over; it’s a nice even coverage, good for those of you with just a few blemishes here and there. Then I set with loose powder to de-shine, and brush on Cheekers blush to brighten my cheeks. It’s a simple and easy routine that covers adequately and isn’t too heavy. Also, good skincare is a must! I use and adore Beauty Mint.
Step Two:
Armed with your regular eyeshadow brush, apply the lightest or second-to-lightest color in the palette (depending on your skin tone; super pale, use the lightest, medium-dark, use the second as I did) as a highlight below your eyebrow and in the corner of your eyes. Don’t be afraid to apply it liberally. We’ll be blending it all nicely later.
Step Three:
Apply the lighter gold in the palette all over the lower portion of your lid up to the crease, and press it below your lower lash line from inner corner to outer corner with your eyeliner brush. Apply this one liberally.
Step Four:
Press the darker gold in the palette along your eyelashes and up into your crease, making a slight vee at the outer corners of your eyes.
Step Five:
With the darker brown in the palette, line your eyes from the inside edge of your iris to a semi-cat eye, following the vee you made earlier with the dark gold shadow. If you wish, you can also line your lower lashes with dark brown, but go light!
Step Seven:
Blend it all out with your long fluffy brush, being careful at the outer corners to blend the darker colors up and in towards your crease rather than down and out.
Step Seven:
With your handy-dandy little Elf applicator and your gel eyeliner, carefully draw a line along your eyelashes, following the brown shadow you put on earlier; I absolutely love the applicator, because rather than having to draw, I can simply load the brush with gel and press it along my lashes. Once you have a good line, fill it in until you have a sufficiently thick cat-eye line.
Step Eight: Add mascara, fill in your eyebrows if you wish (using your eyeliner brush and a brow powder that closely matches your brows, follow the natural arch of your eyebrows… done.), add a lip gloss or balm, and you’re done!
I swear, once you get it down, you’ll be done with your makeup in fifteen minutes, and any accidental smudges can be very easily cleaned up with extra foundation or a bit of water. Plus, this routine is only an eyeshadow palette different from my usual daily routine, which I love. I don’t want to look too different from my everyday self, yet I want it to be just a notch or two higher than what I’d normally do.
The gold and brown colors are flattering on any eye color, and I think they add that perfect touch of old-hollywood glamour that I absolutely love.
I hope you all don’t mind the iPhone pictures; Mr. Owl has been under the weather lately, so I haven’t been able to steal his camera.
Tell me, what is your dream makeup look for a wedding? Would you do your makeup yourself, or have a professional do it for you? Are you going all-out glamorous, or understated?
I hope you are all having a wonderful week so far!
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15 Comments
Kendall Ventura
I love your tutorial! It’s seems super simple. For my wedding, my soon-to-be husband’s sister-in-law did my makeup (she sells Mary Kay). And we went with the same idea as you – stick to my usual look but kick it up a notch, mostly with a bit more drastic eye color and bold lip color (something I usually never wear). I love how it turned out. And, looking back, I probably could have done it myself, too.
Eccentric Owl
Yeah, see that is fun when people who know how to do makeup can do it for you, but I’m the one that everyone else asks to do their wedding makeup. SO y’know. 😀 I’m pretty bad at letting someone else do my makeup.
mariecarolk
Love the tutorial, it looks so beautiful and glamorous–and easy! I’m so bad at putting on eye shadow properly. I just never know what looks right and I don’t want it to look like I just threw stuff on my face, even though, yes that’s what I did.
Is that part of your wedding dress peaking up!?!?!? 🙂 haha I’m not excited at all…
Eccentric Owl
Haha, yeah; I think once you get the basics down, it’s not as scary. 😀
Yes, it is! I SO want to share it with you all, but you’ll just have to wait until after the wedding.
Anita Jacob
Every time I decide I will not “get into” eye make up…I chance upon a tutorial that makes it look easy and with a result that’s fabulous! :/
Simply done…best sort of tutorials! 😉
Eccentric Owl
Hehehe, I know what you mean! I’m like that with really elaborate makeup looks.
The_Canon_Girl
Great tutorial and a very beautiful look. I’d probably do my own make up too, I’m pretty handy with make up and spending lots of money on someone who’s gonna cake my pores shut isn’t really necessary for me. 😀 I’d go with a look that’d fit my dress. My dress, in my head, is a little strange and probably colorful so I might just do a simple make up look with that. I love fantasizing about my future wedding looks. 😀
Eccentric Owl
Thank you! Isn’t it fun? I love testing wedding looks, especially now that it’s actually FOR my wedding. Oh, the anticipation!
And yes! Every time I’ve gone to have someone else do my makeup, it’s always… yuck. Too heavy, too… not what I wanted at all. So I definitely like doing it myself better! That, and I just love doing makeup, so yes. 😀
TheHeadlessMannequin
Your make-up is beautiful…this is definitely a look I’ll be bookmarking for a variety of occasions 🙂 I just got married last August and debated doing my own make up versus a make-up artist. I was a bit spooked by my make-up trial as it just looked so heavy and un-me but the make-up artist kept insisting the heaviness was for the sake of the photos…never mind what you look like in person on the day!! On the day I ended up doing some of it myself and letting her touch up the rest. So long story short, I think if you wear make up regularly anyway you know best what you like and what looks good! PS: Loving all your wedding-related posts lately 🙂
Eccentric Owl
Thank you! It really is a look you can use for any occasion where you want to look a little more glammed up.
I think makeup artists are a little wrong by saying it’s heavy for photos– if you have a good photographer, you don’t NEED extra makeup because the photographer will know how to get the best pictures with the correct lighting, and there’s no need for compensation! 🙂
And I definitely agree; it seems that other people never quite get what I want when I try to have someone else do my makeup.
Thank you!
Jamie Rose
Your makeup looks great! I love the neutral shades and cat eye for a wedding look. I’ll definitely do my own makeup when I get married too. I’ve seen too many weirdly over-done wedding makeup faces on people who decided to get their makeup done by someone else. I’ll probably just go to a makeup counter at Sephora and have them try out some stuff on me and then decide what makeup to buy for myself as a little pre-wedding present. Sounds like a great excuse to buy makeup to me!
Eccentric Owl
Me, too. I’ve always thought the neutral/cat eye look was perfect for a wedding, because it’s not TOO out-there, but it’s still really glamorous and pretty.
I want to go to Sephora even though I have my look planned out, just to see what they’d give me if I asked for this look. Hehe. Weddings are definitely a great excuse to buy makeup!
two birds
it doesn’t hurt that you have such a beautiful face to work with…but seriously, you look stunning!
Eccentric Owl
Aw, thank you!
Product Hoochie
I give you credit that you want to do your own make-up on your wedding day! I got mine done and I loved it. It was so relaxing that morning to not have to think about it!