Let’s just get this out of the way right now…unless you have brown skin and want to look natural, the everything brown look is OVER!
Nothing’s worse than the look of a dark brown (eyeliner looking) lipliner with a frosted putty colored lipstick. It looks as if you’ve been dredged out of a river.

Natural tones in make-up should be lighter and/or darker versions of the colors already present in your skin and on your lips. If you have yellow based skin, colors in the orange/red category are your naturals. If you have pink based skin, pink/reds are your naturals.
Most of Hollywood has gotten on track with the “pretty” thing.

Colors in make-up are back in a big way. Brown based shadows, blush and lipstick are going by the wayside (for now) and cleaner, brighter colors are being seen everywhere. Whether the colors are soft and muted or bright and electric… it’s all good.

(By the way) I worked for MAC during the “brown” phase and put it on everyone and loved it. In a few years I’ll probably be telling you all that it’s back (again) and how fabulous it looks.

Popularity: 8%

Make-up has changed over the years. Most of what we know now of our every day products didn’t exist until at least the 1930’s. Lipstick was lip rouge and it came in a small tin. Mascara was ash mixed with Vaseline (for his sister Maybel (Maybelline)).
Although, different in application and formula, make-up always served the same purpose…to make us more physically beautiful.

Here are some flashbacks of make-up throughout the past 9 decades.

Scary by my way of thinking, but this was considered the height of Beauty in the 20’s. Look at those brows…eeeek!
1920’s

It gets better…the 20’s looks kind of Gothic in comparison
1930’s

The 40’s and 50’s seemed similar to me. Very clean, very lady-like/pretty
1940’s

Stunning!
1950’s

The rebellion starts. Make-up and fashion starts to buck the traditional styles of the 40’s and 50’s to go along with the changes happening in the world
1960’s

The rebellion against tradition continues, although the hippy/no make-up look started to go away by the end of the decade and explode into…
1970’s

…the 80’s! Bigger was better. Bigger hair, futuristic make-up, splashes of color
1980’s

The 90’s tapered back a bit. After some of the 80’s money started to go away, so did the make-up. Cleaner, more natural skin-toned make-up ruled. The Make-up Artist brands began to appear on the scene (MAC, Bobbi Brown, Trish McEvoy, etc.)
1990’s

the trend in make-up today is pretty much…anything goes. Wear none (or what looks like none), wear a ton, it’s all good. just as long as YOU feel pretty.
NOW

Popularity: 35%

Your Plumber doesn’t come to your house with just a screwdriver… he comes with all the right tools to do the job properly in the shortest period of time.
Most everyone wants to have their make-up looking perfect in ten minutes or less, and here’s the ticket.

1. Your all over color is easily applied by a large flat brush (this color should be a similar color to your skin and a mat texture if you wish to achieve a natural look)(choose a size that fits comfortably on your lid.
2. After applying an eyeshadow base or a concealer (choose a base with little oil, as you don’t want it to crease, one of my favorites is the basic MAC concealer
3. To correct discoloration as well as giving the eyeshadow something to adhere to, hold the brush flat across your lid and press the color into the base.
4. After you can see that there’s no more area with just the base exposed,
   buff away the excess powder.
5. If you’d like to add a highlight (this color should be a similar color to the all over color, but with a reflective property), you can use the same brush by dipping the tip of the brush into your highlight color and putting it along your lash line over the ball of your lid as well as directly under your brow.

The crease brush (this color should be a darker version of your skin tone in a mat texture if you’relooking for a natural look) is the most difficult for most people. This type of brush makes it easy as long as you hold the brush the right way and dip it into the powder correctly.

1. With the brush straight up and down, dip the point of the brush into your crease color.
2. Unless you have a protruding lid, you’ll want to apply the color into the crease and onto the lower part of the brow bone without getting it on the ball of your actual lid. This is achieved by putting the point of the brush into the crease and holding the brush at a raised 45-degree angle with the rest of the brush resting on your lower brow bone.
3. Starting from the outside corner (the first place you touch will always be the darkest), work inward toward your nose in a windshield washer motion until the desired effect is achieved.

Creating a crease gives your eye shape by creating depth where there may not be any.
The higher the contrast, the more dramatic your look.

The angle brush can be used for both wet and dry eyeliner as well as for your eyebrows.

For your lower eyeliner (this color can be your crease color, as it’s supposed to appear as a shadow from a heavy lash line)…

1. Dab the brush into your desired shade,
2. Place the brush under your lash line at your outside corner and drag the brush toward your nose (small bristles side first).

For your upper lid (I prefer either black or a dark brown as it makes your lash line appear much thicker), if you choose to use powder shadow…

1. Dab the brush into your desired shade,
2. Place the brush where your lashes begin (near your nose),
3. Tilt your head back,
4. Look down toward the mirror and pull the brush toward your outside corner as close to your lash line as possible (leaving no skin showing between the lashes and liner).

If you want a more defined line… dampen your brush before dipping it into your eyeshadow (highly pigmented eyeshadows work best for this, such as MAC, Nars, Shu Uemura and Trish McEvoy’s definers) and proceed (carefully) in the same manner.

Now (as we all know) there are hundreds of different brushes out there. I’ve been doing make-up now for over 20 years and I do use other brushes (depending on the end result that I’m looking for as well as for larger or smaller eye spaces.
I just find that these three (shapes) are the ones that I go for most often and give the fastest and best results for a natural look.

As a side note: don’t skimp on your brushes! Good brushes will last you for many, many years as long as you take good care of them. ALTHOUGH ,THEY DO NEED TO BE WASHED!

Imagine if you didn’t wash your hair (yuck). It wouldn’t look very pretty and it probably wouldn’t perform the way you wanted it too either. I’ve had my set of MAC brushes now since 1993 and other than having to glue my powder brush handle back on once, and losing a few angle brushes here and there) they’re in perfect shape.

Popularity: 2%