Beauty Tip: How to Find the Best Light for Applying Your Makeup

How is the lighting where you apply your makeup? Are you trying to apply your makeup in a bathroom or bedroom with one bright light above your head? Is that one overhead light casting some pretty bad shadows on your facial features, making it difficult for you to judge how much color to apply to your eyes, lips and cheeks?

Understanding proper lighting and using that lighting while applying your makeup makes a big difference in how your makeup looks. The better your face is lit, the more even your makeup application will be, helping you to achieve a pretty and natural finish. Be aware that if you are applying your makeup in a dimly-lit room, it is easy to overdo your application.

So if possible, always try to apply your makeup in a well-lit area. Here are some ideas to help. It is very helpful to be by a window for natural light. Natural light is the very best for checking your makeup blending skills as well as checking the intensity of the colors you've applied. In natural light, it is easy to see if you need to add color in some areas or tone down the amount of color in other areas.

You can check your makeup application by looking in a mirror either next to a window or by going outside. "I have had to prepare many poorly-lit areas for makeup application in my 18+ years as a makeup artist, even removing lamp shades to get better lighting on the face of my subject! And no matter what the lighting was on-set, when possible I almost always took my subject outside to check his or his makeup in natural daylight," says Jennifer Kalman. If your makeup application looks great in natural daylight, it will look great in most other settings, even in fluorescent office lights or soft evening lights.

Once you've settled yourself near a good light for applying your makeup, here's another helpful tip. For best results during your makeup application, while holding your mirror to apply your makeup be sure to turn your face (and mirror) up toward the light source, whether your light source is a lightbulb or the the natural daylight outside a window.

By doing this, you can achieve an even coverage of light on your face while you apply your makeup so that no shadows will distort the amount of color you apply. As an example with blush, if one side of your face is in a shadow and one side of your face is in the light, you might be tempted to apply more blush on the side in the shadow because there is little light on that side of your face and you're unable to clearly see the amount of color you have already applied.

Of course, sometimes it is not possible to apply or at least check your makeup with natural light. In these cases, try to find the brightest indoor lighting possible. Then use the above tip of turning your face and mirror toward the light source so that there are no shadows on your face while you apply your makeup.

In conclusion, you will have the best results with your makeup application when you are aware of the lighting around you before applying your makeup.

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