By Sabina Adiri.
If you want to spot the difference between the village masquerades and our ladies on the street, you could be in for a hell of work. One sees 70% of our ‘Omoges’ looking like the Igbo ‘Adanma’ masquerade roaming about free of charge under the hot sun toned with one shade on the face and another on the rest of the skin; others with lipstick that that looks like an open wound on the face and so on.
While we are all different and so have different ways of making up, why don’t we now examine this Kraft of making up? Yes ladies, it is a craft, as we know, one doesn’t become and expert overnight but overtime.
While about 10% of ladies started out with make-up as a hobby, probably painting their dolls as little as 7 years old kids and with time became skilled in it, some 20% pay money to learn the art. And so that leaves the rest of us just doing trial and error; no wonder there is a large number looking like the said masquerade.
Now don’t get me wrong, we know all of us can’t be skilled or professional make-up artists but we can all learn the basics on products available in the market and how to apply make-up. After all it is not a herculean task.
Professional make-up artists advice that while there are lots of branded make-up products available in the market, we should use products that contain natural ingredients which have been tested and approved by dermatologists. “Make-up is an enhancer and so should be used to improve on your God-given beauty”.
Women should be smart and read contents on the products they buy and don’t just go for brand names. We all know that looking good gives one a good feeling and since we aren’t all skilled in applying make-up and do not always have the time to while away hours at the beauty salon getting make-up, one can achieve the luxury of an effortless but fantastic looking face, just by knowing and following these basic route.
Professional Make-up artists see the face as a fresh plate and consider a number of factors like the time of the day, skin type, the weather and a person’s age before applying or making up the person.
Based on this, one should always consider these factors before applying make-up. And to achieve a glamorous look in a subtle way, start by cleansing your face to get a sparkly fresh feeling as it sweeps away oiliness and impurities, leaving one’s skin feeling incredibly clean, soft and completely free to breath.
Use a moisturizer that instantly absorbs into skin. Next, using a brush or pad, apply pressed powder/foundation in your colour and blend; the best way to get the exact shade is to try a little at the base of your jaw. That way, one doesn’t end up looking two-toned.
This happens when one wears foundation/press powder, which is either lighter or darker than one’s normal skin shade. Again, don’t keep coating the foundation/press powder or you will look too heavily made up unless you are going on a film set of on the run-way.
After that if you so desire, you can apply blusher over the cheeks and sparingly across the temple and chin, which acts as a highlighter. To ensure the blusher stays put, lightly dust those areas over with powder. Apply eye shadow in the crease around the eyes and rim your eye with eyeliner of your choice.
You want to magnify your lashes to maximum; use two coats of curling mascara, which expands the lashes to their fullest volume; the mascara should hug the curves of the eye lashes. Finally, before applying your lip-gloss and lipstick, get your lips in top condition by buffing gently with a lip scuff, tooth brush or face cloth to remove unattractive, dry or flaky skin.
Then moisturize your lips with a lip balm before putting a generous amount of lips-gloss. Look out for shades that fit you. Your lips should look luscious. Whatever you decide to use or not is based on your preference and personality but basically one can’t go wrong when she goes simple.
