Your Make-Up Bag

Every woman has a makeup bag, or drawer or counter full of makeup. However you keep it most of us have a lot of it!  Problem is most women don't know how to wear most or any of their makeup properly.  Wearing your makeup the right way can take years off your face, make you look fresh, sassy, sexy and much much more.  The first step is to learn what you NEED to have in your makeup bag, then how to use it all.  Once you have the first two down you can begin to experiment and have fun with different looks.

Here are the essentials of any makeup bag: (in order of application)

- Moisturizer (stay tuned for a skincare blog about what type is best for you): Your face face needs to be smooth and ready for makeup, no dry patches of flaky skin.  *Tip* Apply moisturizer right after cleansing your face while it is still wet, this way your face will absorb both the water and the moisturizer. 

- Primer: Primer creates a great base for your makeup.  It fills in fine lines and pores and your foundation will cling to it creating a nice even surface. 

- Foundation: Foundation does exactly what it says it will do, creates a foundation for all of your makeup.  Foundation can be applied with a brush, sponge or your fingers and comes in many forms.  Liquid is the most common form and works for all skin types.

- Concealer: Concealer is like plastic surgery without a knife!  You can use it to make dark circles, discoloration, redness and blemishes completely disappear.  Make sure when applying concealer you dab and blend softly without pulling or rubbing the skin.  Light concealer can also be used as a highlighter. 

- Powder: A powder is very important to your foundation and concealer, I recommend a translucent loose powder but you can also use a powder that matches the colour of your foundation.   Apply it all over your face, not forgetting the eye lids and around the nose, the powder will make your foundation last all day long.

- Bronzer: A great way to give your face a sun kissed look and a dark bronzer is great for adding contouring to your face. 

- Blush: Available in many forms such as creme, powder, gel and stick blush can finish off your face and make you glow.  Its good to have a powder and a creme or gel as the powder is great for when you are wearing full makeup while the creme or gel is great if you are wearing bear skin to just add a bit of colour.

- Eyeshadow:  I recommend having a few good, high quality eyeshadows in the fallowing colours: white, black, light brown, dark brown, a sheer fleshy shimmery colour, and a sheer pink.  These colours will allow you to create many different looks, then if you want to option of fun and funky colours invest in a multi-coloured palette.  These are often available on ebay for a great price!

- Lip stick: The key to young full looking lips is lip gloss so buy lots in lots of shades!  Lipstick wears well under a gloss for a little added colour but you can also use a lip liner and fill in your lips completely with it.

- Eye liner: Pencil is the easiest and most common form of eye liner to use.  It also comes in liquid and creme. A tip is to go over your eye liner with powder in the same colour to soften the look and seal the liner.  Black, brown and white are the essential colours.

-Mascara: Many mascaras claim to do many things but I just recommend trying a few to find what works best for your lashes.  If you desire longer lashes curling them will make them appear longer, and if you want fuller lashes try adding a few false lashes!

So if you have all of those things in your make up bag you will be set!  To avoid creating an extremely long blog post I have not gone into great detail about how to properly use each product.  If you would like to learn how to use these products watch some of my upcoming YouTube videos that I will be starting soon and read my "Lenses" on Squidoo at http://www.squidoo.com/yourmakeupbag  these lenses each feature one of the products I have listed and talk about them in great detail!