Photoshoot Makeup Tutorial | Easy Tips for Great Looking Photos

Hi there, gorges! Hope you're having a fabulous day. In today's video, I wanted to share my most favorite tips and tricks for doing your makeup specifically for photography. The holidays are upon us. We're going to be taking pictures, hopefully, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. So I thought that these tips might be helpful for those of you who are looking to do things a little bit differently this year. I know that when it comes to photography, there are some things that I do a lot differently compared to how I do my makeup on a normal everyday basis, and they do tend to help when it comes to photos. So if that describes you, or you just want to try something new, I hope that you'll find these tips helpful. So I'll break this down section by section of the face, beginning with the eyes. What I have found works for me personally is when I'm doing my eyeshadow for photography, I will use one eyeshadow only. So as an example, the little palette that I'm using to demonstrate this is from e.l.f. This is the one called Truffles. It's one of their bite-size eyeshadow palettes, and I love this particular shade of brown because it's more cool-toned. It's not too dark. It's not too light. It draws enough emphasis on my eyes all by itself to make them pop, but they don't disappear. In my experience, if I use too dark of an eyeshadow color, it tends to make my eyes look smaller, and they don't pop as well. So a medium shade tends to work the best for me, and one color only all over the lid and blended out really helps to emphasize my eyes and draw them out in pictures. I also personally tend to stick with either a matte finish or a cream-based eyeshadow. I don't usually go for shimmers. It's not to say that you can't, but I find that mattes and creams appear better in pictures than shimmers usually do. So just food for thought. And then I'll usually line my eyes with eyeshadow also. So I'm taking that same dark brown from this palette and using that to smudge along the upper lash line to give more depth and dimension to my eyes and emphasize that lash line a little bit more. Sometimes I'll draw a wing. Sometimes I won't, but I do emphasize the lash line no matter what. When it comes to eyebrows, I like a really natural looking brow. I don't like to take risks with my eyebrows when it comes to photos. I like to keep them very soft, more natural looking. So I will usually go with a powder-based eyeshadow product or a cream gel kind of pomade. The one that I'm using here is a discontinued product from Benefit. This is their Foolproof Brow Powder in shade number three. I love it because it is so natural and it's very soft looking on the brows. I also really love L'Oreal's Brow Stylist Cream Brow Gel in the shade Light Brunette. And another one that I love from Benefit is called their Cream Gel Brow and that's also in shade number three. It's the Ka Brow product that they make. I've started adapting that same principle to my eyelashes also. I always apply mascara first and then apply my false eyelashes, but instead of using a heavier lash like I might have done a couple years ago, I stick with a more natural looking lash. The one that I'm using here is from my lash line in the style The Best Mascara and these are great because they look like your own natural lashes, just emphasized a bit more. I personally feel like adding a false eyelash for me is something that helps to open my eyes and give them emphasis. And like I had mentioned, if the lash is too bold then it can make my eyes look heavy and tired, but the lighter the lash is, I find that it gives me a more awake, alive, fresh feel in pictures. And so that's why I chose that particular style that you see there. And while we're on the subject of lashes, when it comes to photography, I have found that not applying any mascara to my lower lashes helps to open my eyes more, makes them appear brighter. And if you do apply mascara to your lower lashes, sometimes it can cast unsightly shadows underneath your eyes and make you look more tired and defeat the purpose of everything that you've tried to do previously. So if that describes you and you've struggled with dark under eye circles, try omitting the mascara on your lower lashes. You might be surprised by the results. And when it comes to the rest of the face, I do the order of products on the face backwards when it comes to photos. And it makes such a difference because right now the trend is skin. You want to see skin. We want to see real skin. We don't want this heavy, caked on makeup that we saw 10, 20 years ago. It's all about looking natural and effortless now. And there's a way that you can apply your products to get that look without having like a cake face kind of appearance. And it looks beautiful on camera. But yeah, it's a little bit weird. So let me share with you how I do it. First thing I do is apply a moisturizer mixed in with a SPF. The moisturizer that I have been loving at the moment, and you don't have to use this one, I'm just suggesting it, is from e.l.f. And that is their Superhydrate Moisturizer. This sinks right into the skin. It's lovely underneath makeup, provides a great amount of hydration. Then I apply an SPF. The one that I'm using here is from Clinique. This is their Super Defense City Block. And I'll talk more about SPF here in a minute when it comes to makeup and photography because there are some myths that I want to bust up for you here that I just discovered myself. And then I set all of that with a translucent powder. The one that I'm using here is from Fenty Beauty. And that is the Profilter Retouch Setting Powder. The shade that I'm using is Butter. Then I apply a setting spray over the top of that. And the one that I'm using in the example here is from e.l.f. It's the Stay All Night Microfine Setting Mist. And I usually apply that with a brush. That is a tip I learned from a makeup artist. It has made me rethink completely how I apply my setting spray. I like applying it this way so much better. After you do all that, then you want to apply your primer, foundation, and concealer. So why are we doing the makeup this way? This not only helps to make the makeup last longer, but it will give you a more youthful, radiant glow as opposed to if you did it the way that you traditionally do. Simply because it puts the powder underneath everything and it allows your skin to have that radiating glow. And it will not give you a cake face appearance. So for primers, there are a number that I highly recommend. I'll show them on the screen here so you can get a good idea. You want to look for a blurring primer if you suffer from pores like me. I have horrible pores. So the one that I'll show you in the up-close example here is from e.l.f. This is their Poreless Primer. And I apply it to the areas around my nose, sometimes on my chin and my forehead. And it sinks right in, blurs everything, provides an excellent foundation for the makeup to go over the top of. And then for the foundation, I stick with a lightweight foundation. And again, I'll have some options come up here on the screen for you. These are some of my most favorite BB creams. They're very lightweight, very skin-like finishes. You really don't need much. They provide a very light coverage on the face, and they are beautiful in photography. So the one that I'm using to show you the up-close demonstration is from Bare Minerals, and this is their Complexion Rescue. I don't usually apply much. I apply just enough to cover the minor imperfections in the skin, blend it out, and then I apply my concealer. And the one that I love and have been using for a couple years now is from NARS, and that is their Soft Matte Complete Concealer. I like to blend this one under the eyes with my finger. I find that that provides the most natural, creaseless, longest-lasting result for me. And I've had a lot of great success with using my fingers for that application. The goal for photos really is to reduce the skin's texture, and by doing it in that weird, wacky order that I just showed you there, it really does help to provide a smooth canvas. It will not dull your complexion, and instead it makes your complexion look radiant, youthful, and real. And it makes your makeup stay on much longer too. I mean, it's a win all the way around. Now when it comes to contour, I would be the type to heavily contour my face. I would. I mean, I'm pale. I can get away with it sometimes because flash photography tends to wash everything out. But some people, it's really not that great of a thing to do, and I've kind of gotten away from doing it myself because it can be a little too overemphasized in pictures. Instead, something that you can do that will give beautiful definition to your face and be a little bit more subtle is use a peach-toned blush and apply that in the areas where you would traditionally apply your contour. So as an example, I'm using this old palette from e.l.f. This is the Modern Metals palette. I'm taking that orange blush and using that as contour here, and I've also applied a little bit of highlighter on the tops of the cheeks. I personally recommend a lighter hand when it comes to highlighter application, especially when we're talking about photos because if you're heavy-handed with the highlighter, it can create a lot of bounce back when it comes to flash photography, and then you'll have these hot spots on your face. So less is absolutely more. Finally, for lips. When it comes to photography, it's best to have some color in your lips. And you know I am such a fan of nude lipstick colors. They are my go-to shades. I love them, and on an everyday basis, that's perfectly fine. But when it comes to pictures, they wash me out, and I look like I have no lips. So I have to be careful. I've learned this over the years. I have to be careful that I don't wear nude lipstick in family pictures and things like that because it's not so good looking. So I've personally found that instead of using those really light nudes that I love so much, the more medium-toned nudes suit me much better when it comes to photography. So the lip that I'm wearing here as an example is from Ulta Beauty, and I'll show this one to you up close so you can see it. This is their Velvet Matte Lip Crayon in the shade Rose Quartz, and I love this one because it has the most beautiful finish, the most creamy application, lasts a long time on the lips, and the color is simply beautiful. Another one that I quite often will wear in photography is from NYX. This is one of their Butter Lipsticks in the shade Boardwalk. It's a little bit lighter, but it still provides a really nice finish on my lips and photos. And then the third one that I tend to use is NYX's Whipped Caviar. Now this one is a dupe for MAC's Brave Lipstick, which was a favorite of mine before I discovered its drugstore dupe. And again, it's very similar to the Ulta Beauty lipstick that I talked about first. Great shade if you are pale or medium-complected like myself. SPF. Let's go back to that topic because I dropped it and then I never really picked it back up again. There was this myth going around for a while, and I believed it, and there are videos where I said this in the past too, where you're not supposed to wear SPF when you do your makeup for flash photography because supposedly there are compounds or ingredients in the sunscreen that make the flash bounce back on your face and you'll get a white cast on your skin. That has turned out to not be true. There's no validity to that whatsoever. So you can absolutely wear SPF in your pictures. It's not going to affect how your makeup appears on camera. I will tell you that you may want to be cautious of powders that contain the ingredient silica simply because silica will give your skin a white cast in flash photography. So it's sometimes it's best to just play around with makeup, take pictures with the flash on your phone, see what happens so you can get an idea of what products might work really well and which ones might not. That's the way that I've always done it, and that's how I've had the greatest success. So it's really trial and error just to see what will work best for you. And if you have any tips for doing your makeup for photography, I hope that you will share them below. So many of you have so many great tips. I learn so much from you all the time, and I love reading your comments. So I always welcome them, and they help a lot of people who read the comment section below. So don't be afraid. Share your opinion. Share your experience. We would love to hear them and read them. Thank you for being here and for taking the time to watch. I want to wish you a beautifully blessed day ahead, and I look forward to seeing you again next time.