How To Make Your Skin Glow

The trends are funny. The minute you get comfortable with one of them, lets say, shiny skin, some horrible people start telling you that it’s so over and you should be doing matte.

As one of those “horrible people” or make up artists, let me apologise.

What happens is that long before you, the general public, or whoever is reading my humble ramblings, are aware of the so-called “trend”, we the make up artists have been doing it for a while already.

Then the cosmetics companies notice and develop products and then the trend goes mainstream. The minute the trend has gone mainstream, make up artists have gotten sick and tired of the look and have moved on.

One of the easiest changes that makes so much difference is the shine versus matte.

Take the skin for example. In the 80s matte was the look that created a nice flat canvas for all the shading, blushing, and crazy colourful eyes and lips. Then we move onto late 80s and early 90s, as a knee jerk reaction to the previous excess it all got very neutral and nude. Yes nude make up came into vocabulary about then. And skin gradually became less matte.

Mid 90s it was shine central, Vaseline skin came into fashion. Then after that we got dewy, which to a lay person is something not matte and not shiny. But definitely more natural than the matte look. Your skin should appear "glowing" without apparent shine. And the glow is reserved on cheeks and nowhere to be seen on less flattering areas such as nose or forehead. 

Matte had another appearance not long ago with all the 80s revival trends, so we pretty much came full circle.

What I am trying to say that this season the skin is back to dewy. Total shine was never really that flattering, especially not on photographs, so we settled in the middle. Sheer skin, not too much coverage, the look that is very achievable these days with modern foundation formulas.

So how do you do dewy skin you may ask?

This is how I do it.

Apply foundation that you like by dabbing a few dots in the middle of your face and blend it well outwards with a brush. Good choice of foundations would be Armani Luminous Silk foundation, Crème de La Mer The treatment Fluid Foundation, Laura Mercier Moisture Supreme Foundation. I love La Mer foundation, but for such an expensive product, the colours are limited which is stupid really. Laura Mercier Moisture Supreme is excellent as well, and as a bonus it does not have silicones which I personally dislike on my skin.

Many companies sell foundation brushes that are made of microfibre or nylon, I personally like the real sable brushes that I get from Screenface in London, I prefer to blend with real bristle. You blend the foundation into the skin until the foundation kind of disappears and is not visible. You should have now a nice even base and move onto the concealer. The concealer is there to fix any problems you might have such as dark circles or spots or other “blemishes”. By the way, I don’t see freckles as blemishes so don’t go there.

Under eye concealer should be slightly paler than the foundation and blemish concealer should be the same colour. I like Nars concealer. 

You apply both with a fine brush and blend.

Then you apply loose powder. Take a large brush and fix the foundation, especially concentrating on the middle of the face, under eyes, nose, around the nose, chin and forehead. You need the powder to fix the foundation and the concealer. Becca does a really good loose powder (soon to be sadly discontinued grr), it’s called Fine Finishing Powder or use Laura Mercier Loose Setting Powder.

And that’s generally it. If your skin is on the dry side, and you find that the powder just “sits” there, I have a trick that will fix that. Spray some Rodial Dragon’s Blood Hylaruonic Tonic on your face, then pat dry with a tissue.

There you go, a perfect dewy look.

And the more time you spend on your skin preparation, the longer your make up will last.

Oh and another point, whatever your skin tone, please don’t use a lighter foundation than your own skin colour. It will make you look weird, pale and unhealthy. If you must,  go a shade darker.  


Main image courtesy of Becca Cosmetic.

Is Hyaluronic Acid The Secret to Moisturised Skin?

Hyaluronic Acid (Sodium Hyaluronate or I’ll be calling it HA from now on) is one of the proteins that is naturally present in human body and all living organisms for that matter.

In the deeper layer of skin (dermis) lies a network of elastic fibres, collagen and a clear fluid. That clear fluid is HA and its job is to hold a great amount of moisture and repair tissue. HA is also present in joint cartilage and eyes, but in skin it’s most abundant and that’s what I’ll focus on. This is a make up and skincare blog, after all :)

Unfortunately as we age, our body produces less and less HA and that leads to skin losing its plumpness, so we develop lines and wrinkles.

But there are a couple of things we can do.

I’ll come out with one obvious way of HA use in modern skin care.

The fillers.

Or what people used to call “collagen” fillers. I am calling use of fillers “skin care” as they are widely accepted these days and are being done on our lunch breaks…

Doctors, dermatologists are using animal HA and injecting it into the skin in the form of Restylane or Juvederm. Once injected, the HA adds volume to the skin and lines and wrinkles disappear. The effect is temporary. The problem of some celebrities, that they are not temporary enough (not naming names)! They still last for good six months or thereabouts.

Needle-phobes might choose the next option. Topical application. I mean slathering of cream on your face.

Just a bit more scientific blurb to explain what else happens in the skin…

So another by-product of HA is increase of retinoic acid, which leads to more hydration in the skin.

That can be achieved by either injections or use of Hyaluonic acid in face creams.

That effect of HA applied in creams is even more temporary, but I do believe that increased hydration is a good thing and my personal opinion that topical HA will be broken down in the skin (a process called hyaluronidase) and produce sugars that will stimulate our natural HA production.

So there you have it! HA is a very useful ingredient in creams.  Look out for it.

Rodial skincare has even got a whole Dragon’s Blood line of products  enriched with the ingredient and lots more of upmarket cosmetics companies use it in their formulas.

If you really want to experiment, you can buy a vial of HA online and add it to your favourite cream. It comes as a fine white powder, but it will thicken any cream and go lumpy if you don’t mix it in well, but the effects are there. 

Happy testing! 

 

One that I like to use is this one - CeraVe Hydrating Hyaluronic Acid Serum with Ceramides and you can get it here