We all know that this season’s Spring race day makeup is all about colour, fun and frivolity. Lips are bright in shades of pink, orange and wine colours, whilst eyes take a back seat in neutrals. Hair is sleek and girly, and fascinators take on a new level of playfulness.
CLICK HERE FOR COUTURING’S GUIDE TO EASY UP-DO’S FOR SPRING RACING
What we want to show you is how to get a look for the races that is easy to do at home and easy to maintain during the day. Whether you are in a marquee or down near the finishing post, your makeup will need touching up throughout the day. The rule for the races is that it’s much easier to touch up a bright lip after a glass of champagne than try to fix a heavy eye that has melted in the hot weather. We have put together three simple variations of a race day look, and how to achieve staying power throughout the day.
The Base
We begin with a base. This is either your favourite primer, or you can start straight off with foundation. It is important to use your brush to really buff the foundation into skin. By working the foundation into skin, it will last much longer.
Next we conceal any area that the foundation hasn’t covered and under the eyes to add lightness and a glow. We like to use a concealer under they eyes that is almost a perfect match but slightly lighter than the foundation. To cover flaws, use a sponge or your finger to press into skin and blend out.
Then we need to set the base with a powder, whether this be translucent or matched to your skin tone. Powder over the eyes and buff well in to the face. You may feel a little over powdered once you have completed setting your makeup, however, it is the powder that will keep your makeup in its place throughout the day. The longer you spend wearing your makeup, the more the natural oils of your skin will come through, so you want to make sure you have a good base to begin with. Oiliness is heightened by being outdoors and in the sun, so bear this in mind when doing your race-day makeup.
After powdering, we contour the face. This makeup technique can seem complicated to some, and I could write an entire article on it. In brief, you should use a dark, matt bronze coloured powder on the areas of your face where shadows naturally fall. This, as a result, highlights attractive parts of the face that you want to stand out, like cheekbones for instance. So you would take your powder and brush under cheekbones (not where the blush goes, but underneath), around the hairline to create warmth and under the jawline to create definition.
The skin now needs highlighting. To do this, use any type of powder that is bronze or warm rose and has shimmer. We want the skin to look bright, healthy and summery, so highlighting with a shimmer is crucial to the look. We use this on the cheeks, nose and forehead, especially above the brow bone. This makes the attractive bone structure in the face stand out and gives the skin a dewy bronzed look. This completes the perfect base to your makeup.
Look 1 – Simple and Natural
The first look is simple and leaves the focus on the lips. We used a nude eyeshadow all over the eyelid to act as a base.
We then used a beige shadow in the crease to contour and then apply a light brown shadow blending from the lid up. We followed a slightly darker shimmer brown and blended up from the lash line and underneath the eye and finished with a good coat of mascara.
The lip is a bright rose pink which we have applied neatly with a lip brush. This lipstick is matte so therefore will stay put for most of the day but will need touch ups and the occasional swipe of lip gloss.
Eyebrows need to be filled in with a pencil close to the natural shade to finish off the look.
Look 2 – Bolder eyes
In the second look we darkened the eye slightly, however it is still a very minimal eye look. Using a dark brown we contour a “C” shape on the outer corner of the eye from the lash-line to the brow bone. This adds a more defined and glamorous look to the neutral eye. We then used a black shadow on the lash line and blended up towards the crease.
The lip is a hot pink matt lipstick. This has more staying power, as mentioned above, than a gloss. After applying with a lip brush, we used a finger to blend the colour and soften the lipstick so it becomes less “slicked on” and more soft and blended. This creates the best balance when you are working with a bright lip colour and a darker eye.
Look 3 – Dramatic day -eyes
For the third look, we wanted to go a little bit more dramatic again. We warmed up the cheek with a peach colour blush and added a bright orange lip to offset the neutral-toned fascinator.
The eye does not need to be darkened but to emphasise the eyes, we added a pair of false lashes. They will create the look of a bold eye, without any worry of maintaining eyeshadow during the day. Make sure you use a black gel eyeliner to paint over the base of the eyelashes once they are applied so you do not see the tracks of the false lashes.
We also added shimmer to our model with the use of a fabulous organic skin shimmer product from Acorelle. The ‘Glittering Dry Oil’ is fantastic for use on body to create a bronzed shimmery glow. It dries instantly and looks especially amazing on the arms and decolletage. We also added a little to the cheekbones, brow and nose of our model to give her a warm, healthy glow. You could even mix into foundation for a more amped up, sun kissed look.
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