GOOD MORNING MIDNIGHT

So you guys all comment or ask me for a makeup tutorial like once a goddamned week, I swear, and I finally did it! For some reason this felt super awkward? Like way more awkward than taking photos of my outfits? It’s really weird to do one step of your makeup and then take a picture and then after like eighteen photos I’m all “ew god that is WAY TOO MUCH OF MY FACE this is so embarrassing what am I doing ew, wait shit I shouldn’t have worn this tube top now it looks like I’m NAKED too, someone SEND HELP PLZ” but anyhow, whatever, MOVING ON.

This is pretty much my daily makeup routine, more or less: the whole thing takes me less than ten minutes at this point and relies basically on a simple bold cat-eye and a bright lipstick colour.  This is basically what I do in the morning, for work or ordinary daytime things, and later in the week (I did TWO!) I’ll post the second half of this to show you what I do at the end of the day, with this stuff basically already on my face, to go from “daytime appropriate” to “super gothy 90s club kid editorial black eyeliner new sparkly Gareth Pugh pigment and greyish purple lips whatever I don’t even know” that I guess is more what my face usually looks like after 9 PM.  It’s the Jekyll and Hyde of makeup tutorials or something? I DON’T KNOW. Let’s get started. Three steps only, I promise!

You’ll need:

• Foundation
• Highlighting powder
• A good waterproof liquid eyeliner
• Matte black eyeshadow, or whatever you like to use on your brows
• A big fluffy blush brush and a small angled brush
• Mascara
• Lip balm
• A bright or bold lip colour of your choice — I’m using my usual orangey-red.

Deets after the jump!  

Here’s the truth: without makeup on, I look like an exhausted and somewhat blotchy nine year old. Anyhow, here’s what we’re starting from. I don’t need to tell you guys to wash your face and then moisturize, do I? I don’t use fancy moisturizer or anything, just a really basic non-comedogenic Aveno or Neutrogena or whatever is cheap-ish at the drugstore and won’t give me zits and has an SPF of at least 15. (Ignore my somewhat tawny hair, we’re currently, ah, transitionally apricot while moving to a blonder blonde at home without throwing down another three hundo at the salon.) ANYHOW. Start with your face clean and moisturized.

STEP 1: SKIN AND EYEBROWS.
I use Chanel Matte Lumiere foundation, which is, I swear, instant IRL skin Photoshop and the most amazing product ever. Slather this (or your usual foundation) all over your face, blending well with your fingertips, including over your eyelids and a little bit on the edges of your lips (it’ll help the lipstick from bleeding later.) Take a picture and then freak out that it looks too dark or pancakey for your skin in the photo and scrutinize yourself in the mirror for a while and then decide it’s just the fact that you’re taking photos half lit with a terrible fluorescent bulb and half with a crappy speedlite attached to your camera at a less than ideal angle and that if you had a softbox strobe it would look way better and that it’s fine IRL and that your white balance is just hardcore out of whack and those weird yellow bits on your shoulders are from the light in the other room which you should’ve turned off but WHATEVER who cares it’s fine. 

Take a big fluffy brush and swoosh it around it in some Benefit Dandelion (or another brightening/highlighting powder with a lil’ bit of shimmer) and dust it on your cheekbones, under your eyes, tip of your nose and chin.

Pencil your eyebrows in as well: I use a plain matte black eyeshadow (something cheap, I don’t know) and a very small stiff angled brush, because I like my brows super dark and I dislike brow pencils.  I guess there are all kinds of fancy stencils and diagrams for how to fill in eyebrows, but as I like the shape of mine I just fill them in a little heavier, clean up the angles, and fill in any empty splotches.

STEP TWO: EYELINER.
There are billions of cat-eye tutorials out there but this is how I do it, which takes like eight seconds and I think I can do in my sleep by now.  Using good eyeliner is crucial: I’m a fan of MAC Liquidlast, since I find that waterproof eyeliner is best since it won’t crease off on the other half of your eye or smudge throughout the day.

Draw a line starting at the outer corner of your eye and continue the curve that the bottom half of your eye would make if it continued. Does this make sense? I don’t know how else to explain it.  I go about halfway up to my brow. Liquid eyeliner takes a bit of finesse, but once you figure out the right kind of wrist flick needed, it’s super easy. You also will stop caring so much if it’s a TINY BIT UNEVEN because you are probably also lazy like me.

Now, starting at the tip of that line you just drew (your eye should be closed) you’re going to draw a straight line back to your lashline at exactly the middle of your eye.  You should have a triangle on your eye now, which you should go ahead and colour in.  Repeat on the other side, and then slap on some mascara once the eyeliner dries.  I switch between Diorshow Iconic and L’oreal Lash Out.

STEP THREE: LIPS.
I love bright orange-based reds, but depending on your skin tone you might want a blue-based red, a brick, a bright pink, or a deep purple.  I used MAC Lady Danger here, which is super matte and a little bit drying on its own, which is great since it’s not super bleed-y but it tends to get a little flakey sometimes.  I smooth it out by putting lip balm on first, then applying the lipstick lightly with an angled brush and building it up until it’s the opacity I want. I get that sort of retro lip shape by slightly exaggerating the divot in my top lip (angled brush is useful for getting this perfectly even) as well as slightly overdrawing my bottom lip a bit fuller. If your lipstick tends to bleed, try using a liner, or dusting some loose powder over your lips once you’re done to set the lipstick.

Voila! You’re done! Now you can make some awkward pouty faces in the mirror and fuss that maybe your eyeliner was a little uneven after all but then decide you don’t care that much anyhow. Perf!

The lipstick’s going to wear off during the day, but that’s fine: just re-do it in the bathroom after lunch, NBD.  And then wait on the edge of your seats for part two of this, since I know you totally can’t wait.