Save the cake for the reception! We want natural looking makeup for the wedding day, not cakey-fakey!
Here’s how you achieve natural looking makeup for your wedding, while still looking amazing for your photos and guests.
1. Use Good Light
It’s very hard to do natural makeup if you can’t see what you are doing. Have you ever gotten ready in the bathroom, then leave for the day, check your makeup in the car and panic a little bit? The natural light reveals the parts that are cakey, parts you missed blending, etc. This is all a consequence of bad lighting.
Most bathrooms, especially hotel bathrooms, have horrible light. Here’s some hallmarks of bad lighting that will trip you up in your ideal makeup routine:
- yellow bulbs
- dim bulbs
- lighting from the ceiling directly above your head
- lighting from far away on the sides
For your wedding day, you want to make sure you have the best lighting possible. You can move a table directly in front of the window, or hire a professional makeup artist who brings a Makeup Light (a specialty light that is perfectly daylight balanced so they can see very clearly all the colors and tones they are working with).
2. Work Toward Great Skin
Beautiful, natural looking makeup starts with great skin. If your skin is healthy and happy, way less makeup is needed to make you look flawless.
If you are dealing with acne or other skin problems, it’s best to start getting facials and talking with an esthetician about your skincare routine several months before your wedding.
If your skin is generally good, but you don’t have an AMAZING skincare routine in place yet, I recommend this line.
Cleansing and moisturizing morning and night, and keeping your face from getting sunburnt is a great place to start.
For your wedding, you’ll want an especially luxurious skincare plan, with prep starting with light exfoliation, a hot towel and cleansing oil, moisture, and some under eye gel patches. Treat your skin to the best and it will look amazing on your wedding day.
3. Use Airbrushed Foundation
Airbrush is a tool that you can use to get a very light coverage of foundation. As a professional makeup artist, I use airbrushed foundation on a lot of clients that ask for a very natural finish. It feels like there’s nothing on your face, so you can go about your wedding day without feeling like you are uncomfortable with how much makeup you are wearing.
With the right formula of airbrush foundation and a light trigger finger you can achieve some pretty flawless results!
4. Target Small Problem Areas
Instead of trying to cover large areas of acne or redness with more coverage, take a small brush with a product like It Cosmetics’ Bye Bye Redness and target each small area, then gently tap with a finger to blend.
(Pro Tip: I like to put a light wash of Bye Bye Redness right beside the nose and on the chin where a lot of people get naturally red. It cancels the redness without adding heavy coverage to the whole face.)
Airbrushing over the top of spot concealing is a great way to achieve a much more natural looking makeup even if you have problem areas or redness.
5. Define What YOU Mean by “Natural” Looking Makeup
Everyone has a different version of “natural”. A good makeup artist will be able to effectively interview you to understand what you mean when you say you’d like “natural looking” makeup.
For some people it means that they want neutral colors, or minimal color tones, for others it means minimal coverage because they don’t want to feel makeup on their face, and for others still, it means “invisible” makeup, where they want to look good, but without obvious signs of makeup.
If you can define what you mean by natural makeup, it will be a great start towards communicating with your wedding day makeup artist what you are looking for.
Here at Rachel Jordan Beauty, we specialize in creating an atmosphere where you can communicate what you are looking for and give feedback to create the perfect natural look for YOU. We bring professional lights and luxury skincare to your location and have the skills to work with your skin, wherever it’s at. If you’d like to see how we can help you with your natural looking wedding day makeup, please schedule a complimentary phone consultation with us! We’d love to hear from you.