Wedding Blog

We’ve all heard the “do”s and “don’t”s of makeup. These rules — handed down authoritatively from beauty mavens at the mall, the glamour column in your favorite magazine or your mother when you were a teen — can guide a girl’s makeup application for years.

Makeup habits are hard to break because breaking them changes the way you look… and that can be uncomfortable for a lot of people.

Think about it for a second. How many times have you HATED your haircut right after your stylist finished? And how many times did you grow to love it after a few days or a few weeks?

1 week post-hair cut, feeling uncertain about my new ’do

This is one of my favorite pictures of Mr. Bunny and me, taken just two weeks after the one above

The problem with trying to change your makeup look is that you can go back to your comfort zone nearly instantly. All you have to do is wash it off and start again, leaning on the old “rules” that may or may not be the best look for you.

What I’m about to say may shock you, so hear me out before you tune me out, OK?

There are no “rules” for makeup.

Sure, there are rules for good skin care (though these have changed over the years due to scientific advances). There are also general guidelines you can follow to play up your good features and guidelines that will help you avoid playing up your bad ones.

But makeup is like art in that it’s completely subjective. The makeup artist has a goal in mind, and success is in reaching that goal, not in anyone else’s evaluation of how “good” it looks.

So here are my “do”s and “don’t”s for makeup, and they have nothing to do with how it’s applied:

When attempting a new makeup style, DO remember that there aren’t any rules except for what YOU think looks good. If you’re uncomfortable with a smoky eye or red lipstick, then by all means don’t do it, no matter how “in fashion” it is or how good it looks on someone else.

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That said, you probably aren’t putting on makeup for yourself, are you? Professional advice in the makeup arena is fairly easy to come by. DO take a trip to your favorite makeup counter to pick out a foundation color. Those ladies and gentlemen are trained to see the undertones in your skin and match it with the correct shade and level of coverage you’re looking for. It’s hard to do that by yourself under the fluorescent lights of a drugstore. If you get home and realize that the color is all wrong, a department store will probably be more understanding than CVS or Walgreens.

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Wearing makeup a new way is like getting a new haircut. DON’T give up on a new style right away. Give yourself some time to get used to seeing yourself in a different light. Think of all those women on What Not to Wear. It takes them a whole week to start seeing themselves as a beautiful, confident person who can pull off those new clothes!

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When it comes to beauty, we are trained to listen to voices that tell us what to do. Commercials tell us we have to have long, thick lashes. Your mother told you not to wear such bright lipstick to church. Your best friend in junior high said that wearing blue-tinted mascara would make your eyes stand out.

We women have worked hard to get where we are today, but in makeup — the most private of rituals — we still cling to what we feel is safe. The only thing I’m advising is that you take a step or two outside your comfort zone when you feel ready… and give it some time before you decide to step back in.

What makeup rituals and rules have you been clinging to? And what aspect of makeup most scares you?

Oy, that was a long one. Stay tuned, if you dare, to hear how this philosophy applies to DIY bridal makeup.