Weddingbee Blog

The awesome friend that will be doing all the hairstyles for the bridal party (she’s a rock star!) offered to also help me with makeup, but like the new Duchess of Cambridge, I opted to try my hand at doing my own face the day of. With the exception of false eyelashes, of course. Y’all know I can’t do that for the life of me.

Here’s my naked face, eek:

And here’s the end result:

I was really happy with it in real life, with some exceptions (darker eyebrows, pump up the cheeks a bit). It’s the blushy/natural look I wanted. But you can barely see it in the photos! Even though I knew that the level of makeup had to be increased for photography, I was surprised at how little of the makeup actually showed up in the photos. That balance between looking nice off camera and on is a bit tricky and something I’ll have to work on. I might also try a more dramatic eye since it’s not showing up at ALL here.

Here’s a list of the products I used, some of this stuff is intense! As in, it will never come off your face intense. You’ll see that I relied heavily on basically two brands but they came highly recommended for long lasting wear so I thought I’d stick with them.

1. Smashbox Camera Ready Concealer
2. Make Up For Ever HD High definition foundation
3. Smashbox Photo Finish Lid Primer
4. Make Up For Ever Eye shadows (003, 164, 139, 301)
5. Bobbi Brown long wear gel eyeliner in Black Ink
6. Make Up For Ever Powder blush (005)
7. Make Up For Ever Aqua Lip waterproof lip liner (C1)
8. Smashbox Photo Finish Lipstick in Splendid

(Can I also just say to the women of color who want to look all fresh and pink like you see in the magazines? Do not reach for the powder pinks because it will make you look ashen—orangey/coral is your FRIEND!!)

I also purchased a makeup setter, as recommended by another friend, but I didn’t use it in this trial. I might give it a run on my second trial to be sure that it doesn’t affect makeup application—the one I bought was Urban Decay’s Dew Me. It’s going to be pretty warm at the end of the month when it’s time for me to walk down the aisle (!!) and it would be nice to have a little help against face meltage.

Will you be DIYing your makeup too? Do you have any tips or favorite long-wear products?