From Fashion Spread to Everyday: Luminous Skin Taking Stage

Foundation is the most vital part of makeup actually. It serves as the base for the rest of the makeup, evens out skin tone, and gives you that flawless look. A misconception though of foundation is that it tends to matte out the skin making it look cakelike and ageing, but here's one look showing the skin shining through making the face look radiant. For Ciara Marasigan's recent UNO cover, the skin takes the center stage for this look, making her glow. After studying the look for a few days, I decided to make my own simple tutorial to achieve that look.
The look is relatively achievable - flawless skin, definition on the eyes, natural-colored lips, and of course, a framed face with light but groomed eyebrows. This look is popular on the red carpet and runway, a minimalistic look with high impact. Kudos to the makeup artist for the impeccable blending and making the makeup look like skin instead of makeup. Although studio lighting and some photo-editing are done for a superluminous effect, a similar look could be achieved with certain tips of the trade.

To achieve this look, beautiful skin starts from within, so make sure to cleanse, tone, and moisturize the skin to keep it soft and hydrated. Use skincare products suitable for your skin type. Apply primer to the skin to mattify oily spots and even out skin tone. Finally, apply a sheer layer of foundation on the skin or foundation with medium coverage if you have trouble spots. Sheer coverage of foundation allows the skin to shine through while evening out skin tones. Conceal problem areas with your concealer of choice. Foundation conceals already certain problem areas so using foundation before concealer uses less product on the skin, so there's more room for skin to breathe. Set foundation with a light dusting of loose powder. Here, I would highly recommend mineral powder since it gives a subtle glow without making the skin look oily.

Brows are light to keep the face soft but defined to frame the face. To lighten the brows, after defining them, use tinted brow gel in a golden brown color. Brush off excess with a clean spoolie brush. For eyes like that, sweep nude eyeshadow color from lashline to browbone. Line the top lashline with liquid liner and flick the corners outward for sexy siren cat eyes. Balance that out by lining the bottom with black liner and highlighting the inner corners with shimmery powder for youthful eyes. Mascara on lashes finishes the eyes.

Lips and cheeks are kept neutral by natural-colored blush and lipgloss. Blush can be skipped and replaced with highlighting powder, which acts as a subtle contour on the face (cheekbones, chin, bridge of the nose).

Makeupbybambi tip: To get that sexy body glow, I'll share you a tip I do when I have shoots, especially those that reveal skin. Before a shoot, I scrub with a gentle scrub to remove dead skin cells (My favorites are the Thai whitening salt scrubs I buy from Watsons, I think the name is A Bonne) and keep my skin bright and smooth. I hydrate with a light body lotion with shimmer particles and dust my skin with glittery and shimmery body powder.

Personally, I really like the dewy and youthful skin with makeup, especially for everyday. Not only does it take less time but it looks very fresh and un-made up. That look is also very malleable and you could easily transform it to night makeup by a sweep of lipstick or thickening the liner. Most of the guy friends I know like that look, a look that doesn't look like makeup. It's also a look that celebrates and embraces our Asian eyes without heavy lid contouring. Ciara's eyes were left as they are - almond shaped, and defined with eyeliner for impact.