As the seasons roll from Summer to Autumn to Winter and beyond, it's about now that we start thinking about our Autumn makeup looks, and adjust the products we use and how we use them to suit the cooler climate. While we may start to lose our natural 'summer glow', it doesn't mean you have to lose all the colour and go ghostly white for this Autumn/Winter.
Back to the Basics
The most important starting point with any autumn makeup advice is to always ensure your skin is well hydrated BEFORE applying anything. When the cooler months start to swing by, it's doubly as important to moisturise, moisture, moisturise! Doing so will allow for your primer and foundation to properly spread across your skin without leaving any patchiness to the colour.
Secondly, as much as we would all love to maintain our summer colour, unfortunately your face will loose its colour the quickest. What this means is, come the change of season it's important to get yourself a second shade of foundation matched to your current skin colour. There's nothing worse than having a face colour completely miss-matched to the rest of your skin.
The trick with finding a bronzer to match your foundation for the autumn months is to avoid anything with too much sparkle or orange undertones. It may seem silly to have a "summer makeup set" and one for autumn, however, if you want your skin colouring to look natural, it's important to get the tones right! Autumn bronzers should be lightweight in texture, and applied with a thinner brush so as to avoid the colour looking overdone and fake.
Depending on your skin tone will, obviously, depend on the shade of bronzer you use. For paler skin colours stick to the peachy-golden tones, naturally-tanned skin tones should opt for more of a cinnamon coloured bronzer, while darker skin tones work best with copper colourings.
Love Your Lips
While Summer lipstick colours tend to focus on the bright, peachy tones that make the colours in your tan pop, Autumn makeup is all about the sultry, darker hues. When the kahki greens and burnt oranges start to grace your wardrobe, it means it's time to start outlining your lips in the plums, deep reds and orange-browns that have been hiding away since last winter.
As with all layers of your makeup, the key to ensuring that your lippy will stay on all day and night is how you prep! Dry, cracked lips will see your lipstick become patchy over time. The easiest way to avoid this is to give them a bit of a scrub before hand, then layer on some lip balm to add a bit of extra hydration.
Finally, ALWAYS, always use a lipliner before putting on your actual lipstick - this will stop the colour bleeding outside your lips. Liners can also be used to fill in any hard to reach places (think tips and corners of the lips) as well as adding an extra layer of colour.
An Eye for an Eye
We've just spent the last couple of months maintaining that summer-time dewy, natural looking makeup, so now it's time to road-test the latest autumn makeup trends. Still maintaining that fresh-faced look we sported throughout the warmer months, although this time, the barely-done eyes are bigger, bolder and hold much more of the focus.
Autumn makeup trends like the smokey-eye don't only have to be for the night. The beauty about the smokey-eye look is depending on the colours you choose, its entire look can change completely. When wearing this look during the day, stick to the lighter eye-shadow shades - think browns, golds, and yellows. By picking softer tones and adding a thin black line of eye-liner on the top lid, it will keep the look casual and clean.
For the night time, darker colours such as purples, greys and blacks will ensure your get that sultry, sexy look we all love. When using darker shadows, add a touch of a lighter colour such as a white, gold or silver to the inside corner of your eyes. This will allow light to bounce of your eyes and mean the overall look isn't too dark!
